Big Government Built This Country

[ba1614]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam or the great hydroelectric power projects conducted by Tennessee Valley Authority

This shows what a completely ignorant, imbecile CLOD you are. This was PRE WAR, done in the 30s during the Great Depression.

Idiot stick.

Do you think Big Government has ever done anything good for this country? Do you think the current anti-government hysteria ignores, say, the relationship between the Space Program and the development of technologies vital to the private sector?

Why not at least frame an honest debate? The big government folks are sick of is the one paying to teach african men how to scrub their ballsack, or pay for a cowboy poets festival.
Of course government does a lot of good, and is necessary, but that doesn't mean we have to accept the nonsense in order to have them do what we truly need them too.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

The profits of Apple, Google, Ebay, Amazon, & Microsoft were made possible partly by the venture capital provided by government (the taxpayer) to develop the internet. Let's not even talk about the computer itself. (Pick your industry: Aerospace, oil, pharmaceutical, cellular technology, medicine, biotechnology, auto-manufacturing, and you will find tax payer subsidies, public-private partnerships, directly lead government R&D, federally funded university labs, Pentagon support, and bailouts. [Do you know how big the lobbying industry is?] Government also allocates resources to roads, water, dams, electricity, the justice system, and defense, i.e., profits are enabled partly by the Government allocation of money.

Unprecedented profits.

Yet, somehow, we have a bankrupt middle class tax payer. Why? Because he no longer recovers his investment in the corporate welfare state; because he no longer reaps the 'ol trickle down from the subsidies and bailouts he provides to wealthy share holders; he no longer reaps the benefits he received during the postwar years when there was sufficient revenue to invest in the public sector; when he received higher wages, affordable education, affordable transportation, affordable health care, safe neighborhoods, great museums, public parks, and affordable utilities . . . for his capital investment. The benefits which once accrued to that investment are now narrowly distributed to a small group of share holders)

Meaning: John Q Public is broke partly because our corporate captured government socializes the costs and risks of business, but privatizes the profits… as roads crumble, energy grids fail, and funding for our great public universities is cut (all the things Reagan said the market would take care of). Business enjoys unprecedented profits as the country which made it possible dies in the background. We were told that if more money accumulated on top, it would come back down in spades. Who knew that it would get stuffed into derivatives and oil futures? [I guess this makes sense. Why invest in the real economy if you no longer pay your workers enough money to buy stuff?] Who knew all this freedom talk was a hoax designed by capital to rob John Q in order to enrich the wealthy few? Who knew that they could so brilliantly funnel public money into private bank accounts? Who knew they could literally take over a political party. or convince a generation that they stood for freedom? Who knew the public was so gullible?

To answer your point: when you say that most of these technologies were developed in the private sector, I think you ignore the contribution of the taxpayer -- the contribution of the public, of the government allocation of funds and resources. This strategic omission of Government's role is done because the interests which have captured your media don't want to pay back the public for its investment.

Do you know how much taxpayer support Exxon gets from the military stabilization of the middle east? The point of movement conservatism (which has been fully captured by extremely narrow interests) is to cover up that support so government is powerless to recover the taxpayer's investment. It is the worst kind of welfare, but as long as Exxon invests in talk radio and greases enough shareholders, they will have armies who flock to the message boards and clog the debate.

You are stating the reverse. You lay all the credit to government and ignore the fact that without the private sector none of the accomplishments would have happened.
Think of it this way. If the federal government needed a house, it provides the idea. The private sector provides the engineering, tools, materials, expertise and manpower. Government provides policy.
The problem here is government cannot control costs nor does it attempt to do so.
For example, when a government contractor is late or over budget, the government continues to pay the contractor. That is wrong. And that is why intelligent people want government out of the way. Government stifles and restricts by placing rules and regulations that are absent of logic and efficiency. Government piles on layer upon layer of bureaucracy in the name of protecting useless employment which drives costs to stratospheric levels.
Example......New York City's Central Park has a skating(Wollman Rink) rink. The original facility was run down and in desperate need of repair. The City government lacked the financing and in entertaining bids was smothered with irritations such as union leaders wanting their piece of the pie, long time contractors who merely expected the job to go to them.
In steps Donald Trump. He essentially pushed the City out of the way. He told the city he could get it done faster and cheaper. The City government, under pressure from residents, caved. The rink was built in just a few months at half the cost of the bureaucratic method. Of course the contractors which the City normally used were incensed. Trump told them to pound sand.

