Laffer Sued Over Ponzi Scheme, Cheap Cottage-Industry Manufacturing: The Two Best News Items You’ll Hear Today
Posted by Phoenix Woman on January 12, 2012
Two bits of news you won’t find at any “NewsRight” affiliate, but which may be the most important things you read today:
— You always knew supply-side economics was a con job. Now we see that its popularizer, Arthur Laffer, is being sued over an alleged Ponzi scheme (h/t The Exiled, which has it in its “What You Should Know” news sidebar today):
HOUSTON (CN) – Fifty-two investors claim fund managers associated with supply-side economist Arthur Laffer took $3.1 million to prop up a Ponzi scheme, then said nothing as their money was “wasted with no reasonable expectation of recovery.”
Lead plaintiffs Ronald and Lavonne Ellisor sued David Wallace, Costa Bajjali, and their entities Wallace Bajjali Development Partners LP, Wallace Bajjali Investment Fund II LP, the Laffer Frishberg Wallace Economic Opportunity Fund LP, and Arthur Laffer in Harris County Court.
Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve, an economic theory that says reducing taxes will increase government revenue. He was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board during the 1980s.
Ooops.
— This is a game-changer, folks:
I have been aware of 3D printing – the ability to create out of plastic what ever you can design on your computer – for a while. But except for those who have built their own, it has been put of reach to all but engineers in large corporation and research facilities.
That is until now. According to this report from the CES in Las Vegas, there are a few companies that are now going to offer or are already offering this technology to the average (more or less) consumer.
And as the diarist notes, the device costs less than $2,000.
For not much more than a couple of house payments, or what you’d plunk down for a top-of-the-line gaming desktop machine, you can run a machine shop out of your home.
Think about that for a moment.
6 Responses to “Laffer Sued Over Ponzi Scheme, Cheap Cottage-Industry Manufacturing: The Two Best News Items You’ll Hear Today”
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Charles II said
As for Laffer, it’s just one more datapoint demonstrating that the conflict is not between liberals and conservatives so much as between anti- and pro-corruption forces. Conservatism is uniquely amenable to those who engage in corruption because it advocates centralization of power in institutions like corporations and the church as opposed to government. While centralized governments certainly can and do become corrupt, they can only do so either when they are taken over by the private sector or when they become so powerful that they overwhelm civil society and the private sector.
As for 3D printing, I would predict that they’ll make money off of consumables and that what we can make in our garages will be some of the most expensive widgets ever made. But it is very, very cool technology.
Phoenix Woman said
Think of customized circuit boards. Among other things. And without the three-to-six-month lag time involved in getting similar products made in China.
And wait until the price goes down, as it will. For $500 you’ll be able to buy a plastics machine shop that fits on your kitchen table.
Simple tchotchkes, like keychains and such, will be the first and easiest things to make But bigger and better is coming.
Charles II said
Yeah, I don’t think that metals and semiconductors will become cheap anytime soon. Thermoplastics are pretty easy to handle, so easy that they are used in kids toys and have been for 20 years or so.
When it comes to circuit boards, materials have to be ultrahigh purity, and tend to be refractory. I would guess that a process would require at a minimum sputtering (which is pretty cheap) under an argon atmosphere (not so cheap) using five nines (99.999%) pure materials (definitely not cheap). Add to that the toxicity of a lot of semiconductor materials and it sounds like something that might be really ready for the consumer market in 2035 or so.
But we’ll see. No question that it’s a cool technology.
Dave Porter said
How about that Minneapolis-area outfit, Stratasys? How do they compare, and what happens to them with all this competition?
MarkH said
Add the right bit of physics magic and we have the matter-stuff creator of Star Trek. Very kewl indeed.
MarkH said
Oh wait, this was supposed to be about Laffter. Eh, I don’t really care. He may have only been named as the “deep pockets”.