Obama Says 3% of GDP Should Fund Science Research And Development 753
tritonman writes "Obama wants to set a goal that the US spend 3% of its GDP on scientific research and development. 'I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development,' Obama said in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences."
So... (Score:3, Insightful)
But wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
We already spend more than 3% of GDP on Science R&D....
Oh, he means the government should spend 3% of GDP on R&D. Of course. Can't trust that shifty-eyed private industry. You know... The ones generating the GDP.
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do want (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, I just dunno how we're gonna pay for everything here in the very recent past.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me be the first to say... WTF?
How about we stop runnaway spending and reduce the national debt. All five of the last presidents have had this idea that we can just spend to our hearts content. We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt. When this happens, we as Americans will be in a world of Sh!t. I know that people are going to say this is one of Obama's greatest plans, however, we allready spend billions on R&D through DARPA. That technology does make it to the civilian sector, so we don't need this extra 3% tax on America.
Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't understand the future value of sending someone to the moon, or studying basic science of bird mating habits, or increasing blue laser efficiency 10% and how it eventually becomes useful. He just wants a job he can report to, and won't think about the future. Nevermind that his job might become outdated in 5 years...
It would be nice if the media would stop glorifying athletes, and stop portraying scientists/engineers/academics as nerds or evil.
Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like to think they are making this decision because someone finally realized that money doesn't actually grow on trees.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine if other personal interests were run that way. "FOSS is good, therefore everyone should be required to fund it!"
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gov can do R&D into things like cheap medicine made from easily found natural ingredients and things like that. Stuff that has tremendous use but little in the way of profit margin.
Even if a company like Merck were 100% ethically run they wouldn't do this sort of stuff because there is no profit margin.
Re:But wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to needless government waste.
Why would you trust the government to spend this on worthwhile things without being told what it was going to be spent on?
I don't deny that the types of things you describe exist. I don't even deny that it's worth the government funding them. But there's a big difference between that and just blowing a half a billion dollars 'cause you've decided you're going to spend that much. The correct way to do it is to decide what your priorities are, then decide how much to spend on them. Not to decide how much you're going to spend first, and what you're going to spend it on after.
Re:Do want (Score:5, Insightful)
The need to find newer, faster, and more efficient ways to kill people has always been a phenomenal "mother of invention"
All very true, largely because the military has always had an extremely large budget with which to fund research related to its goals.
Now, imagine what our scientists and engineers could do with that same budget, but also with a directive to use it in the areas that will best help our country. I think we would likely get an even better return on our investment if we were actually trying for those benefits, as opposed to just developing weapons and occasionally finding that the same research happens to have constructive uses as well.
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
all five?
clinton had the budget balanced and in a yearly surplus by the end of his two terms
also to everyone: nowhere in that entire article did he propose that it be a government taxing to spend that money - sounds like he means "the government and private entities combined should".
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
All five of the last presidents have had this idea that we can just spend to our hearts content.
Does this include that one guy who balanced the budget?
(I'm not saying you don't make good points; I agree we need to get things under control.)
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sez who? (Score:5, Insightful)
no.
Corporations only research things that will potentially make them money. Therefore, some things, like rare diseases, will never be researched. Individuals in academics will research it, but they need grant money in order to do so.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we stop runnaway spending and reduce the national debt. All five of the last presidents have had this idea that we can just spend to our hearts content. We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt. When this happens, we as Americans will be in a world of Sh!t.
Agreed. Let's start with the biggest tax drain of all: military budget.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt.
[citation needed]
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, our children and grandchildren should pay for technological advances that make our lives easier.
More like their lives easier. Research is slow process - it takes years, maybe decades for an idea to progress from the sketching board to store shelves.
Re:Sez who? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we let individuals and businesses decide where they're going to put their R&D money, not some ivory-tower bureaucrats who are firmly removed from reality?
Because individuals and business don't really have any reason (or the means) to do a lot of basic research. Think of CERN or the Manhattan Project. Do you think those kind of research would be done if it wasn't paid for by the government?
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
DARPA isn't enough. If we had a broader mission for R&D than "defense" initiatives, we would be in a position to licence government owned IP to the corporate world without having to wait out our licenses in the name of national security. Having such a commodity reduces the tax burden on on the citizen (from license fees), reduces the corporate need for an R&D dept (lower cost to consumer) and increases quality of publicly available tech (from not being forced to design for maximum profit).
Unfortunately, I don't think this is what anyone has in mind, so get ready for more suck.
Re:Why pctg of GDP rather than federal budget? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because he doesn't want the federal government to be the only entity funding R&D.
This isn't a matter of the national budget. It's a matter of getting the entire country to start thinking of R&D as something important.