 

[KissMy]

Great idea,

Lets do the public option so the government has to compete with private insurance.

To bad there was no option in the so called "public option" health-care bill. It was only a mandated complete government takeover of the health-care system. There was no free market competition allowed.

 

[editec]

There is obviously a role for government investment.

There is obviously a role for private investment.

Duh!

I mean seriously, folks, this isn't drop dead obvious to each and every one of us?

 

[Londoner]

Government is the most wasteful & unproductive organization in our history. If the government had to play by the basic rules of sound finance, it would have been broke years and years ago! Tax payers and hard working American's built this nation. People with the desire and drive to do for themselves and to make their own path in life. Be it the construction laborer or the CEO.

This is a dangerous simplification designed by Movement Conservatism to obscure the debt capital owes to society. It preserves the centralized power of concentrated wealth (which lobbys its way past representative democracy to purchase ("capture") whole regulatory bodies). As long as you don't trust government, this concentrated financial power can set up control over politics, markets, and media. Your ignorance is their weapon.

You have been seduced by a narrative which oozes from every radio station. The narrative strategically uses the culture war to make the silent white majority grip their steering wheel in rage over a fabricated demon: Government.

[Son, brace yourself. I've got bad news]

[whispering] Government doesn't it exist. It is owned by your sultans of freedom: large corporations and wealthy individuals, who staff government through every manner of financial leverage. Your beef is with them because they have more concentrated power over the political process than LBJ ever dreamed possible.

The pre-Reagan Government - comprised of your fellow Americans, not demons - not only allocated resources to, but managed some of the greatest infrastructure projects and technological advances in history.

Large corporations stand on the shoulders of those resources and advances, which were funded by the public, whose investment return has been co-opted by a narrow universe of share holders. They have done this with the help of useful idiots who have been conditioned to attack any policy that threatens their power over government, markets, and media.

The Reagan Revolution strategically turned government into a corrupt, incompetent mess In order to turn public opinion against government, which government, prior to Reagan, had been the greatest impediment to the corporate concentration of power over regulators, markets, elections, and foreign policy.

Which is to say: there is a reason why the Reagan Movement never talks about the Hoover Dam or the Interstate System or the great Public Works Projects which helped build modern America. There is reason for the famous Reagan "Brain Drain", i.e., the replacement of Ph.d's with corporate cronies in every agency. Because when Government fails, there is less tax pressure on capital for constructing Hoover Dams or creating "moonshots" around gaining energy independence from terrorist nations. Capital is thereby free to take care of a narrow group of share holders by (say) cultivating a corrupt, culture of no-bid contracts in places like Iraq, our pouring money into a brilliantly constructed derivatives ponzi scheme. [Don't you get it son? CEOs are measured by the effectiveness with which they can loot taxpayer dollars on behalf of shareholders. This is what lobbying is: robbing public money (through a complex system of subsidies, regulatory corruption, and bailout insurance), and then screaming "socialism" when the taxpayer tries to recover a return on his investment]

The point of movemen conservatism is to create the ideological conditions so you don't see it - so you chase socialist, gay, terrorist demons while Enron and Exxon find ways to choke supply and raise prices. Capital captures the media so it can distract people with the culture war and convince them to support policies which enable special interests to do their bidding (all of which is easier if they convince you to handcuff government's ability to regulate them).

If you don't think capital is this powerful, you underestimate the profit motive and the power of capitalism. If you don't place limits on capital - if people are tricked into thinking government should play no role in limiting the power of concentrated wealth over the political, judicial, media, and economic organs of the country - capital will purchase away your democracy and set up monopolies over your standard of living, as it sells your once competitive markets, elections, and free press to the highest bidder.

In short: you've been terribly mislead into thinking government should play no role in the regulatory function and economic destiny of the country. This is very similar to the opposite extreme pursued by the Keynesians toward the end of America's Great Postwar run, i.e. the Left was so lost in its own echo chamber, that it became convinced government could do everything.

America R.I.P 1776-2000

Somewhere between government doing everything and government doing nothing, a Great Nation failed to be reborn.

