Mostly products that were directly attributable to capitalism and technology. What did liberal democracy have to do with any of that? Did somebody vote the steam engine into existence?
It's not a matter of whether cancer research needs Watson, it's a matter of IBM having dumped a large amount of R&D dollars into a solution in search of a problem. This is merely a last-ditch effort to make it pay off.
I strongly suspect the Greenspan comment was a veiled sarcasm that didn't quite register in print. Income equality has never struck me as being one of his primary concerns.
What if the Billionaire WANTS a certain answer and lets the scientist know it, so that the "data" can be published for a huge return on investment for the billionaire? Tobacco industry did this.
Or maybe billionaire just has an answer he emotionally wants to hear and funds science to get that instead of sensible science? If Jenny McCarthy had billions what sort of research d'you think she might fund?
Or what if billionaire wants research on life extending treatments for him and him alone and screw publishing?
I don't see any compelling reason billionare science would be any better than publicly funded science. I'd rather everyone own the results, too, than a billionaire.
I mean, one thing a billionare is VERY good at is hoarding good things (money) for themselves AREN'T THEY.
--PeterM
And the incentives of the people deciding which research will get public funding differ exactly how? You seem to start with the assumption that the career bureaucrat won't dispose of assets under his control to his greatest advantage whereas the career businessman will. I'm not seeing it.
Private companies just don't need the sorts of skills that the typical person has. Nobody wants to hire an average programmer (at least, not at US wages), or an average marketer, etc. Today we have hyper-specialization and if you're in the top 1% of whatever you do you'll have a job for life, and if not you'll be lucky to ever have a job. We're still in transition, but all the trends are there.
We life in a country which has a huge economy, and yet tons of people who are unemployed.
Oddly enough, a libertarian economist, Tyler Cowan, wrote a book that agrees with you. Average is Over.
In principle, I agree. But that only holds true as long as management is correctly evaluating what and who is performing efficiently. Judging from IBM's performance and stock price, management is not doing so hot at making that judgement.
That's also a nice thing about markets. They not only punish inefficiency, they also punish stupid management. It may take a while, but eventually the chickens come home to roost.
While government shouldn't protect the inefficient employees, it shouldn't protect incompetent management, either.
Also, economic efficiency isn't everything. Would you be comfortable offshoring industries our national defense is dependent on, even if economic efficiencies could be obtained by doing so?
Uh, you do know building can be built 'vertically' right? We've been doing that since the early 1900s.
Uh, you do know San Francisco is notorious for earthquakes, which severely limits how tall buildings can be safely built, right? See 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The majority of Venzuelans voted for the government they have today. They stood idly while Chavez rewrote the constitution "for the common people". Now they get to enjoy the benefits.
"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in “Metcalfe’s law”–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s."
"The reason why collapse, especially that caused by socialism, is so utterly complete is that the damage remains hidden for so long. The design margin is used up; savings are depleted; the institutions are hollowed out; public morality becomes perverted and education becomes nothing but a credential — and it all happens out of the public eye. Only when everything is used up, as in Venezuela, when the whole edifice implodes, as if by magic, does the cumulative effect become manifest."
Calling for a return to the tax structure (up to 90% on the wealthy's incomes), the percentage going to employee compensation, etc., that we had in the 1950's probably would get me branded a "socialist" (by people who don't even understand what the word means). Yet that's what we had in those idyllic Ozzie and Harriet days that so many, including the right wing, see as a lost golden era.
More likely it would just get you branded as an idiot. You might want to keep in mind, in the 1950's the US was the only game in town. Europe was recovering from 2 world wars, made in Japan was synonymous for cheap junk, Korea was in the midst of a civil war, and China and India were mostly known for mass famines. If you wanted to play in the big leagues, you played in the US.
Try charging those kind of tax rates now, and see if you can count to 10 before a major amount of capital flees to friendlier shores.
Yeah, but how do you get out of that situation? If the technology is available, somebody is going to use it. Your only recourse is to pass laws that restrict the use of the technology. But the laws, of course, are enforced by the government. And guess who's even more curious about you, and more likely to abuse that information, than any advertiser?
Slashdot Mirror
A philosophy grounded in parasitism tends to bring out the sleazy in it's adherents? Who'd ever believe it!
...that Bill Gates says we desperately need .
Mostly products that were directly attributable to capitalism and technology. What did liberal democracy have to do with any of that? Did somebody vote the steam engine into existence?
I'm all for anything that puts Bruce Springsteen out of a job.
Everyone knows that all bureaucrats are fired and new ones hired whenever the administration changes.
Not really. Take it from a professional bureaucrat.
Why is it that every magazine with "business" in the title always turns out to be to the left of Stalin?
"Autocracy is universal and cannot be repealed, only concealed."
