Can Manned Spaceflight Save the Economy? 224
Barry asks: "Driving home last night I was listening to a particularly goofy AM talk station. Just before the syndicated UFO talk show 'Strange Days... Indeed' came on, the discussion turned to the Mars Rovers and George Bush's newfound love of space exploration. The interesting thought was that a large number of American political leaders were about to join Bush in endorsing a new manned space program because it would generate 'millions of jobs'. Given that manufacturing jobs are being shipped offshore, and high tech jobs are following, this almost made sense. A primarily unemployed population could mean big trouble. So I am wondering how many people were employed during the height of NASA's glory days, and what kind of economic impact would we expect if a similar program - a Mars mission for example - were launched today?"
ummm flawed logic? (Score:4, Insightful)
CharlesP
CharlesP
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:3, Interesting)
OP: Your answer (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK2003031 6 S0 003
In New Mexico, the unemployment insurance department recently paid (some offshore (India) outsourcing company) $6 million for an online unemployment-claims system. How ironic is that, spending taxpayer money on a system to handle the growing number
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is always a finite amount of money in the system, not everyone has it at one time. NASA give out a $1e9 contract. Company A wins it. Company A subcontracts certain aspects of the contract to companies B and C. Now, companies B + C buy frobs and gizmos from company D, E, and F. Now, what happens here? Companies A-F all prosper as they have people needing their goods and services, and the employees of said companies prosper, as they have jobs. Life is good. *waves little flag*
If you ever have a chance, take a course in macroeconomics, take it, really interesting stuff.
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:3, Informative)
Spend money we don't have to go where there is... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Something about the multiplayer effect always smelled like bullshit to me..."
Any lie to get re-elected.
Borrowing money from our children may be a good strategy in times of extreme emergency. Borrowing money to explore dirt and rocks in space is not an extreme emergency.
Re:Spend money we don't have to go where there is. (Score:2)
Humm...
My children are to young to work, thus they have no money. That being the case then there is no way for me, or anybody else to borrow money from them.
Re:Spend money we don't have to go where there is. (Score:2)
My children are to young to work, thus they have no money. That being the case then there is no way for me, or anybody else to borrow money from them.
Not quite literally true, but truer than you assume..
To raise money, governments can sell bonds to investors for a given price, which are redeemable for a certain greater price at some given future date. When they come due, the difference has to be paid back - if your generation is retired by then, the next generation will be paying for that through taxe
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
Also, people might do well to understand the concept of velocity [investopedia.com] of money which deals with the same idea, namely how much and how quickly money gets passed around.
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
>
> Maybe it was the lack of a frictionless economy.
Well, at least until you get into grad school, space exploration is just a series of physics problems.
So assume a uniform, spherical frictionless economy... :)
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it will be beneficial economically - at root, economic growth comes from using and accessing raw materials in a more efficient way. You actually have to come up with better ways of doing things and making things.
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually NASA in the 60's and 70's at the height of their spending was great for the economy...Lots of cool stuff was developed that has found it's way into YOUR house. Everything from ink pens, to velcro, to advanced methods of metallurgy [which you don't see, but companies that make your stuff do] Another real push for a space program would do wonders for US technology...as long as it was prevented from being outsourced!
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:3)
Then there's the intangible benefits of a national research and exploratory mi
Re: finite amount of money? (Score:2)
Of course, she did jail time not long afterwards so maybe her comments should be taken with a bucket of salt.
Re: finite amount of money? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:3, Informative)
No, they wouldn't.
In any standard macro model, the size of the economy is the sum of all goods and services produced, not the size of the money supply. Production requires labor and capital, both of which may be enhanced by "technology" (which doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to an economist that it does to an engineer). Money is a convenient medium of exchange, and a nice way to measure things, but has value on
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
Worked for FDR! (Score:2)
I wonder if the Egyptians had these problems building the pyramids?
Hrmm... is it? (Score:2)
You don't give yourself enough credit (Score:2)
An issue which compounds the effect you speak of is that the government spends all of it's tax revenue, where almost all consumers have a marginal propensity to save, meaning that most consumers save roughly the same percentage of their income (not meaning from person to person variations are
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bush hasn't proposed raising the NASA budget by 100% or something. He has proposed raising it by about 5%, and REDIRECTING funds internally toward the GOAL of returning to the moon, and later going to Mars. He has proposed replacing the shuttle with an Apollo-like capsule system and an upper stage payload system, like Saturn provided, freeing up the 3.5 BILLION spent per year on the shuttles. That money would be used toward development of NEW technology, rather than maintaining and refitting the 1970 era shuttles.
So, we are talking about 5% growth in the NASA budget, which already is pretty small in the overal federal budget, and moving existing funds around to more productive uses, uses which would promote research and development of new technology.
Sounds QUITE reasonable to me, and it actually gives NASA a MISSION again, as opposed to being some low orbit trucking company.
Larry
Re:ummm flawed logic? (Score:2)
Lunar penal colony? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Lunar penal colony? (Score:2)
Actually that makes it easier. Consider that all of earth is less than 15 degrees wide when seen from the moon, that makes less error than many muslims probably have when facing Mecca today!
Re:Lunar penal colony? (Score:2)
Re:Lunar penal colony? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lunar penal colony? (Score:2)
http://www.thuraya.com/products/prayertime_mark
Oxygen? (Score:2)
Tom Ridge: "You know, we forgot to supply oxygen to that prison camp on the moon."
Bush: "Oxygen? Why would they want to watch Oprah Winfrey?"
A new solution! (Score:2, Funny)
On the other hand, if it fails to do anything, they could just use the newly developed technology to shoot the unemployed into space!
rediculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:rediculous (Score:2, Flamebait)
This way, Lord Bush will still be ruling by 2050.