 

[The Rabbi]

There is obviously a role for government investment.

There is obviously a role for private investment.

Duh!

I mean seriously, folks, this isn't drop dead obvious to each and every one of us?

There is zero, no, role for government "investment" outside of those things that are pursuant to its actual functions. So research into making nuclear weapons more effective is fine. Research into blood substitutes for soldiers on the battlefields is fine.

 

[signelect]

The sole function of big government is to provide jobs for people who don't want to work and can't get real jobs. I know that the statement is not fair to all those hard working people in the government its just that I have talked to any of them in a long time.

 

[beowolfe]

A government competing with private sector is the best. Not a government that creates unfair laws monopolizing or controlling an industry or segment. Free market competition defeats communism & socialism every time.

You are wrong AGAIN. The government doesn't need to compete with the private sector, the government needs to lead the private sector. It's worked that way since the government decided to buy the Louisiana territory from France.

 

[KissMy]

A government competing with private sector is the best. Not a government that creates unfair laws monopolizing or controlling an industry or segment. Free market competition defeats communism & socialism every time.

You are wrong AGAIN. The government doesn't need to compete with the private sector, the government needs to lead the private sector. It's worked that way since the government decided to buy the Louisiana territory from France.

That is the problem. The private sector beats the pants off the government. The government can't compete fairly. All the government does is redistribute wealth. It pays off cronies & thugs who can't cut it in the real world.

 

[The T]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam or the great hydroelectric power projects conducted by Tennessee Valley Authority; you would never have had the BIG GOVERNMENT Interstate Project or the BIG GOVERNMENT Space Program (which was responsible the 80s consumer electronics boom). All these things were born of Big Government; all of them required massive spending; and all of them created the foundation for a 1/2 century of economic growth.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican if the Southwest in its current form would even exist without the Hoover Dam, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican what enabled the southeastern United States to have the cheapest electricity costs in the 50s and 60s, and how postwar infrastructure projects lead to unprecedented economic growth from Tennessee to Georgia, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican who harnessed the power and water of the Colorado and what that meant for economic growth in the desert southwest and California, and they will stare at you blankly. ["Wait a minute Jethro, I thought water come from God"]

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government interstate system enabled the trucking industry to ship goods all across the country, thus creating an explosion of economic activity that would have otherwise been impossible, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government Erie Canal project put cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica on the map, and they will stare at you blankly.

Ask a Talk Radio Republican how the Big Government Space Program made America the world leader in consumer electronics, and they will stare at you blankly. [Ask them who enabled the private profits of GE or Lockhead Martin, or any company that depends on roads and electrical grids and water and government research and government subsidies and military intervention RE global resource markets, and they will stare at you blankly. Corporations have been parasites on Big Government and the tax payer since the beginning. Their current war on government is based on the fact that they don't want to acknowledge their massive debt to society]

Do you know what happened once Reagan and Movement Conservatism took over the country in 1980? They said government couldn't do anything. [I'm surprised Reagan didn't doctor the history books to say the moon landing never happened because Big Government can't do anything]. Once Reagan convinced America that Government couldn't do anything, we stopped all the big projects that made this the Greatest Nation in history. No more Hoover Dams, no more grand infrastructure projects that put whole regions on the map. When Carter said we needed to build a moonshot around alternative energy to avoid getting bankrupted in the middle east -- bankrupted by the $5 gallon; bankrupted by having to stabilize places like Iraq and Afghanistan -- Reagan convinced the nation that the Government who defeated the Nazis wasn't fit to run a laundromat. Sorry Mr. Reagan, but Big Government put a man on the moon and lead the greatest manufacturing boom in history (see WWII war manufacturing, the largest government spending program in history, which laid the foundation for America's most sustained economic growth during the 50s and 60s) -- meaning: we could have gotten out of the middle east, but we chose to listen to a president who was funded by big oil, a president who chose to enrich special interests at the expense of future generations. We gave up on trying to solve big problems as a nation. Instead, we trusted the market, which chose to swindle the nation with CDOs, Swaps, and Derivatives rather than invest in the real economy. We got punk'd.