In 2007, research spending was $324 billion, out of a total GDP of $14 trillion, or 2.3%. Obama's calling for everybody (mostly big corporations) to spend 50% more on it, because it's research that grows the GDP as a whole. And if we're ever going to get out of the deeeeep economic hole we've drawn for ourselves (a national debt around 80% of GDP), the only way is to make a lot more GDP.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Eliminate income tax and replace it with voluntary program where people can donate a share of their income to be used for purposes of their choice and if they want to fund science fine, if they don't then they accept the risk that they and their children will be living in a country that is lagging behind in science. What is wrong with that?
If I pay for this research, then everyone gets the benefits. If someone else pays for it, then everyone still gets the benefits. But what if everyone waits for someone else to pay for it?
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we stop runnaway spending and reduce the national debt.
Spending on R&D should be expected to have a substantial return on investment. That is, it makes money. This is about reinvesting in ourselves in a way that maintains and enhances US technical and scientific leadership, which has both economic and political implications and benefits. Industry, by design, doesn't have the attention span for basic research or even for a lot of really useful applied work.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Insightful)
clinton had the budget balanced and in a yearly surplus by the end of his two terms
That doesn't mean he didn't spend too much. I will give Clinton this... he more than anything else a "do nothing" president. Everyone else gets into office and thinks they have to make all these radical changes.
Clinton, though, was helped by the dot-com boom, which was entirely NOT his doing (it's one of those things that just evolved, IMO, and Clinton was in office at the right time), and he was forced into a balanced budget by a republican congress. Of course, all that went right out the window when republicans had both legislative and executive branches... especially seeing as how Bush was the biggest liberal spender ever until Obama took office. I'm convinced, at worst, there should always be opposing parties in the legislative and executive branches. ... sounds like he means "the government and private entities combined should".
Well he should just "bail out" some more companies so that he can tell them what to do, too... even if they don't want to be bailed out. That would solve everything.
Re:Sez who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because microwave ovens, lasers, LEDs, solar cells, and satellites wouldn't be around if it weren't for pure research in the fields of physics, chemistry, and material science. Businesses will decide what research is profitable once theren't enough solid knowledge and know how to make the efficient and effective. Businesses don't invent things from scratch, they rework what's already known into a commercial product.
Re:Sez who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I wish we could write the whole profit motive out of research and development. We might actually get somewhere without having to come up with profit to justify it's existence.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Insightful)
$420 billion. The estimated US GDP for 2008 was $14.23 trillion.
But I'm wondering where he's going to get the money to make this something other than a nice speech.
One or both of two places: either taxing the GDP at a higher rate, removing money from the economy that would be invested by the people who earned it in things that are productive and worth investment, making everything cost more to cover the increased taxation, or printing it, thus making every dollar already in the GDP worth less and driving inflation so everything costs everyone more.
Raising taxes to spend more money to spur the economy is a losing game, since the biggest waste of money is the administration of the programs that tax and spend. Every dollar spent on administration is a loss to the GDP.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:5, Insightful)
We despise intellectuals. We kiss the feet of 'smart, successful people' like captains of industry and Wall street bankers. And we see ourselves as slaves to their interests,thus all of the 'tea-party' fools who will be getting tax cuts protesting on behalf of the poor beleaguered CEOs who will see their taxes increase.
No, it is the scientist, who does NOT generally benefit much from their own ingenuity, that we distrust.
The problem with basic scientific research is that, more often than not, it will be worthless for decades. No one wants to fund a gamble that might, if we are lucky, pay off in 30-40 years. Thus, basic scientific research is a kind of externality, a public good, and the free market is incapable of allotting the optimal amount of funding for public goods such as transportation, public education, and public health. That is econ 101.
Re:Sez who? (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we let individuals and businesses decide where they're going to put their R&D money, not some ivory-tower bureaucrats who are firmly removed from reality?
?
Well, "individuals and business" seem to think that Baconnaise and Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick are the best way to spend R&D money, so . . . no.
Re:In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
More like their lives easier. Research is slow process - it takes years, maybe decades for an idea to progress from the sketching board to store shelves.
For you to have any argument, you'll have to show two things:
1. Show that such endeavors could not be done through private enterprise alone.
2. More importantly, show that the ends justify the means - that the various violations of individual rights that are inherent in government interventions into the economy are justified by your good intentions.
Re:Sez who? (Score:2, Insightful)
The real decision what to research is usually done by the universities and research institutes.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:5, Insightful)
Right on, libertarian brother! We should do the same for roads, sewer systems, public schools, police, fire departments, and the armed forces. Enough with this damned socialism!
