Surely you do not know what we are talking about because the government has built the infrastructure and researched the technologies which private companies are making massive profits off of today. Internet? GPS? The next frontier in private investment in space NASA has been at the forefront of space since the beginning. Hybrid and electric vehicles and renewable technologies? The government has had a big hand in that, agriculture and farming? The government has been involved in that for years and no not every heavily regulated gsociety turns into an authoritarian regime. Most developed nations of the world are much more heavily regulated than ours, Great Britian, France, Japan, Australia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. People in these countries are much higher educated and have much less poverty and violence than here and none of them are communists, fascists, dictatorships or authoritarian.
Correction.... the Military funded those projects. You know, the military that you people on the left constantly demand is cut, to fund entitlements.
Yes, the military has funded some research that became commercially viable products. I agree.
Out of the billions of products and services in the world, I highly doubt that a significant amount is government funded.
While I do know that government has given billions to the rich and wealthy, supposedly for Hybrid and EV development, I have yet to find any evidence that anything substantive came from it.
However, this is yet another case of unintended consequences. This is something I just do not understand why you people on the left, don't grasp.
Any time you make a system to hand out money, people are going to change how they act, to get that money. There was a story locally about a lady that had $70 thousand more than the maximum amount of money, to qualify for Medicaid Nursing home. So... she bought a $70 Cadillac, and then she qualified. Medicaid recipients are allowed one vehicle that is not counted.
In Hawaii, they introduced a program that any child not covered by health insurance, would be covered by the state for free. Suddenly thousands of people canceled their insurance coverage for their kids, and thus qualified for the gov-insurance. The system started going broke, and was revoked in months.
If I setup a table outside, with a sign "free food to anyone with a yellow shirt, and pink flip flops" within a day... there would be people lined up around my condo, wearing yellow shirts and pink flip flops.
People change how they live, to get the free goodies. It happens all the time. Same is true of government funded research.
Case and point, I worked at a local company, near where I live here in Hilliard Ohio, called Vanner Inc.
I worked at this company back in 2008. Now this is a great company to work for. At the company meetings, they bring out everyone, and post all the numbers, all the information, go through all their projects, pretty much everything. So in 2008, we had the company meeting, one of the projects they announced was a power system for hybrid buses. Our customers were asking for this product, so the demand already existed.
So 2009 rolls around, and the company meeting comes up, and the CEO lists all the projects they have, on the screen the Hybrid Bus power system project... was shelved.
Now as you might imagine, I am not afraid to question my employer, even if I'm the newest employee making $10/hr in the back. I stood up and ask what's up with that project?
As it turns out, they decided to put the project on hold, and instead write grants to get Federal Funding.
Something changed between mid 2008, and mid 2009, namely Obama won the election, and started talking about 'green energy research'. So the company, the CEO and executives, decided not to spend their own money to fund R&D for a product they would have built anyway, but rather spend nothing, and have the Tax Payers foot the bill.
See, again, like I said before, you people on the left... are the party of the rich and wealthy. Here a company was going to build the product anyway. But because you leftist Democrats were offering money... they didn't pay for it, and instead soaked the tax payers.
But this is true all over the economy. Hundreds of corporations do this, especially the big ones. They all change how they operate, to collect more government cash.
And I'll be completely honest, I don't blame them. *YOU* are the people giving out the money. This is *YOUR* fault. Them taking advantage of the stupidity you push, is not their fault.
In fact, if I had found out that I qualify for food stamps when I was looking up that information a few days back, I would have applied for food stamps. Absolutely I would. I'll take anything you are stupid enough to give me! If you want to send money to my paypal account right now, by all means. aekle*[email protected]. Send me every dollar you want! I'll take your cash.