America swallowed poison in 1980 when it traded the Government who built the Hoover Dam for the government who trusted corporations to follow greed into whatever corrupt enclave yielded the highest short term profits. Who knew they would loot the treasury (by taking systemic criminal risk), and then use their loot to convince a generation of Conservatives that they stood for freedom.

Republican Voters know not what they do.

You are nutsy FAGIN.

 

[boedicca]

The system of government we have allowed the working people of this country, over time, to hold their own against the Capitalist money interests that would have happily impoverished them in perpetuity had they been able to.

That is the ultimate greatness of America and its Constitution.

Wow. Talk about the Heartbreak of Historical Illiteracy on Parade.

We didn't declare independence form Capitalist Moneyed Interests; we revolted against a Monarchy (a form of hereditary CRONYISM) and put in place a Rule of Law.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

The profits of Apple, Google, Ebay, Amazon, & Microsoft were made possible partly by the venture capital provided by government (the taxpayer) to develop the internet. Let's not even talk about the computer itself. (Pick your industry: Aerospace, oil, pharmaceutical, cellular technology, medicine, biotechnology, auto-manufacturing, and you will find tax payer subsidies, public-private partnerships, directly lead government R&D, federally funded university labs, Pentagon support, and bailouts. [Do you know how big the lobbying industry is?] Government also allocates resources to roads, water, dams, electricity, the justice system, and defense, i.e., profits are enabled partly by the Government allocation of money.

Unprecedented profits.

Yet, somehow, we have a bankrupt middle class tax payer. Why? Because he no longer recovers his investment in the corporate welfare state; because he no longer reaps the 'ol trickle down from the subsidies and bailouts he provides to wealthy share holders; he no longer reaps the benefits he received during the postwar years when there was sufficient revenue to invest in the public sector; when he received a livable wage, affordable education, affordable transportation, affordable health care, safe neighborhoods, great museums, public parks, after school programs for his kids, and affordable utilities . . . for his capital investment. The benefits which once accrued to that investment are now narrowly distributed to a small group of share holders)

Meaning: John Q Public is broke partly because our corporate captured government socializes the costs and risks of business, but privatizes the profits… as roads crumble, energy grids fail, and funding for our great public universities is cut (all the things Reagan said the market would take care of). Business enjoys unprecedented profits as the country which made it possible dies in the background. We were told that if more money accumulated on top, it would come back down in spades. Who knew that it would get stuffed into derivatives and oil futures? [I guess this makes sense. Why invest in the real economy if you no longer pay your workers enough money to buy stuff?] Who knew all this freedom talk was a hoax designed by capital to rob John Q in order to enrich the wealthy few? Who knew that they could so brilliantly funnel public money into private bank accounts? Who knew they could literally take over a political party. or convince a generation that they stood for freedom? Who knew the public was so gullible?

To answer your point: when you say that most of these technologies were developed in the private sector, I think you ignore the contribution of the taxpayer -- the contribution of the public, of the government allocation of funds and resources. This strategic omission of Government's role is done because the interests which have captured your media don't want to pay back the public for its investment.

Do you know how much taxpayer support Exxon gets from the military stabilization of the middle east? The point of movement conservatism (which has been fully captured by extremely narrow interests) is to cover up that support so government is powerless to recover the taxpayer's investment. It is the worst kind of welfare, but as long as Exxon invests in talk radio and greases enough shareholders, they will have armies who flock to the message boards and clog the debate.

Wrong.. ARPANET was developed at MIT and built on packet switching technology and the "Galactic Network" designed, and implement by J.C.R. Licklider again in the private sector. DARPA was only involved to the extent of its mission to stay ahead of the commies. MIT was the driving force, yet, DARPA was involved to a lesser extent.

 

[The T]

The system of government we have allowed the working people of this country, over time, to hold their own against the Capitalist money interests that would have happily impoverished them in perpetuity had they been able to.

That is the ultimate greatness of America and its Constitution.

Who the FUCK taught you the Constitution? Whomever they were? I hope they got fired for the injustice they perpetrated on you.

