zlacker

>>karako+(OP)
As a taxpayer I'm tired of funding everyone's project. Especially in private institutions which have billions under management and are ran like hedge funds, and not increasing their intake. Time to fix the deficit and kill off our debt.

If the rebuttal is "yeah but advancements improve the economy" -- The private sector can fund projects which are opportunities with an economic basis, they can take the risk and they can see if it is profitable in the market (ie beneficial)

If the rebuttal is "How will America stay competitive?" We cant seem to keep trade secrets anyways. [1]

[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950

Edit: Also the 4 years at a time thing is probably a better choice too, because it makes them less twitchy politically. You get your 4 years, regardless of who's team is in office. This should be a win regardless of your affiliation.

>>maerF0+ym
How are we going to produce all of the basic research that is non-excludable & non-rival? What incentive do companies have to produce results like this?

The biotech industry is already tricky, with long lag times and a low probability of success. More risk just increases the discount rate and lowers the present value, making it an even less appealing investment.

>>biophy+Ao
Capital will seek the best opportunities, let's keep the incentive structure sane. Which means first tackling the biggest problems, with the highest probability of success, for the most people. As the opportunity space is explored or saturated, we'll move on to lower EROI opportunities. By getting the highest EROI initially we'l be richer still for chasing down philanthropic spaces (for the opportunities which do not make economic sense, but make moral, humanitarian sense)

>>maerF0+ys
Capital seeks the best opportunities, like deliberately lying about asbestos in baby powder, producing fraudulent research and continuing to profit off poisoning individuals.

>>fzeror+ku
Don't forget tobacco companies lying about cancer and oil and gas companies hiding climate change research.

>>milton+lz
Sure, but that is an issue of ethics and regulation. Fraud is illegal and should be punished proportionally to it's effects.

>>maerF0+mD
Who got punished for the J&J asbestos issue? Who got punished for cigarettes and their deceptive advertising? And how badly did the Sacklers get slapped for causing the opioid epidemic?

If you're making the argument that they should be punished proportionally to their effects then all of these cases should result in the individuals being jailed for life at bare minimum and their assets forfeited. Yet this hasn't happened. Why?

>>fzeror+FK
I can't answer why, but I would suggest it has very little to do with the government spending on research, or in the way it allocates it annually vs 4 year blocks.

I have noted in the past that I do enjoy how intense the FTC and other consumer protection style agencies get when Democrats run the whitehouse, ideally companies would behave because if they dont the institution that has a monopoly on violence will club em really good, so to speak. IMO Citizens united and the way we fund the political game has broken the incentives to being a company on good merit rather than on legalized corruption.

>>maerF0+yR
Yet you ignore that when the Republicans are in power (they are very well supported by capitalist interests) they try to slash all the regulations - because money only cares about money and wants more money. And the money LOVES corruption because it gets you more money.

Capitalism without regulation is gangsterism. With regulation it's barely-controlled gangsterism.

>>Quercu+4S
I would particularly agree with you when it comes to money's influence in the political process. Definitely need limitations on spending, or something like Andrew Yang's idea (i heard it from him) -- give every American $N to give to their political candidate of choice, it would wash out the EROI of non democratically backed interest groups