Just do what the rest of us space geeks do. Get a job there and get as close as humanly possible.

I would settle for not bailing them out.

Do you honestly think the economy is fixed now? You are going to be just as shocked when it collapses this time as you were in 2008. The same policies are in place so why would it be fixed?

If unions were just collective bargaining groups nobody would oppose them. The problem are the laws that give them extra rights and the fact they typically resort to violence to get their way.

Workers should absolutely have the right to bargain as a collective. But the employer should also have the right not to negotiate and to fire all of those employees and hire replacements. The reason people don't like unions is they will resort to violence to prevent willing people from taking the jobs they abandoned.

Use your estimate precision as a bargaining chip for things your need. Typically what impacts my estimate is requirement uncertainty. So give an estimate with an error +200/-10% error. If we could just finalize these particular requirements my estimate would improve. This way a manager will focus on getting the requirements fixed.

I was once given a "project" and I asked for the requirements document. They said there are no requirements so I happily said great I'm done designing!

Are you kidding? If people were diciplined enough to wait to buy things there would be zero consumer debt. There is a multi-trillion dollar industry based on people not wanting to wait until they can afford things.

The difference is voluntary and force.

This is also how large stores give a 5% discount using their own cards. They don't have to pay the fees.

There are much easier solutions that already exist like credit card companies. My Amex has buyer protection. If a vendor screws me over (which happens from time to time) I call Amex up and the investigate and refund the charges. The cost is what they charge to the merchants. So both the merchant and I are voluntarily paying a fee. The merchant gets a larger customer base by taking Amex and I get buyer protection.

The only people that benefit from the current system are the crooks. The whole system exists to unload the cost of doing business with shady companies to the tax payers.

Normal deflation isn't a big deal. The computer industry has operated under price deflation since day 1. My first computer was an Apple II GS. That thing was over $2k in the early 90's.

Also the whole industrial revolution occurred under deflation.

Now I assume you are talking about deflation right now. Yes after years of easy money a tightening will cause a bad depression. But that is the cute not the disease.

Nope. Booms work when the Fed floods Wall St with cash. It has to go somewhere? It ends when the realization hits and the 40:1 leveraged accounts go bust.

Then it's time for the tax payers to bail them out and start over.

Or people would actually do some research into a person they are about to sign a deal with. As it stands now people really don't bother because if the deal falls through they can use other peoples money (taxes) to hire goons (police) to make the other person pay.

Let's say you get three bids for a contract. You go with the low bidder because you always can go to court to get them to adhere to the contract. If you actually took the risk yourself you would either have to go through a third party (like e-bay or credit card companies that have buyer protection) or actually take the risk yourself. Either way is superior in my opinion.

Thanks. Now I just need to get motivated enough to do this in 3D for random points on a sphere.

Great check! I found my error. My G calculation was pulled from a chart where the distance was measured in km (not meters). Here is the new code. This shows it takes about 19 minutes to reach the center and you miss by 310 km.

[t,y]=ode23(@orbit_ode,[0 90*60],[6500e3 0 0 2*pi/(24*3600)]);

polar(y(:,3),y(:,1))

min(y(:,1))

function dx=orbit_ode(t,x);
        dx=zeros(4,1);%This is a pre-initialization.

        %x(1) = r position
        %x(2) = r velocity
        %x(3) = theta position
        %x(4) = theta velocity

        dx(1)= x(2); %Velocity
        dx(2)= x(1)*x(4)^2-(.0037e-3*x(1)-3.35e-13*x(1)^2);
        dx(3)= x(4);
        dx(4)= (-2*x(2)*x(4))/x(1);

end

http://imgur.com/WHsoenC

This is relative to a fixed observer outside of earth.
If you subtract out the earth rotation you get this.

http://imgur.com/nMN2Hd7

Contracts should exist similar to loans or buying things on ebay. There is risk to both parties making the contract and you can only go by the reputation of the party you are dealing with.

By having governments enforce contracts you just externalize the costs of dealing with dishonorable people.

If these employees signed a contract with A123 and broke it the only thing A123 should be able to do is make those contracts public and try to hurt the reputation of those employees.

OK I created the following Matlab code: The G term was a polynomial best fit to the gravity as a function of depth. The initial angular velocity is at the equator.

[t,y]=ode45(@orbit_ode,[0 200],[6500 0 0 2*pi/(24*3600)]);

polar(y(:,3),y(:,1))

function dx=orbit_ode(t,x);

        dx=zeros(4,1);
        %x(1) = r position
        %x(2) = r velocity
        %x(3) = theta position
        %x(4) = theta velocity

        dx(1)= x(2); %Velocity
        dx(2)= x(1)*x(4)^2-(.0037*x(1)-3e-7*x(1)^2);
        dx(3)= x(4);
        dx(4)= (-2*x(2)*x(4))/x(1);

end

The plot isn't very impressive. It looks like a line straight through the center. The min radius is 114m so basically over 6500m drop the center moves about 114 m.