 

[KissMy]

When Carter said we needed to build a moonshot around alternative energy to avoid getting bankrupted in the middle east -- bankrupted by the $5 gallon; bankrupted by having to stabilize places like Iraq and Afghanistan -- Reagan convinced the nation that the Government who defeated the Nazis wasn't fit to run a laundromat... meaning: we could have gotten out of the middle east, but we chose to listen to a president who was funded by big oil, a president who chose to enrich special interests at the expense of future generations. We gave up on trying to solve big problems as a nation. Instead, we trusted the market, which chose to swindle the nation with CDOs, Swaps, and Derivatives rather than invest in the real economy. We got punk'd.

That's funny - On Farm Renewable Energy Production Shows Tremendous Growth over the past decade under President Bush. So much for your stupid republican bashing & Carter praising.

USDA Releases Results of On-Farm Renewable Energy Production Survey

The number of solar panels, wind turbines and methane digesters on America's farms and ranches has increased significantly over the past decade and there are now 8,569 operations producing their own renewable energy, according to the results of the 2009 On-Farm Renewable Energy Production Survey released today. Conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, this was the first-ever nationwide survey that looked at renewable energy practices on America's farms and ranches.

"These results indicate that farmers and ranchers are increasingly adopting renewable energy practices on their operations and reaping the important economic and environmental benefits," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "At USDA we are committed to natural resource conservation, prosperity and energy independence in rural America. This survey gives us a benchmark against which we can measure our future successes."

According to the survey results, solar panels were the most prominent way to produce on-farm energy. In 2009, farmers on 7,968 operations nationwide reported using photovoltaic and thermal solar panels. The use of wind turbines was reported by farmers on 1,420 operations across 48 states. The use of methane digesters was reported by 121 operations in 29 states.

 

[Londoner]

You are stating the reverse. You lay all the credit to government and ignore the fact that without the private sector none of the accomplishments would have happened.

This was not my intent. I agree with you.

when a government contractor is late or over budget, the government continues to pay the contractor. That is wrong. And that is why intelligent people want government out of the way. Government stifles and restricts by placing rules and regulations that are absent of logic and efficiency. Government piles on layer upon layer of bureaucracy in the name of protecting useless employment which drives costs to stratospheric levels.

To the degree that this is true - and I think it is true to varying degrees at every level of government - I don't think it warrants the extreme view that "government can't and shouldn't do anything". (Milton Friedman didn't even hold this view, nor did Adam Smith, who was quite clear on the need for a minimum level of rules and regulations.) This view clogs the debate as much as the view that government must control everything (which even Keynes didn't hold, not by a long shot). I think the extremes on both sides are used to protect special interests. I think talk radio holds one such extreme, which extreme has mislead a generation of people who, because they can't see the necessary partnership between public and private, can only clog the debate.

Example......New York City's Central Park has a skating(Wollman Rink) rink. The original facility was run down and in desperate need of repair. The City government lacked the financing and in entertaining bids was smothered with irritations such as union leaders wanting their piece of the pie, long time contractors who merely expected the job to go to them.
In steps Donald Trump. He essentially pushed the City out of the way. He told the city he could get it done faster and cheaper. The City government, under pressure from residents, caved. The rink was built in just a few months at half the cost of the bureaucratic method. Of course the contractors which the City normally used were incensed. Trump told them to pound sand.

I think your example perfectly illustrates the limits of government. But when you over-generalize this very real problem, you obscure [things like] the Hoover Dam, the Space Program, the government funded lab which makes important medical discoveries, or the fact that Giuliani used government (not the market) to fix the East Village. So... I would humbly like to introduce a nuance: anti-government sentiments are useful when they help us get behind a man like Trump, but they are dangerous when they obscure the important partnership between public and private wherein both sides play a vital role.

Which is to say: The trick is getting the partnership right, not clogging the debate with the extreme view that government should do everything or nothing. Each side has their tired anecdotes and narratives - I've got mine, you've got yours - but none of these anecdotes prove, IMHO, the extreme views they are often deployed for.

FYI: the point of the thread's extreme title is to draw out a position that is both naive and scary: government can't and shouldn't do anything. I think this does as much damage as the opposite view.

