Biotech is a great example. YAXPAYERS funded a lot of the basic research, but industry has pored tens of billions of dollars into more applied research before a dime of profit was made. Remember the “biotech stock bubble” that occurred before the “internet stock bubble”?

I ask because 100% of the research upon which the biotechnology industry was funded by TAXPAYERS throughout the world. Watson & Crick’s explication of DNA’s structure and function was 100% TAXPAYER funded. My dad’s and Matt Meselson’s “most beautiful experiment in biology,” confirming semi-conservative replication was 100% TAXPAYER funded. These and the other secrets of life discoveries are the foundation of almost everything our economy produces related to medicine and agriculture.

Yes, you did build that…

But the best part is that you didn’t show the shift to private has better outcomes (hint: your last link disparages R&D pssst…reading comprehension), and your David, Hall and Toole ref doesn’t support your implict assertion.

That is: you didn’t show an increase in welfare or returns to investment :: GDP or cost savings or or or just because the government hasn’t increased R&D expenditure at the rate of private.

Thaaaanks! Brilliant again!

DS

My late grandfather owned a place on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay for many years, and had a cat named Frank, who got that name because this cat always had a very frank expression on his face.

I certainly have met some other people here personally (including The Antiplanner and Jim).

Challenging the ideas (and ideologies) of posts (and the persons that post the posts) is fine. Calling Frank names – not so fine.

I don’t see any reason to back down; conservatism and libertarianism, in the end, are nothing but ideologies designed to bestow undeserved legitimacy to the entrenched oligarchies that have oppressed mankind for thousands of years since the first civilization was established by men with swords and spears. This ongoing battle is also part and parcel with the need to constantly oppose the knee jerk opposition that The Antiplanner and similar pundits have against rail transit in any form.

I am not especially a fan of the 1% in this country, including specifically members of the 1% club like the Koch boys, Rupert Murdoch and Sheldon Adelson. I usually vote for Democrats, and will almost certainly cast my vote for President Obama in November, not because I approve of his transportation policies (I don’t), his environmental policies (I don’t), or his efforts to promote the latest “urban renewal” schemes (I don’t), but because I dislike the other party so much more for reasons beyond the scope of this blog.

I do not worship mass transit and efforts to force people to live in higher residential densities (frequently because it fits someone’s egalitarian view of what our urban and suburban areas are supposed to look like). Far too often, I have seen such efforts result in what The Antiplanner calls planning disasters. Even worse, these schemes are often loudly and enthusiastically promoted by persons (sometimes including elected officials) living in large-lot single-family detached housing located far from any form of transit.

And here’s a juicy morsel:

Although most people believe that government R&D activities contribute to innovation and productivity, many economists and policymakers have grown frustrated with the paucity of systematic statistical evidence documenting a direct contribution from public R&D. The burden of econometric findings concerning the productivity growth effects of R&D seems to be that there is a significantly positive and relatively high rate of return to R&D investments at both the private and social levels. Yet, quite generally, privately funded R&D in manufacturing industries is found to yield a substantial premium over the rates of return from “own productivity improvements” derived from R&D performed with government funding.

Let me break this down for those with low reading comprehension and/or ideological blinders.

1. There is little or no evidence documenting a direct contribution of government R&D. (If you have some, perhaps you can provide that. If not, you’re the one snorting the fairy dust.)

2. In manufacturing (such as manufacturing solar panels), privately funded R&D has a higher rate of return than R&D performed with government funding.

Also, spending more on R&D won’t drive results.

Now, you can either keep spewing your unsupported, ideological garbage and insults, or you can respond levelly with evidence and reasoning. I’m no longer going to respond to the former. It and you are a waste of keystrokes.