Right?
So where exactly will this bounty come from? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean seriously? I'm a firm believer in funding more research, don't get me wrong. But where the bloody hell will we get the money? He's already mortgaged my 20X great-grandchildren's future, what is left?
Obama is INSANE. He thinks money grows on trees. Or he knows he's a one term president and doesn't give a rats ass about us after that.
Why can't we put someone in office who's not an incompetent asshole?
Re:But wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's pretty clear that some funding will not occur without government backing.
For instance, projects where the potential payoff is greater than 5-10 years out (fusion?). Drugs that wouldn't be terribly profitable. Drugs that might be profitable, but no more so than existing inferior products (influenza vaccine?). Space exploration. Fundamental physics research requiring facilities costing billions of dollars.
I think you definitely need to be careful not to tread on the generally more-efficient private sector, but there are plenty of areas not being funded sufficiently right now.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sez who? (Score:2, Insightful)
no.
Therefore, some things, like rare diseases, will never be researched.
Do you really think it's better for humanity as a whole if we focus more on curing rare diseases than common ones, that by definition affect *far* more people? You alleviate the most suffering "for your money spent" by focusing on *common* diseases.
Government doesn't create the wealth required to invest in research; therefore there really is a zero-sum effect here: In order to spend a billion dollars in taxpayer money on rare disease, you have to forcibly take a billion dollars aware from corporations who were about to spend that money trying to cure common diseases.
It's a pity for those who have rare diseases, but come on, it's just illogical to say that it's better to cure rare diseases than common ones.
And I'm saying this as someone *afflicted* by a deadly rare disease. Sucks to be me, but it doesn't make sense to let millions die to save a few.
Re:3% if GDP for 480,000 people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the public get any payback if research develops the Next Big Thing? Nope, the scientist goes off, gets a patent and gets wildly personally wealthy.
That would explain why all the kids these days want to grow up to be a wealthy scientist, rather than a pro athlete, rapper, or movie star. Stupid science, stealing our best minds!
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:2, Insightful)
And we see ourselves as slaves to their interests,thus all of the 'tea-party' fools who will be getting tax cuts protesting on behalf of the poor beleaguered CEOs who will see their taxes increase.
I went to two of those tea parties. I protested on behalf of the fools and of the successful. Neither extreme, nor anyone in between, should be forced to give up their property against their will.
No, it is the scientist, who does NOT generally benefit much from their own ingenuity, that we distrust.
Your own comment betrays itself. You demonize and distrust the successful business man.
No one wants to fund a gamble that might, if we are lucky, pay off in 30-40 years. Thus, basic scientific research is a kind of externality, a public good, and the free market is incapable of allotting the optimal amount of funding for public goods such as transportation, public education, and public health.
None of those should exist either. As for people's focus on the short-term, it should be no surprise that with a Federal Reserve capable of swaying the entire economy with the snap of the fingers of a Chairman, or political pressure from the Treasury, that people are forced to live day-to-day. Whatever happened to the 99-year-loans of a century ago?
That is econ 101.
No, actually, it is Policy 101. You are not simply talking about how the market works - that would be economics. You are promoting forced intervention into the market, ultimately driven by the whims of politicians. The same people who I see make this mistake also equivocate on the word "power" - economic power (success) is seen as equivalent to political power, simply because politicians put themselves up for hire to pass laws benefiting some at the expense of others. Who ever can pay the most wins. The true solution isn't to try to persuade politicians to pass laws in your favor, at the expense of others - that just continues the problem. The proper solution is to get the government - or any entity with a monopoly on force - out of the market. Then economic power will cease to have its political connotation.
Re:But wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're neglecting half of what I said.
If you know in advance, there can be public debate. Knowledgeable people can make a case one way or the other. Then you can trust that you're spending money on the right things.
Panderer In Chief (Score:1, Insightful)
Which implies that he expects other people to be followers. That he expects that other nations won't, can't, or shouldn't be doing the same or better (otherwise, we wouldn't be leading them). Which is it? His international apology tour doesn't really jive with the message that, "Don't worry, Estonia, we're superior, and we'll do the research, you just follow us, OK?" Talk about your fair-weather meritocracy. This whole manifest destiny stuff doesn't sit well with him unless he can use it to woo academics, unions, and other "I'll need your votes in three years" demographics.
Science makes us great. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't usually agree with Obama but I'm glad he can see that science is one of the pillars that has made America strong. I was thinking last night that my grandmother saw in just a few decades us go from riding around in horse drawn wagons to going to the moon. That is just amazing. Science did that.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
Going against popular perception, defense spending "only" makes up 21% of the national budget (in 2008). 21% was spent on social security and 23% was spent on medicare/medicaid. That is, 45% is going towards the elderly and those in medical need. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget)
With the baby boomers starting to retire, it is inevitable that taxes will be raised to cover them. In my opinion, social security reform is more important that defense spending reform.