 

[8537]

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

The profits of Apple, Google, Ebay, Amazon, & Microsoft were made possible partly by the venture capital provided by government (the taxpayer) to develop the internet. Let's not even talk about the computer itself. (Pick your industry: Aerospace, oil, pharmaceutical, cellular technology, medicine, biotechnology, auto-manufacturing, and you will find tax payer subsidies, public-private partnerships, directly lead government R&D, federally funded university labs, Pentagon support, and bailouts. [Do you know how big the lobbying industry is?] Government also allocates resources to roads, water, dams, electricity, the justice system, and defense, i.e., profits are enabled partly by the Government allocation of money.

Unprecedented profits.

Yet, somehow, we have a bankrupt middle class tax payer. Why? Because he no longer recovers his investment in the corporate welfare state; because he no longer reaps the 'ol trickle down from the subsidies and bailouts he provides to wealthy share holders; he no longer reaps the benefits he received during the postwar years when there was sufficient revenue to invest in the public sector; when he received a livable wage, affordable education, affordable transportation, affordable health care, safe neighborhoods, great museums, public parks, after school programs for his kids, and affordable utilities . . . for his capital investment. The benefits which once accrued to that investment are now narrowly distributed to a small group of share holders)

Meaning: John Q Public is broke partly because our corporate captured government socializes the costs and risks of business, but privatizes the profits… as roads crumble, energy grids fail, and funding for our great public universities is cut (all the things Reagan said the market would take care of). Business enjoys unprecedented profits as the country which made it possible dies in the background. We were told that if more money accumulated on top, it would come back down in spades. Who knew that it would get stuffed into derivatives and oil futures? [I guess this makes sense. Why invest in the real economy if you no longer pay your workers enough money to buy stuff?] Who knew all this freedom talk was a hoax designed by capital to rob John Q in order to enrich the wealthy few? Who knew that they could so brilliantly funnel public money into private bank accounts? Who knew they could literally take over a political party. or convince a generation that they stood for freedom? Who knew the public was so gullible?

To answer your point: when you say that most of these technologies were developed in the private sector, I think you ignore the contribution of the taxpayer -- the contribution of the public, of the government allocation of funds and resources. This strategic omission of Government's role is done because the interests which have captured your media don't want to pay back the public for its investment.

Do you know how much taxpayer support Exxon gets from the military stabilization of the middle east? The point of movement conservatism (which has been fully captured by extremely narrow interests) is to cover up that support so government is powerless to recover the taxpayer's investment. It is the worst kind of welfare, but as long as Exxon invests in talk radio and greases enough shareholders, they will have armies who flock to the message boards and clog the debate.

Wrong.. ARPANET was developed at MIT and built on packet switching technology and the "Galactic Network" designed, and implement by J.C.R. Licklider again in the private sector. DARPA was only involved to the extent of its mission to stay ahead of the commies. MIT was the driving force, yet, DARPA was involved to a lesser extent.

MIT is a publicly-funded research institution. Any research towards ARPANET done at MIT was in large part publicly funded (that's government).

 

[Londoner]

Wrong.. ARPANET was developed at MIT

(help)

MIT is a publicly-funded research institution. Any research towards ARPANET done at MIT was in large part publicly funded (that's government).

Exactly. MIT's Lincoln Laboratory was practically a division of the defense department.

During the Cold War there was actually a remarkable synergy between government, business, and universities. If you look at the federally funded projects that came out of the California system alone, it melts your mind. This is not to mention the technological miracles (mostly in consumer electronics) that came out government spending through NASA. Government's role in what would become the 80s consumer electronic's boom, especially if you consider Pentagon & NASA R&D, cannot be underestimated.

Reagan -- a government spender like no other -- showered 15 billion on aerospace, electronics, and computer industries. He didn't sit idly by, trusting the market to move society in the right direction. He used the concentrated power of government not only to change this country, but he vastly expanded the reach of the Pentagon to 3rd world resource and labor markets, laying the foundation for Washington's "soft empire" of bases, designed to stabilize dangerous regions and protect the global flow of capital. He made Washington vastly larger and more powerful than the meek Carter could ever dream. He did it all by using the concentrated muscle of Big Government.

One can only imagine how many America cities or regions have Government spending to thank for their development -- and this isn't just Big Government infrastructure projects (which put whole regions on the map). It's defense contracts. Think of Orange Country during the Cold War. It doesn't end there. Colorado Springs, San Diego, central Florida, and Northern Virginia (to name just a few) saw growth in the 80s due to the massive defense contracts awarded by Reagan, one of the biggest Military Keynesians since FDR. This government spending lead to an explosion of economic activity starting with construction and all the feeder industries that benefited from suburban expansion.

