If you are retired with a million dollars in your retirement account, one would hope it isn't sitting in a money market. Even AAA+ corporate, munis and treasuries will get you around 4% today and are considered safe. In addition, you would keep some of your funds in the stock market, maybe 20%. 5% would probably be low.

And if the stock market takes even a temporary crash, what then? You are suddenly drawing down your capital, and now next year you've got that much less capital earning interest so even if the market recovers you're still short. If it takes 3 or 4 years to recover your down a couple hundred thousand from where you started.

Meanwhile you are fighting inflation at say 3%.

Because you are LIVING off the interest, you cannot weather temporary market setbacks like you can during the saving stages of your life. Even a short term drop a genuine concern.

Retirement planning scenarios have to be CONSERVATIVE. If you do better in retirement great -- enjoy your blackjack, hookers, and blow, but you have to plan for things not going particular well with the economy.

Communism failed because Saint Albert of Gore was full of hooey when he spoke of the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was foolishness, just as the National Socialist German Workers Party was foolishness, just like every other attempt to bring "social justice" through external means (Epistle to the Romans).

I'm probably going to have to break down and get it, but not right away; my print backlog is majestic in scope.

By the same token, writing legislation that triggers hiring because the law is so jacked up is also not genuine economic activity, but that is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window under which so much idiocy today is undertaken.

In response, I'd offer that all improvement of the individual human condition is internal, and driven by God.
External efforts; laws, normative mores, etc. are hit-or-miss, and retard the individual human condition as much as they occasionally enhance it.

But in the telecom industry it happens all the time.

Because governments — both local and federal — make it too hard for meaningful competition to arise. Some of the hurdles come from well-intentioned regulations and laws, others — from corrupt practices of rent-seeking politicians. But the result is the same, one needs to be Google-sized giant to enter into a telecom business today, whereas a hundred years ago there were competing phone companies — even running wires parallel to each other.

Whereas we both agree on what we don't want, it seems, we are at odds on how to achieve that. You'd rather outlaw the things you don't like, whereas I'd like healthy competition to sort things out.

And in software.

Lost me here. What are you talking about?

Funny. That's the name of my Lyndon.

So, in your purely carnal mode, why read any books on economics?

I don't mind a DRM logo on a printed part

Logos have little-to-nothing to do with Digital Rights Management. Your ability to modify a purchased (or freely downloaded) design should be out of the scope of this discussion.

I do mind DRM designed to only allow me to buy a design of something that is already manufactured by many places from just one vendor.

The DRM I was talking about would've prevented a customer from 3D-printing more items of a particular design, than the designer's license allowed. Like you, I would not want a printer, that was designed to reject otherwise perfectly fine consumables because they were supplied by a competitor. I make a point of defeating such designs in my own "2D" printer today just to spite its manufacturer.

And charge me $20 for a 5 cent part.

Yes, I would find that offensive too. Competition, however, would never allow that to happen.

Never mind that the results ALWAYS turn to shit...

Chile, where we succeeded, is Latin America's top economy — now and for the last twenty years or more. Cuba, where we failed, is a shithole. As is Venezuela, where we decided not to bother...

The world is being run by idiots.

This is true, unfortunately. And most of the idiots are wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

From TFA:

Several giant solar collectors in geosynchronous orbit are beaming microwaves down to the island from 36 000 km above Earth.

What if they miss the aim one day by half a degree — the beam hits outside of whatever is supposed to process it dirtside? What will the effect be — and how far away must that island be located for reasonable level of safety?

You are quite right. And yet, I can't shake the feeling of respect for them — they are doing a much better job collecting and using the data, than the government agencies do. Surely, Department of Energy (for just one example) would love to have such details of our energy use. But they can not and — run by bureaucrats and politicians, rather than profit-motivated free people — will never able to.

Intelligent energy-use would be very helpful in reducing costs, waste and pollution. Somebody should be collecting this information. Given a choice between a government agency and a corporation, I'll always choose the latter:

• They would not send armed thugs to "euthanize" my livestock.
• They would not shoot my dog.
• If one starts misbehaving too much, I will not need to "raise awareness" and wait 4-6-8 years — I'll simply switch to competitor

. And so on. You've heard it before. This is just another example...

That said, one advantage to being fast is if you have to make adjustments to your model that are only discovered after printing.

That's true for the actual designers, which, I'm sad to admit, I am not. I foresee myself buying other people's designs to "print" locally — instead of waiting for the Chinese manufacturers to buy (or steal) the designs, then implementing them and shipping the results to me...