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Former Intel CEO Andy Grove Wants Struggling Industries To Stop Slacking
lousyd writes "Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel and current instructor at Stanford Business School, has a message for industry. He believes that health care and energy, especially, could learn a lesson from computing's innovative and relatively government-free history. He asks students to imagine if mainframe vendors had asked government to prop them up in the same way that General Motors recently was. On the issue of computer patents, he insists that firms must use their patents or lose them: 'You can't just sit on your a** and give everyone the finger.'"
No, government-free energy implies more nuclear. Excessive government regulation of nuclear power has artificially increased the cost of nuclear power beyond reason. Nuclear power has a far lower cost of operation.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
>>>Government-free energy implies more coal power plants.
Vice-versa government-run "cash for clunkers" means perfectly good cars were taken off the road, squashed, and thrown into landfills. The government didn't even bother to strip the parts and sell them (recycling), but instead declared that to be illegal. Had a private megacorp done that they'd be pilloried but when government does it, it's labeled a success.
Next up - "cash for breakers" where people are encouraged to break their windows and buy all new ones.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
- railroads were funded *privately* not publicly. And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
No, the first transcontinental railroads were heavily government funded.
- The New Deal was a major fuckup that extended the recession from 1929 to 1950.
In some people's opinion, but it is likely that without action it would have been a lot worse.
- WW2 was a horror not a success.
The war itself was, but America profited massively from it, in economic and technological terms.
- Social Security has been a joke, because if you live long enough to get it, the "interest rate" earned on your original deposit is only 1%...
I didn't mention Social Security, but the point of it is not to provide a return on investment, but to provide security to society. Which it does, with varying effectiveness.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The public funding of the transcontinental railroad was highly successful. Congress funded two companies, one starting from the east and one starting from the west, with a plan to join in the middle. Which was a great plan in theory- whichever company went the fastest would lay down more track and get paid more (mostly in land), before the two met. Unfortunately when the two did meet they both decided they liked the government funding so much they just went right on building. They built hundreds of miles of parallel tracks before congress ordered them to stop.
I've always found that (true) story hilarious.