Many voters are not told by their pundits how government spending has factored importantly into the exponential growth of this country. Even their own political heroes don't want them to know how much they use government to control the economy and move the nation. They hide the truth for very strategic reasons: they want to protect their corporate sponsors from having to repay the taxpayer for the research, technology, and funding he has contributed to the profits currently enjoyed by a narrow group of shareholders.

It is unbelievable that a political movement has succeeded in fooling this many people about the role of government in the development of this country, and the profits made therein.

 

[KissMy]

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

The profits of Apple, Google, Ebay, Amazon, & Microsoft were made possible partly by the venture capital provided by government (the taxpayer) to develop the internet. Let's not even talk about the computer itself. (Pick your industry: Aerospace, oil, pharmaceutical, cellular technology, medicine, biotechnology, auto-manufacturing, and you will find tax payer subsidies, public-private partnerships, directly lead government R&D, federally funded university labs, Pentagon support, and bailouts. [Do you know how big the lobbying industry is?] Government also allocates resources to roads, water, dams, electricity, the justice system, and defense, i.e., profits are enabled partly by the Government allocation of money.

Unprecedented profits.

Yet, somehow, we have a bankrupt middle class tax payer. Why? Because he no longer recovers his investment in the corporate welfare state; because he no longer reaps the 'ol trickle down from the subsidies and bailouts he provides to wealthy share holders; he no longer reaps the benefits he received during the postwar years when there was sufficient revenue to invest in the public sector; when he received a livable wage, affordable education, affordable transportation, affordable health care, safe neighborhoods, great museums, public parks, after school programs for his kids, and affordable utilities . . . for his capital investment. The benefits which once accrued to that investment are now narrowly distributed to a small group of share holders)

Meaning: John Q Public is broke partly because our corporate captured government socializes the costs and risks of business, but privatizes the profits… as roads crumble, energy grids fail, and funding for our great public universities is cut (all the things Reagan said the market would take care of). Business enjoys unprecedented profits as the country which made it possible dies in the background. We were told that if more money accumulated on top, it would come back down in spades. Who knew that it would get stuffed into derivatives and oil futures? [I guess this makes sense. Why invest in the real economy if you no longer pay your workers enough money to buy stuff?] Who knew all this freedom talk was a hoax designed by capital to rob John Q in order to enrich the wealthy few? Who knew that they could so brilliantly funnel public money into private bank accounts? Who knew they could literally take over a political party. or convince a generation that they stood for freedom? Who knew the public was so gullible?

To answer your point: when you say that most of these technologies were developed in the private sector, I think you ignore the contribution of the taxpayer -- the contribution of the public, of the government allocation of funds and resources. This strategic omission of Government's role is done because the interests which have captured your media don't want to pay back the public for its investment.

Do you know how much taxpayer support Exxon gets from the military stabilization of the middle east? The point of movement conservatism (which has been fully captured by extremely narrow interests) is to cover up that support so government is powerless to recover the taxpayer's investment. It is the worst kind of welfare, but as long as Exxon invests in talk radio and greases enough shareholders, they will have armies who flock to the message boards and clog the debate.

Wrong.. ARPANET was developed at MIT and built on packet switching technology and the "Galactic Network" designed, and implement by J.C.R. Licklider again in the private sector. DARPA was only involved to the extent of its mission to stay ahead of the commies. MIT was the driving force, yet, DARPA was involved to a lesser extent.

MIT is a publicly-funded research institution. Any research towards ARPANET done at MIT was in large part publicly funded (that's government).

The US Government had little to do with inventing the internet.
It was gradually built up of private sector inventions.

- 1830: Joseph Henry independently demonstrated long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike. Thus the electric telegraph was born.

- 1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone in his own private business with financial support from Sanders and Hubbard.

- 1880: Alexander Graham Bell invented the "Photo-phone" which transmitted a voice signal on a beam of light in his own private business.

- 1888: The medical team of Roth and Reuss of Vienna used bent glass rods to illuminate body cavities.

- 1900: Granville T. Woods working for Danville and Southern Railroad in Nebraska invented the Multiplex Telegraph.

