1. “NASA bets 3D-printed food can make you eat bugs“… and 3-D printed pizza?
2. The audacious plan to end hunger with 3-D printed food. “Anjun Contractor, a mechanical engineer with a background in 3D printing, envisions a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally-appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store.”
HT: Bill Greenway
| Rank | Top 10 US Exports, 2012 | Millions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Automotive vehicles, parts, and engines | $145,992 |
| 2 | Fuel oil and Petroleum Products | $117,134 |
| 3 | Chemicals | $83,528 |
| 4 | Pharmaceutical preparations | $47,913 |
| 5 | Industrial machines, other | $46,128 |
| 6 | Civilian aircraft | $45,267 |
| 7 | Semiconductors | $42,087 |
| 8 | Telecommunications equipment | $38,282 |
| 9 | Electric apparatus | $38,171 |
| 10 | Nonmonetary gold | $36,308 |
From Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a post titled “Central Planning: Bad Export Policy”
Dow argues that Congress should limit gas exports to keep domestic supplies high and prices low, because that will make U.S. chemical manufacturers more competitive, and gas turned into chemical products adds more value to the economy than gas exported overseas. Logically, though, this rationale equally justifies curbing Dow’s exports of chemicals, plastics, and electronic components (see chart above showing that chemicals were America’s third largest export category in 2012). Curbing Dow’s exports would lower input costs for domestic value-adding manufacturers of paints, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, cell phones, laptops, and other finished goods, helping them compete for global customers.
Dow CEO Liveris would likely scream bloody murder if Congress decided to give Dow a dose of its own medicine and restrict its exports in the “public interest.”
In protest, he might argue — correctly — that the proposal is short-sighted and self-defeating. Restricting U.S. chemical industry exports might create a temporary glut and lower prices, but the policy would boomerang. As Dow, Celanese, Eastman, and Huntsman lost sales, profits, and market share, they would also lose asset value and investment, and production would decline. U.S. paint, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and fertilizer companies would find themselves more dependent on imported chemicals. The imports would be pricier not only because of transport costs but also because foreign suppliers would face less competition from Dow and other U.S. chemical manufacturers.
The same logic, of course, applies to coercive restraints on exports of U.S. natural gas. If increased gas production benefits chemical companies, then they should be the first to oppose policies that reduce gas companies’ incentive to produce. Limiting the oil & gas industry’s ability to compete in the global marketplace would do exactly that.
In a positive sign of improvement in credit conditions for America’s small and medium-sized companies, the chart above displays the significant decreases over the last three years in the delinquency rates and charge-off rates for business loans at all U.S. commercial banks, according to data released today by the Federal Reserve, updated for the first quarter of this year.
The delinquency rate for business loans fell during the January-March period of this year for the 14th straight quarter to 1.07%, the lowest quarterly rate since the Fed started tracking these data back in 1987, and the charge-off rate fell to 0.32%, the lowest rate since the first quarter of 2007 – almost a year before the recession started in December 2007.
With the charge-off rate for commercial lending at a six-year low and the delinquency rate at an all-time low, I think we can conclude that the credit market for bank lending to America’s small and medium-sized businesses had gradually recovered and has now returned to the pre-recession conditions that prevailed in early 2007.
The chart above is based on data from the Department of Education for bachelor’s degrees by academic discipline and the sex of the graduating students for the college class of 2011 (most recent year available). Here are some observations:
1. Although not displayed in the chart above, women earned 57.2% of all bachelor’s degrees granted in 2011, which also means that there were almost 134 women graduating with bachelor’s degrees in 2011 for every 100 men.
2. For the College Class of 2011, women significantly outnumbered men in 11 academic disciplines (top 11 bars above) and men outnumbered women in 11 academic fields (bottom 11 bars above).
3. For the most gender-unbalanced academic fields favoring women, 566 women graduated with bachelor’s degrees in health professions (primary registered nursing degrees) in 2011 for every 100 men; for public administration there were 446 female graduates for every 100 men; for education there were 391 women graduates for every 100 men and for psychology there were 334 women for every 100 men.
4. For the most gender-unbalanced academic fields favoring males, 481 men graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in engineering for every 100 female graduates, and 467 men earned a degree in computer science for every 100 women.
5. We hear all the time about female under-representation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, but women actually outnumbered men for bachelor’s degrees in the STEM field of “Biological and Biomedical Sciences” by a ratio of 144 female graduates for every 100 males. Women also earned more than 43% of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in Mathematics and Statistics in 2011, and they earned more than 44% of the degrees in general mathematics (the most popular of the 12 sub-disciplines in math). For general chemistry (another STEM field), women earned nearly half (48.8%) of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2011.
6. Although not shown here, female over-representation in higher education gets even greater at the master’s level. In 2011, women earned more than 60% of the graduate degrees awarded, which means that there were almost 151 women earning master’s degrees in that year for every 100 men. Women also earned a majority (53.2%) of all doctoral degrees awarded in 2011.
MP: Maybe it’s perfectly natural to expect the gender differences by academic discipline that are represented in the chart above, and maybe we should give up trying to socially engineer perfect gender parity for each academic field. And when there is so much concern about female under-representation in some of the STEM fields like engineering and computer science, where is the concern about male under-representation in the STEM field of biology, where is the concern about the significant male under-representation in female-dominated fields like health professions, public administration, education and psychology, and where is the concern about the gender imbalance favoring women for college degrees in general at all levels – associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and doctoral degrees? As I have pointed out many times before on this blog, the concern about gender imbalances in higher education seems rather…. well, rather imbalanced and uni-directional.
From today’s WSJ editorial “Red Tape Record Breakers“:
“For two decades, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has tracked the growth of new federal regulations. In his 20th anniversary edition to be released tomorrow, he’ll report [the following] …….
1. The pages in the Code of Federal Regulations hit an all-time high of 174,545 pages in 2012, an increase of more than 21% during the last decade.
2. In 2012, the cost of federal rules exceeded $1.8 trillion, roughly equal to the GDP of Canada ($1.81 trillion) and India ($1.82 trillion).
3. Regulatory burdens cost each US household $14,768, meaning that red tape is now the second largest item in the typical family budget after housing.
4. In 2012, 4,062 federal regulations were at various stages of implementation. The government completed work on 1,172, an increase of 16% over the 1,010 that the feds imposed in 2011, which was a 40% increase over 722 in 2010.
5. Another measure of the regulatory burden: pages in the Federal Register. By that measure, the Obama Administration did not break the all-time record of 81,405 pages it set in 2010. But the 78,961 pages it churned out in 2012 mean that the president has posted three of the four greatest paperwork years on record.
6. When it comes to “economically significant” rules — those estimated to cost at least $100 million each — the current Administration is “in a class by itself” according to Mr. Crews. The bureaucracy finished up 57 such rules in 2012 and another 167 are in the pipeline.
1. Eagle Ford Oil Production Growing Faster Than Expected: What was predicted in 2011 as production for 2016 was already surpassed in 2012.
2. Greg Mankiw: If I could pick just one stock for someone to buy, I would now suggest the Vanguard Total World Stock exchange-traded fund. In one package, you can get low cost and maximal diversification.
3. China is reluctant to use stimulus to counter slowdown, instead prefers market mechanisms to aid growth, like cutting red tape.
4. Ward’s Auto: North American Light-Vehicle Production Was Up 13.7% in April vs. Year-Ago.
5. VIDEO: Eric Holder Has No Idea – I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…..
6. Jay Leno explains the current situation in Washington….
7. Sheldon Richman: Abolish the IRS (and the Income Tax With It).
8. We’ve become a Nation of Slobs, e.g. shorts and flip-flops are now fine for any occasion, people wear pajamas and slippers to the grocery store, even women like Oprah don’t bother to cover their cleavage any more, etc.
9. Solar initiatives and mandates in MA provide only a tiny addition to electricity supply at a high cost to citizens.
People spend weeks or months planning important events, such as vacations or weddings, using online websites like TripAdvisor. Why not something similar for funerals that must be planned in hours or days by grieving relatives?
That’s the idea behind the website I’mSorrytoHear.com, profiled here.
HT: Scott Phelps
The innovative work of Scott Summit demonstrates how 3D printing and digital scanning can be used to greatly improve prosthetic design.
“Pessimists may be paying too little attention to the strength of the underlying economic and social forces that generate innovation in the modern world, Both humanity’s capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history. As trade and globalization increase the size of the potential market for new products, the possible economic rewards for being first with an innovative product or process are growing rapidly.”
As a direct result of all the shale oil and gas activity in the Permian Basin area of West Texas, the economy of Midland, Texas is booming. The April unemployment rate in Midland fell to 3%, which is the lowest jobless rate in the nation for any of the 372 metropolitan areas. During just the month of April, 1,000 jobs were added to local payrolls in Midland (50 per day), and 400 of those jobs (20 per day) were in the booming “construction, natural resources and mining” sector. Over the last year, total employment in Midland has increased by almost 7% (and by 5,500 jobs) to a new all-time high of 85,400, and energy and construction related jobs increased by 14.4% (and by 3,100 jobs), also to a new all-time high (see chart above).
Along with the oil and gas boom, there’s an unprecedented construction boom taking place in Midland, and building permits in March skyrocketed to 347, which was a 580% increase from the level a year ago and established a new all-time record high.
Jobless recovery? Middle-class stagnation? Declining household income? Sub-par economic growth? Construction slowdown? None of that applies to Midland, Texas, the most economically successful metropolitan area in the country, thanks to the shale revolution.
Shifting to a Vehicle Miles Traveled tax system serves neither the interests of good government nor the interests of personal privacy.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/02/4213891/gas-tax-on-mileage-shatters-right.html#storylink=cpyThe Obamas and the Bidens released their 2012 tax returns on the White House blog today.Now that Biden’s tax returns are coming under public scrutiny, he and Dr. Jill Biden seem to be feeling a bit more charitable than the former, rather uncharitable Senator Joe Biden, whose tax returns probably received little attention, if they were even released at all.
To grasp the importance of the revolutionary change in oil and gas drilling sweeping across the United States -- and its significance for our economy -- just consider how far behind the rest of the world is lagging.