Of course many will argue that defense spending gives us products of little worth. However, a good chunk of defense spending goes towards military research and development (science!) which is done by defense contractors, government organizations, and universities. I wonder if Obama plans to include this money in his 3%.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
removing money from the economy that would be invested by the people who earned it in things that are productive and worth investment
So you think science R&D is unproductive and not worth investment? We've got weather satellites and star trek tech, no thanks to your kind.
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
This may not apply to you, but I really dislike it when people bring up Bush when complaining about Obama's spending.
First, a lot of conservatives and libertarians didn't like Bush's spending, even at the time.
But even if they did, I found the following analogy useful: if my wife overspent consistently while shopping, does she lose the right to be upset if I lose the house and our retirement nestegg in a drunken weekend in Vegas?
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it should, if you go by what the Parties say. Democrats have long been known as "tax and spend"; they're famous for wanting big government programs. Of course, it's still possible to have a balanced budget by simply raising taxes to pay for this.
But the Republicans have long painted themselves as "fiscally responsible", "small government", "low taxes", etc. However, the 8 years of Bush have shown us that that's a lie: when the Republicans were in control, we got BIGGER government, and ridiculous deficit spending (not fiscally responsible).
So what it boils down to is that the Republicans, by their actions, have proven that they firmly believe in deficit spending, that we can borrow an endless amount of money for whatever our government wants to do. So yes, party allegiance makes a difference: if they're Republicans, they simply don't believe in following a budget.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, the Internet, many of medical technologies, satellite communication, etc etc etc. Would not exist had it not been for initial government research. Yet trillions of dollars are made each year do to these technologies. Name me one US tech boom that did not have its start due to government provided research or infrastructure (and yes the industrial revolution was dependent upon the railroads, which were dependent upon government land and protection.)
Even I disagree if the government should have provided these levels of protection, maybe things would be better if they had developed naturally, maybe not... But government has had a HUGE impact.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I was bitching about govt. spending then too.
Still, that is no reason not get get excited now, when after only a few months, the new administration has spent near DOUBLE what the previous admin spent.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't for a minute think the new administration would spend less than the previous one (which did spend like a drunken sailor), but, I had no clue they'd spend so much, so fast, on so much worthless stuff (not directly really aiming funds to fix the economy).
So, yes, a money tree would be a nice project.
You forgot another solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Spending US federal budget source wiki "Military_budget_of_the_United_States" [wikipedia.org]
Re:What a way to flush 3% of GDP ... (Score:1, Insightful)
I concur. Even at a university, about 50% of any grant gets taken for operational expenses and what is left isn't actually 'owned' by the recipient but by the university. If Obama is serous about increasing spending, encouraging such places to stop with skimming grant money to fund other coffers.
Yea I know, not gonna happen.
Archaic Assumptions? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because technical innovation drove our economy in the past does not necessarily mean it will in the future. It just may be cheaper to do R&D overseas, and that seems to be what is happening.
When a person's education costs more than the entire life salary of his/her overseas competitor, then something is out of whack. Economic theory does not favor one type of activity as being "better" than another as long as it produces income. Thus, a lawyer is no more "valuable" than an engineer of the same income economics-wise. Where does the assumption come from that technology income is better than legal income?
It just may be that those who can take advantage of new ideas will be the top dog, not so much the originator of the ideas. (Original inventors tend to be under-compensated anyhow.) There's tons of patents sitting around gathering dust anyhow. New ideas are relatively cheap. Turning ideas into marketable products appears to be the current bottleneck. This is one reason why Apple is doing well using mostly existing technology.
The "tech gold" assumption should be probed further before dumping billions into potential boondoggles.
Perhaps it could be argued that it's needed to have the best military. However, perhaps it's more efficient to have the best economy, and then buy the best military technology. If you have 5000 AI bomber drones but your competitor could only afford 1500 of the same model, you still have a big leg up. Another assumption that should be probed more.
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a lie. In the 1990s, there was a huge surplus in social security, which politicians took out and replaced with an IOU, and used that to cover other programs. It was never truly balanced.
Clinton is the least worst. But lets not play shell games and kid ourselves.
As to the subject at hand, during WW2, the US government voided all patents dealing with radio in order to boost innovation in that area and it really did.
At a minimum cost to taxpayers, they could reform and simplify copyright and patent law for the people and to help small businesses.
But they won't. They'll probably have guns and butter instead.