--Mencius Moldbug
We'll, maybe they can't all be coders.... But I'm sure there are plenty of openings for liberal arts professors.
It's not a matter of whether cancer research needs Watson, it's a matter of IBM having dumped a large amount of R&D dollars into a solution in search of a problem. This is merely a last-ditch effort to make it pay off.
Wonder what the problem is? You tell me....
I strongly suspect the Greenspan comment was a veiled sarcasm that didn't quite register in print. Income equality has never struck me as being one of his primary concerns.
Unfortunately, beheading Charles didn't end well for the English, either. Note that that was their last experiment with a republic.
And you're assuming government funded research isn't conducted the same way? Haha.
What if the Billionaire WANTS a certain answer and lets the scientist know it, so that the "data" can be published for a huge return on investment for the billionaire? Tobacco industry did this.
Or maybe billionaire just has an answer he emotionally wants to hear and funds science to get that instead of sensible science? If Jenny McCarthy had billions what sort of research d'you think she might fund?
Or what if billionaire wants research on life extending treatments for him and him alone and screw publishing?
I don't see any compelling reason billionare science would be any better than publicly funded science. I'd rather everyone own the results, too, than a billionaire.
I mean, one thing a billionare is VERY good at is hoarding good things (money) for themselves AREN'T THEY.
--PeterM
And the incentives of the people deciding which research will get public funding differ exactly how? You seem to start with the assumption that the career bureaucrat won't dispose of assets under his control to his greatest advantage whereas the career businessman will. I'm not seeing it.
Private companies just don't need the sorts of skills that the typical person has. Nobody wants to hire an average programmer (at least, not at US wages), or an average marketer, etc. Today we have hyper-specialization and if you're in the top 1% of whatever you do you'll have a job for life, and if not you'll be lucky to ever have a job. We're still in transition, but all the trends are there.
We life in a country which has a huge economy, and yet tons of people who are unemployed.
Oddly enough, a libertarian economist, Tyler Cowan, wrote a book that agrees with you. Average is Over.
In principle, I agree. But that only holds true as long as management is correctly evaluating what and who is performing efficiently. Judging from IBM's performance and stock price, management is not doing so hot at making that judgement.
That's also a nice thing about markets. They not only punish inefficiency, they also punish stupid management. It may take a while, but eventually the chickens come home to roost.
While government shouldn't protect the inefficient employees, it shouldn't protect incompetent management, either.
Also, economic efficiency isn't everything. Would you be comfortable offshoring industries our national defense is dependent on, even if economic efficiencies could be obtained by doing so?
Uh, you do know building can be built 'vertically' right? We've been doing that since the early 1900s.
Uh, you do know San Francisco is notorious for earthquakes, which severely limits how tall buildings can be safely built, right? See 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The majority of Venzuelans voted for the government they have today. They stood idly while Chavez rewrote the constitution "for the common people". Now they get to enjoy the benefits.
Well, sure. But then, we can assume that Venezuelan democracy isn't so different from our own. Most likely they voted for it not because it was wonderful, but because it was the least bad choice on the ballot. Just because you get to vote, doesn't necessarily mean you get to vote for what you want.
"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in “Metcalfe’s law”–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s."
--Paul Krugman, 1998
When collapse comes, it comes quickly.
"The reason why collapse, especially that caused by socialism, is so utterly complete is that the damage remains hidden for so long. The design margin is used up; savings are depleted; the institutions are hollowed out; public morality becomes perverted and education becomes nothing but a credential — and it all happens out of the public eye. Only when everything is used up, as in Venezuela, when the whole edifice implodes, as if by magic, does the cumulative effect become manifest."
One more argument against democracy.
Calling for a return to the tax structure (up to 90% on the wealthy's incomes), the percentage going to employee compensation, etc., that we had in the 1950's probably would get me branded a "socialist" (by people who don't even understand what the word means). Yet that's what we had in those idyllic Ozzie and Harriet days that so many, including the right wing, see as a lost golden era.
More likely it would just get you branded as an idiot. You might want to keep in mind, in the 1950's the US was the only game in town. Europe was recovering from 2 world wars, made in Japan was synonymous for cheap junk, Korea was in the midst of a civil war, and China and India were mostly known for mass famines. If you wanted to play in the big leagues, you played in the US.
Try charging those kind of tax rates now, and see if you can count to 10 before a major amount of capital flees to friendlier shores.
Kind of like watching fingers fall off of a leper, isn't it?
Indeed. Democracy is broken.
Yeah, but how do you get out of that situation? If the technology is available, somebody is going to use it. Your only recourse is to pass laws that restrict the use of the technology. But the laws, of course, are enforced by the government. And guess who's even more curious about you, and more likely to abuse that information, than any advertiser?