So your argument is that I MUST believe in total government control. How tiny of you.
Government plays a critical role in our nation's entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are often presented with a false dichotomy between public vs. private, when in fact our most successful startups likely wouldn't exist without a stable, proactive federal government. For example:
- Almost all research into the fundamental sciences is government funded. With few exceptions, the private sector only becomes engaged after the potential for commercialization is clear. The internet itself only exists because of government funding, and the most revolutionary changes in our lifetimes, from gene therapy to quantum computation, will depend on government.
- Complete horseshit. Every company engaged in the manufacture of scientific products, from medical equipment to electronics to pharmaceutical, automotive, industrial and on and on and on is constantly researching, developing and pushing technology forwards. They are not doing it for government, some may, where hired to do so but most companies are not engaged in government contracts.
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Startups routinely rely on government small business grants. Angel investors and VCs rarely invest in companies without traction, and many of our most intelligent entrepreneurs can't build prototypes of their innovations on their own.
You forgot to support the assertion. I have 28 years experience in working for small business, many thousands over the years. None of them relied on any government involvement. Grants only come into play for politically correct startups like in the "green energy" field.
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[*]Government is often the first customer for technology companies. We have been able to demonstrate the value of WegoWise much more clearly to the private sector because of our success with Massachusetts' affordable housing sector.
LOL. Give me a break. Some company is in bed with a state government and that's proof to you that government is first in line for technology.
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[*]The government often allows entire markets to exist by providing consumers with better information. The efficiency sector is a great example of how this can work. Consider energy star certification for appliances or MPG ratings for cars: government action resulted in consumers demanding more efficient products, leading to increased market activity. We believe the local benchmarking ordinances
being passed across the country are
another example of government's role as a market enabler through information.
Companies wouldn't be competing with more efficient appliances with government star ratings? Let's look at the CAFE standards, the government leans on companies to put higher mpg cars on the road with regulation independent of technological advancements so the companies are forced to comply with autos with undersized motors and/or bodies that are so light that more people die in crashes. The smug liberal doesn't give a shit, that much is clear. I got off easy by only losing a motor on a GM SUV, every mechanic said they all failed the same way, motor too small for the body. GM did it to meet the artificial stands big government set down.
- Even those companies that don't rely at all on the public sector for incubating and growing their ideas often do depend on other companies whose existence is predicated on a supportive public sector. Thus, an effect on one company in the chain affects many more who depend upon it.
- Government incubating and growing ideas for the private sector? That's a religious belief, you have more faith than I do. I've worked for many government agencies, federal, state and local and encountered a disproportionate amout of dead weight, sloths and people that are unemployable in the private sector.
You have it all bass ackwards. The government needs business to function, business only needs government to take care of the basics, infrastructure, security, emergency. Business started and grew long before government developed into the monster it is today. Less government is the best thing that could possibly happen to the private sector. AND thereby, the economy.
Well we are about to find out, and it will prove you are regressive pea brain. You have the business awareness and acumen of a gnat.
The coming R&D crash
Washington Post
One of the few things Republicans and Democrats have been able to agree on in recent years is that the government
should be spending more on basic scientific research — the sort of research that, in the past, has played a role in everything from mapping the human genome to laying the groundwork for the Internet.
"Government funding for basic science has been declining for years,” Mitt Romney wrote in his 2010 book
No Apology. "It needs to grow instead." In his most recent State of the Union address, President Obama sounded a similar note: "Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the space race."
So it's notable that the exact opposite is, in fact, about to occur. Thanks to budget pressures and the looming sequester cuts, federal R&D spending
is set to stagnate in the coming decade. The National Institutes of Health's budget is scheduled to drop
7.6 percent in the next five years. Research programs in energy, agriculture and defense will decline by similar amounts. NASA's research budget is on pace to drop to its lowest level since 1988.
As a result, scientists and other technology analysts are warning that the United States could soon lose its edge in scientific research — and that the private sector won't necessarily be able to pick up the slack.
"If you look at total R&D growth, including the corporate and government side, the U.S. is now at the low end," says Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). "We're seeing other countries, from Germany to Korea to China, make much bigger bets. And if that persists for long enough, it's going to have an impact."
At its peak in 2009, the federal government
funded some 31 percent of all R&D in the country, with private firms and universities financing the rest. The array of federal programs is staggering, from semiconductor work at the Pentagon to climate-change research at NOAA to clinical trials for cancer at the National Institutes for Health. About half of the spending here is "basic" research and half "applied" research.
Yet as a
recent report from ITIF explains, this landscape is set to shift now that Congress is putting strict limits on discretionary spending. If the sequester spending cuts take effect on Mar. 1, total spending on research and development will drop to 2007 levels and grow only slowly thereafter (
below, black line). Federal R&D spending will decline sharply as a share of GDP:
You ignorant right wing turds are the embodiment of Robert Frost's hired man...inviting the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."
