by Erik Kain on February 24, 2012
Students at have put together a fun experiment. They’ve calculated just how much it would cost to build a Death Star from Star Wars. The steel alone, they estimate, would cost at “2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world’s GDP.” Kevin Drum says this is a bargain – for the Galactic Empire: [...]
Read more at Forbes.
by Erik Kain on November 29, 2011
Republican candidate Hermain Cain told reporters Tuesday he was reassessing his campaign. Could the race come down to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney? Herman Cain’s days as front runner in this oh-so-hectic of primary seasons are over, and it appears his candidacy may be in its last throes as well. I think it’s funny or [...]
Read more at Forbes.
by Erik Kain on October 4, 2011
When Bank of America announced recently that it would begin charging its customers five dollars a month for using their debit cards, the public outrage was palpable. The internet ignited with angry customers decrying the greed of the big banks and the stupidity of this latest attempt to “squeeze” them for every last penny. I [...]
Read more at Forbes.
by Erik Kain on October 1, 2011
When Bank of America decided to start charging its customers a $5/month fee for using debit cards, people all across the internet were up in arms. This struck me as wrong-headed off the bat. Five dollars is hardly price-gouging, and paying for a service like debit or checking strikes me as a reasonable idea. Kevin [...]
Read more at Forbes.
by Erik Kain on September 30, 2011
Adam Serwer has some good background on the case of Al-Qaeda-linked radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki who has reportedly been killed by US special ops in Yemen. As Kevin Drum notes, this is the first US citizen assassinated abroad by the US government, and the second killed in the war on terror. The Bush administration killed [...]
Read more at Forbes.