- 1920: John Logie Baird and Clarence W. Hansell patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television and facsimiles respectively.

- 1940: George Robert Stibitz of Bell Labs invent the data modem that allowed computers to communicate over telephone lines.

- 1947: W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile phones.

- 1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.

- 1960: Bell Labs developed the electronics for cellular phones.

- 1960: The network switch idea was Leonard Kleinrock's of MIT galactic network. In addition to Kleinrock the ideas from Licklider and Robert Taylor helped create the idea of the network.

- 1962: US government DARPA & Project MAC funded a cooperation between Bell Labs, General Electric and MIT with an initial two-million-dollar grant to create ARPA net. At 22:30 hours on October 29, 1969. The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute

- 1970: Corning Glass researchers Robert Maurer, Donald Keck and Peter Schultz invented fiber optic wire or "Optical Waveguide Fibers"

- 1974: Xerox PARC developed the first TCP/IP specification & gateway router. Where the differences between network protocols were hidden by using a common internetwork protocol, and, instead of the network being responsible for reliability, as in the ARPANET, the hosts became responsible.

- 1981: Xerox PARC developed the first graphical user interface (GUI), touch screen monitor & laser mouse. This was adopted by Apple OS & Microsoft Windows.

- 1982: Several disjointed separate packet-switched networks including ARPANET, Telenet, X.25, unix-to-unix copy (UUCP) and FidoNet had limited gateways between networks. This led to the implementation of Xerox's TCP/IP Gateway Router protocol for internetworking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet Protocol Suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of internetworking began to form into the idea of a global network that would be called the Internet, based on standardized protocols officially implemented. Adoption and interconnection occurred quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard for the global network.

- 1983: TCP/IP protocols even replaced NCP as ARPANET’s principal protocol.

- 1990: The inferior ARPANET was formally decommissioned.

 

[skeptic]

Big government built this country

and built China

and the Roman empire

And the USSR

and the British empire

and Khan's empire

Big government built Japan, Greece, Spain, France, Germany

Small government built the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan

 

[skeptic]

Wrong.. ARPANET was developed at MIT and built on packet switching technology and the "Galactic Network" designed, and implement by J.C.R. Licklider again in the private sector. DARPA was only involved to the extent of its mission to stay ahead of the commies. MIT was the driving force, yet, DARPA was involved to a lesser extent.

MIT is a publicly-funded research institution. Any research towards ARPANET done at MIT was in large part publicly funded (that's government).

The US Government had little to do with inventing the internet.
It was gradually built up of private sector inventions.

- 1830: Joseph Henry independently demonstrated long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike. Thus the electric telegraph was born.

- 1876: Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone in his own private business with financial support from Sanders and Hubbard.

- 1880: Alexander Graham Bell invented the "Photo-phone" which transmitted a voice signal on a beam of light in his own private business.

- 1888: The medical team of Roth and Reuss of Vienna used bent glass rods to illuminate body cavities.

- 1900: Granville T. Woods working for Danville and Southern Railroad in Nebraska invented the Multiplex Telegraph.

- 1920: John Logie Baird and Clarence W. Hansell patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television and facsimiles respectively.

- 1940: George Robert Stibitz of Bell Labs invent the data modem.

- 1947: W. Rae Young and Douglas H. Ring, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile phones.

- 1948: Phil Porter, a Bell Labs engineer, proposed that cell towers be at the corners of the hexagons rather than the centers and have directional antennas pointing in 3 directions.

- 1960: Bell Labs developed the electronics for cellular phones

- 1960: The network switch idea was Leonard Kleinrock's of MIT galactic network. In addition to Kleinrock the ideas from Licklider and Robert Taylor helped create the idea of the network.

- 1962: US government DARPA & Project MAC funded a cooperation between Bell Labs, General Electric and MIT with an initial two-million-dollar grant to create ARPA net.

- 22:30 hours on October 29, 1969. The first ARPANET link was established between the University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute

- 1970 Corning Glass researchers Robert Maurer, Donald Keck and Peter Schultz invented fiber optic wire or "Optical Waveguide Fibers"

what a crock of shit. The internet was invented entirely by the Pentagon. ARPANET - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia