Space shuttle as illustration of opportunity cost and cul-de-sac

How to combine the idea of opportunity cost, cul-de-sac, and government overruns in one post?

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal editorial (behind paywall) says:

When it was first conceived, the shuttle was supposed to be a kind of space truck, going into orbit 50 to 75 times a year and carrying large payloads at a cost of $54 million a launch in 2011 dollars. It didn’t work out that way. The shuttle went aloft an average of five times a year. The cost-per-launch averaged some $1.5 billion. Its heaviest payloads barely exceeded what an unmanned Delta IV rocket can carry.

Let’s do some math, shall we?

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Peering forward – technology is destroying and creating jobs

“Technology is eating jobs”

So says Andy Kessler in his Wall Street Journal article, Is Your Job an Endangered Species?

He says there are two kinds of workers today:

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We live in an age of overwhelming complexity. Will you choose to adapt?

We live in an age of overwhelming complexity.  Things will not get simpler, the change will only accelerate.

Do I really need to explain that the complexity of everything is overwhelming?  Consider merely the new 990, increasing regulation of every area of running a ministry or business, and the exponential growth of fantastic technology tools.

We need to decide whether we are going to adapt or not.  It is actually possible to opt out of the growing complexity.  Consider the cost though.  If our ministries do not adapt they may die.  More likely they will shrivel, then shrink into irrelevance.  At a personal level, we need to adapt or get left behind.

I choose to adapt.  I may be struggling and bumbling in my efforts, but I will move forward.  How about you?