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
Where were you complaining the last 8 years as the government ran up $TRILLIONS in debt, like on an unnecessary and neverending war? Or on unleashing free credit money while wages stayed the same?
From where are you pulling "75% taxes"? What else can we do to work our way out of the hole "we" dug ourselves into?
A tripling of debt is hardly digging yourself out. To me, it's more like digging deeper.
You were complaining about the trillions in debt from the last administration. This administration wants to more than triple that debt.
So allow me to turn the question around on you:
Why are you not complaining now that the current administration is putting us further and faster in debt than the last administration?
Or to put it another way:
Which tea party were you at?
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't science R&D, it's taking money from other worthwhile and productive investments in order to create an appearance. If the money was new and not from something already productive, it would be a benefit completely. Even if it was from something less productive then it would be worth while. But as it seems in reality, it would be like pulling money from social security and medicare payments to fund welfare and Medicaid as in both serve the same goals within the segments they are targeted at. It's either a net loss or a symbolic gesture with no benefit.
Re:Panderer In Chief (Score:3, Insightful)
What utter bullshit.
No.
Or what, would you take pride in America limply following other nations achievements? Or do you want America to strive to be the best?
I know which one I'd perfer.
Re:What a way to flush 3% of GDP ... (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this different than private industry spending tons on advertising? It's not just a "gov't thing". It's been this way for at least 530 million years: animals spend at least half their energy trying to get the best mate (or any mate). Plants "waste" tons of energy on creating big bright flowers just to attract the most bugs to carry the most seeds or pollen. If you try to get rid of it, it will just pop up somewhere else. Everybody is chasing the next gig and buttering up the next customer. That's life.
Re:Tea parties? Are you kidding? (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Fox News actually covering an event hardly qualifies as orchestrating anything. Some people might almost think that 350k people gathering in cities across the country qualifies as news.
2) If you pay attention, people aren't protesting taxes in general. I'm tired of the straw man arguement that the tea parties object to all taxes. Other than the most die-hard liberterians and anarchists, most people accept some taxation.
3) Finally, most of us WERE upset about the money Bush was throwing around. While we might have supported national defense, calling W a fiscal conservative is not exactly a reality.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:4, Insightful)
The proper solution is to get the government - or any entity with a monopoly on force - out of the market. Then economic power will cease to have its political connotation.
No, then economic power will be the only power worth having. That would quickly precipitate a revolution because the only option for the "Average Joe", who just wants to turn up to work and do a basic days work (lets be clear: There's nothing wrong with that, without such people society would fall apart and they deserve decent pay & conditions), would be to organise in revolutionary parties based on the ideas of armed revolution. That basic understanding is one of the foundations of modern capitalist democracy.
Those in power accept the basic logic of Marxism hence such patently ludicrous ideas like the "natural rate of unemployment", aka "the reserve army of labour".
Capitalist plus democracy naturally tends towards the UKUSA model. The capitalist elite works to erode any lawful protection for workers that may exist due to previous historical factors, hence the emergence of people like Sarkozy in France.
Also, capitalism tends towards monopoly. Unabridged free market capitalism would naturally produce massive private {mono,oligo}polies, in the latter case there would be strong incentive to operate as a cartel. In such a situation revolution would be the only option for people to regain control of their lives.
As I pointed out, people in power understand this. That's why you see the current mish-mash of not quite capitalism, not quite socialism, not quite democracy. It's a compromise to keep society stable and the people in power, in power.
The same people who I see make this mistake also equivocate on the word "power" - economic power (success) is seen as equivalent to political power
That's because it is. Thus it has always been and thus it will always be; there's a reason this topic has historically been labelled "Political Economy". You can try to deny basic human nature but the fact is that economic power == political power and when someone has unchecked political power they will abuse it to feather their own nest at the expense of others, often at the expense of other peoples' lives. The market has no capacity to regulate that.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't science R&D, it's taking money from other worthwhile and productive investments in order to create an appearance
you mean like the manattan project? the apollo project? Nasa?
practically everything that makes our modern life modern stemmed from research in government labs, and at least 50%+ from the space program.
Are you going to tell me "girls gone wild" is worthwhile and productive? because a lot of money goes into making those vids and the commercials for them. How about all the R&D being put into more efficiently off-shoring exceedingly higher skilled jobs?
Economics does not have a "goal" of efficiency any more than nuclear physics has a "goal" of producing the biggest, most powerful bomb possible. It needs to be leveraged to the benefit of humanity.
Re:Do want (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was an appropriate return on the investment, the project would be taken up by private industry.
Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, Taxation isn't the only way to pay. There is also inflation.
which is really just a tax anyways.
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why did they reelect him in 2004?
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as the government does not make a damn thing, the only way they're getting that money is from taxes. Either by increasing our taxes now, or by increasing taxes on future generations.
I see idiocy like this is rampant in the USA.
They don't make a damn thing? You mean, like the roads that you drove on the way to work? Or the legal system that protects you? Or the police that jail the bad guy who didn't carjack you today on the way to work? Or the licensing policies for the radio station that you listened to on the way to work? What about the 13 years of education that you got so that you could LAND the job that you went to this morning? Or the excellent college system that you went to if you are a "white collar" worker?
In the United States, government is so pervasive and so good at enabling the creation of wealth that many members of the population don't bother to think about it, and rail on it like it's some parasite. "I don't need no damned gubbmint!" But the truth is that every single American benefits from almost half a MILLION dollars in embedded infrastructure: roads, schools, libraries, jails, courthouses, telephone/telecommunications, power etc.
Is it just ignorance that makes people treat their gift of such incredible wealth so poorly? It's really sad, too, because if we don't properly understand and support the true role of our government, we'll fail to keep it and then we all lose. And we *ARE* losing: education is chronically underfunded and new student test scores are abysmal, with the result being that we jail a higher percentage of our population than any other "first world" country.
Rather than develop a sane approach to the Internet as public infrastructure, we've instead relied on private enterprise to elevate our status from first to near last among industrialized nations in broadband penetration.
Welcome to life without effective govt!
Re:Administration (Score:2, Insightful)
Your analogy reverses the order of events... "overspent consistently while shopping" equates to the recent economic stimulus, and the drunken weekend in Vegas equates to the fraudulent war and the resulting oil price shock. You're right...the latter is much more dire, and one should be upset, though.
Re:What a way to flush 3% of GDP ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think that's bad, wait until you join the commercial world. You'll find out how much money is skimmed off for CEO bonuses, marketing (which is really quite similar to the grant writing you are talking about), legal department, etc. Very little of the work involved in the commercial world is related to production or research. Very little.
Re:Tea parties? Are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a way to flush 3% of GDP ... (Score:2, Insightful)
This sounds really familiar. I work in the R&D group for a corporation and our management had convinced themselves that we can get the government to pay for our research. If we spent our B&P (bid and proposal) money on just doing the work, we would get more done. Instead, we chase work from entities like DARPA and charge overhead on overhead. It wouldn't be so bad if the work made sense, but the line between DARPA-hard and DARPA-stupid is becoming increasingly blurred.
Your story reminded me of a chat I had with a friend who is a department head at a small teaching-focused university. They have recently started to get funding from an Army lab and he has figured out why. The Army guys don't care what work is done; the only discretionary funding they get is the overhead that they lop off the top of earmarked funding. So they send a couple million to a small university or company and if something comes out of it, great. If not, they still get their 30% to do the work that they want to get done.
Not sure what the solution is - I do think that we need to do research. It is just that once the damn accountants get involved, everything gets screwed up. My company,for example, claims huge amounts of money (I assume for tax credits) on R&D, but the reality is you should write that with R in 2 pt font and D in 56 pt...
Re:Administration (Score:4, Insightful)
Mostly, what the wiki chart shows is that the lads who wrote it favour the Dems. They picked an interpretation of the raw data that made the Dems look good, rather than providing the raw numbers, plus interpretation as needed.
Note, by the way, that even saying the data as presented favours the Dems is misleading. It favours Democratic Presidents. While the President has some input into the budget process, he doesn't have nearly so much control as most people like to give them credit for. Remember the days of "the President's budget is DOA" during the Reagan years?
Fact of the matter is that the Congress has pretty much absolute control of the budget. All the President can do is veto something he doesn't like. He can't make them write something he DOES like. And while a Republican Congress spent money like drunken sailors for six of the last eight years, a Republican Congress was relatively restrained the six years before that.
Unfortunately for those of us who like to pay attention to the nuts and bolts, Congress doesn't have the advantage of being a single person. Or even two people. So the budget process is a lot messier than most people are ready to believe, and people on both sides of the aisle deserve a heaping share of the blame for the national debt that our grandchildren will be paying for.
Note, for reference, that I'm not going to be blaming Obama for the debt in four or eight years. I'm going to be blaming Congress. Whichever Party is controlling it....
Of course, Obama does get blame whenever he calls for new spending. We can't afford the spending we have now - finding new things to spend public money on is insane unless your revenues are higher than your spending. And that hasn't been true since 1957 or so.
Re:Panderer In Chief (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama isn't going to other countries to apologize because we were too awesome. He is going to other countries to try to repair the damage the last administration has caused by its lies and flat out incompetence. It's in our best interest to have at least some allies.
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
So allow me to turn the question around on you:
Why are you not complaining now that the current administration is putting us further and faster in debt than the last administration?
Because they are investing in education and infrastructure - things that can make a society more productive and efficient - rather than overspending on weapons and colonialism, which can weaken them. And in the case of Iraq, the trillions being spent were exacerbating the problem instead of mitigating it. It didn't help that for the first time in our history, we went to war and cut taxes at the same time. That's not only colossally stupid, it's also immoral.
Anyway, if you invest money instead of throwing it in a fire, it can make sense to go deeper in debt in the short term for greater long term benefits.
Or to put it another way:
Which tea party were you at?
All of my favorite political demonstrations are sponsored by the good and decent Americans at News Corporation. It's the only way you can be sure that it's "grass roots" and patriotic, unlike those other people who are committing treason by providing aid and comfort to our enemies when they are protesting.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Insightful)
Raising taxes to spend more money to spur the economy is a losing game, since the biggest waste of money is the administration of the programs that tax and spend. Every dollar spent on administration is a loss to the GDP.
This is only true when the government doesn't spend the money wisely and taxes those who need it the most, or the consumers, since rich people get rich by saving money, which doesn't stimulate the economy...
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Science makes us great. (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only person that's noticed that every one of these struggling brands makes suck ass cars? I've bought them and had constant maintenance issues. On the other hand the Honda and Toyota's I've bought have done much better. Even Ford came out about two years ago and announced that they were going to try to stop sucking - to little to late maybe?
If you make a crappy product then maybe it's good for you to go out of business. Why should I pay $30000 for a vehicle that won't last 10 years of normal use before it starts to have major issues?
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
That sounds noble, and yes GDP would not be nearly as high without the support that our existing infrastructure provides, but that is mostly old infrastructure.
Want to guess how the government keeps the infrastructure you mention, including roads, libraries, and courts, operational? Taxes. The idea that we have a responsibility to pay 428 billion dollars (CIA Factbook says 2008 GDP was 14.29 trillion) more per year in taxes for science when we can't even pay down our existing debt is insanity. The education you cite? The U.S. Department of Education was created in 1980. Strange that education has declined since then. Strange that Bush's federally-funded No Child Left Behind initiative has done more to hurt education than virtually any other public or private education policy in history.
Don't misunderstand me, I'd love to see more money spent on useful science and technology research. However, given our current national and state debts, this is not the time to be talking about spending 428 billion on more science. Public funding of science is always going to encourage graft and waste, particularly here because a majority of congress don't even recognize the benefits of science. If politicians vote for science funding, it's because they think they can get pork for their constuents, and that pork is unlikely to be the kind of science funding you or I want to see.
Broadband? The reason our broadband is terrible in the U.S. is that we've granted effective monopolies (or 2 or 3-party oligopolies) to telecom companies in most metro areas, and then failed to ensure that those telecom companies were motivated to upgrade/modernize. There are two sane ways to approach infrastructure: privatization, with competition; or granting monopolies and ensuring progress through careful progressive regulation. We have done neither. We granted monopolies and then abdicated our responsibility to regulate. More accurately, despite efforts to regulate, the telecom industry's lobbyists convinced all levels of government not to regulate heavily enough.
TL;DR: Can the federal government theroetically find useful areas in science and technology to spend money on, that will generate net returns? Almost certainly. Will they? Almost certainly not. Do we have the money to be spending 428 billion per year on more science? No.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Insightful)
Your analogy reverses the order of events... "overspent consistently while shopping" equates to the recent economic stimulus, and the drunken weekend in Vegas equates to the fraudulent war and the resulting oil price shock. You're right...the latter is much more dire, and one should be upset, though.
If the graphic run by the Washington post is remotely accurate I'd say not. Here's a link to it re-posted by the Heritage Foundation (Yeah I know, they're about as right-wing as you can get but unless you have a subscription to the Washington Post you cant see it there)
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/ [heritage.org] It's showing the deficit from 2000 through 2008 and the White House projected deficit spending from 2009 through 2019. The highest deficit during the Bush term was during 2008 at just under $500 billion and 2007 was around $200 billion at it's lowest. The White House projected deficit for 2009 is $1.75 trillion and should steadily decrease to $600 billion by the end of president Obama's first term if all goes as planned. So be the war fraudulent or otherwise, it was still cheaper than what appears to be ahead of us. I can only hope that we aren't going to lose the farm in Vegas.
And seriously, what's with the "oil price shock" comment? When the US invaded Iraq it was supposedly to steal their oil so we could have cheap gas. When that didn't happen the prices went up a few years later because we invaded Iraq. Then the prices plummeted last year because, what, it snowed in Iraq.
Re:sincerely hope.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama: "I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions, not the other way around,"
Ummm ... I personally would rather that science was driving our facts first of all, instead of "facts" driving science ...
By putting in quotes "facts" you're equating them to truths.
Maybe "driving" was the wrong word to use, but I think Obama is still correct.
Facts are... well, what actually is, whether there's someone around to observe it or not, and we do want science to base itself around observable, (dis)provable facts. "Truth" is like statistics--an interpretation of that data, or lack thereof.
A perfect example earlier in this very discussion: a bunch of facts about budget spending and US national debt under both Clinton and Bush were used to support two opposing "truths:" That Clinton's administration was more fiscally conservative, or vice-versa.
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:3, Insightful)
You know...there is NOTHING stopping you from giving a little more. Heck, just don't take any deductions...etc
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:4, Insightful)
but your on your own when it comes to healthcare
EPIC FAIL.
A) Our private sector is getting its butt whipped trying to compete against the private sectors of the rest of the industrialized world because they don't have a healthcare burden on them.
B) "on your own" sounds a lot like what we got now. Hmm, 25% uninsured, another ~20% under-insured, double digit healthcare cost inflation, and America's dirty little sekrit: "The Uninsurables".
And no, 50 states trying 50 different patchwork solutions, and in some cases of course, deliberate non-solutions, will never solve the problem. Never mind the poorest states, who no one seriously believes will be able to do *anything* meaningful for their populations. This wouldn't work first because a large part of the industry is multi-state, and second because the only way to control the costs is to get as many people as possible into large insurance pools so you can offset the cost of the sick people by having lots of healthy people in the system at the same time (everyone else in the world has grokked this fact but us, for some reason). The only way to achieve very large pools, is to go nation-wide.
So basically we've got the most expensive health care system in the world, providing the least amount of the most important kind of care (basic primary care), and it doesn't even cover our entire population. You do realize we are the fscking laughing stock of the entire industrialized world because of this (and because they're taking financial advantage of us due to 'A' above), right?
Between the rising masses of uninsured (whose existance exerts an increasing stress upon whats left of the system) and the cost inflation (which in turn accelerates the number of people entering the ranks of the uninsured - notice the feedback loop here?), our health care system's outlook makes Social Security's future look positively rosy.
Oh, lets not even get into the billions of dollars in damage to our economy thats happening every year because for an increasing number of people, a single incident of major illness or major surgery means bankruptcy. And if you can't see how that is hurting all of us, then just think of this, the uninsured, and the cost inflation, as hidden taxes, that we all end up paying whether we know it or not.
We also pay in other ways: has your local hospital shut its ER because it can't afford to run it anymore? If you get sick, how far will you have to be driven to get to a hospital? Does your community have a scarcity of primary care physicians willing/able to take new patients? If a large number of people can't find a doctor, even if they have insurance, then you might as well consider them to be "uninsured" as well, and adding to that stress on the system.
So in the end, one way or the other, we *will* be forced to change, since no amount of hand waving about "personal liberties and freedoms" can change the fact that our health care (non-)system is headed for a financial meltdown if it doesn't change course.
The combination of increasing uninsured and runaway costs, is a slow acting, but inevitably lethal, poison. Its a train wreck looking for a place to happen. Its not if, its when, and yes, its just that simple.
The only question is how long do we put off the inevitable, where the longer we wait the more painful and *expensive* the final reckoning becomes.
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Administration (Score:1, Insightful)
Please please please get your troops out of Europe. Darfur is NOT in Europe. Europeans would love you to GTFO, and stop your torture camps too. Stop this moronic "we protect you" bullshit. Your troops aren't here for our protection, they're here because they're to your strategic advantage. European countries can defend themselves just fine, thanks, we don't need any step up bullshit - step up against whom?
You aren't the protector, or the helper, or even welcome. You're the big thug who throws his weight around and claims to help the little guy. Just like the mafia. NOW FUCK OFF PLEASE WE DON'T WANT YOU.
Re:No more small businesses? Don't think so. (Score:3, Insightful)
Universal healthcare is a boon for capitalism. Calling it socialist is incredibly short sighted by unimaginative people looking for political gain.
This dovetails nicely with my overall opinion on the matter. A healthy society is a benefit for everyone. Once people get above a certain level of health, they start worrying about less important things, like making piles of cash, expressing their creative urges, trying new things. And these are the things that make society worthwhile. Of course, in most of the world except the US, calling it socialist (which it is) isn't enough to get it ridiculed out of hand.