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
And if he manages to cut a few friends in on the lucrative research contracts along the way, its all just gravy:
Re:rediculous (Score:3, Interesting)
So far I've just seen rhetoric; not any solid plans, nor any way to prevent this getting eaten by the scum-sucking administrative hordes.
For some reason, it reminds me of Reagan and the ISS announcement.
Sigh.
SB
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
To say nothing of Florida (home of NASA's launch facility and Gov. Jeb Bush) and Texas (home of Mission Control and the rest of the Bush clan).
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
You forget, NASA was not the army of Administrators in JFK's time that it is now.
Come on, now, if Bush seriously believed in what he's said, why didn't he announce this initiative when he took office, and not at the beginning of the next election year?
SB
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
Re:rediculous (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. I think Kennedy got the credit he deserved for establishing his challenge to put a man on the Moon in the 1960's. I don't ever recall hearing Nixon being the Moonshot President because he happened to be in office when the event finally occurred.
There is no doubt that there could be a political motivation for doing this, but the potential for applied science and engineering is incredible... far more than anyone who doesn't follow the Space Program closely would ever realize.
However, to suggest that Bush is doing this to score points with the electorate is pretty naive. Hell, I would bet a majority of people believe that silly Fox TV show calling into question that the original Moon landings ever happened.
Remember, a large portion of the population still believes in things like horoscopes, the psychic hotline, and the daVinci code. We are not, as a whole, very good at critical thinking.
Re:rediculous (Score:2)
Listen to Bush, I'm sure that every English teacher is hating him/her self.
Re:ridiculous (Score:2)
It is a reason to despair when allegedly educated native speakers of American English in 2004 use language differently than the standards I learned in 1974. That's a big difference. I get a little tired of the "language is defined as solely how we use it crowd"... why then do we teach grammar? If there is no standard then we can
Re:A whole lot more? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or have we forgotten about him?
Comparison with military spending (Score:2)
Both seem to have similar requirements as regards research and specialised engineering. Both historically have a reputation for a lot of bureaucractic overhead and paying inflated prices for equipment. Indeed, I believe they use many of the same subcontractors.
So, making the possibly unjustified assumption that the relation of spending to jobs created is linear, and us
Re:Comparison with military spending (Score:2)
Well, not quite. Remember that the vast majority of military spending goes to mundane things like salaries, fuel, food, and the like. This doesn't affect the economy any differently than anyone else spending money on those things, and it's actually worse for the economy if it's the government doing the spending, since the tax rate effectively reduces the mean return
Wrong headline! (Score:5, Funny)
Can Manned Spaceflight Save George Bush?
Re:Wrong headline! (Score:2)
If it means a job for me as an astronaut, the man can have my vote.
Re:Wrong headline! (Score:3, Funny)
As long as I don't have to call him "Scotty"; I'd not insult Mr. Doohan so badly.
(nevermind the underbreath cursing
SB
Re:Wrong headline! (Score:2)
Re:Wrong headline! (Score:2, Funny)
Save Manned Spaceflight. Can George Bush!
Re:Wrong headline! (Score:2, Funny)
sure, why not? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, tax cuts and massive spending don't work. And private industry is unlikely to go into space anytime soon--it's not profitable.
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
Yeah, like welfare spending has. Or the massive expenditures on the "War Against Drugs".
I do agree with you about the Bush admin and war spending, tho.
SB
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
- reduce industry spending on energy and resources
- gain an advantage in low resource use over other countries.
- stimulate the economy with gouvernment spending
Beter to save millions of species on ea
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
Or something to that effect.
Re:sure, why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Only if you can make the assumption that an individual in his or her capacity as a government official is a near-perfect economic decision maker, yet that same individual in the capacity of a private citizen is nearly entirely incompetent to make economic decisions. Otherwise, there's no basis for not leaving the money in the hands of the taxpayers and letting them spend it how they please.
Governments are nearly always massively inefficient. After all, they have no incentive to improve. A company that is profligate with its resources will quickly go bankrupt, a government merely has to ratchet the taxes up a little higher. Now you say "if the citizens are willing" but that's very elastic: a citizen prepared to pay say 30% of income in taxes for the "greater good" might well feel very differently if the government decided it wanted 60% or 90%*. But the government is fully incentivized to increase taxes, not to spend the money better.
We see a similar problem in the UK at the moment. There is a lot of fuss over private (fee-paying) versus State (taxpayer-funded) schools - the quality of the former so outstrips the latter that the government is even artificially making university admissions harder for the privately-educated (rather than improving its own schools). But it turns out, if you do the accounting, that State schools actually cost the same or more per student than a private school! The money is just soaked up in government inefficiency. The same is true for the NHS, where the present government has managed to increase the number of medical staff by 15% and the number of managers by 45%.
The way to economic prosperity is to cut both taxes and governemnt spending, so those that earned the money directly control how its spent. This has worked in every economy that has tried it.
And private industry is unlikely to go into space anytime soon--it's not profitable.
I'm sure the same was said of expeditions to explore the world's oceans.
* This is not unheard of - in 1979 in the UK the top rate of income tax was 83%, with an extra 15% charge if the money was from investments rather than salary. That's a total of 98% tax! No wonder that economy collapsed in the "Winter of Discontent" and a new service-based economy emerged!
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
Government isn't perfect but it's perfectly capable of doing things well.
How about we take a different perspective on tax. The economy runs best when its components are all running as close to maximum utilisation as possible and there's minimal slack. So how do we account for poor people who would c
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
The level of welfare spending in the UK at the moment is such that you could just give every man, woman and child in the country GBP 3000 (USD 5400 approx) every year, no questions asked. That works out as very nearly the current average household income! There is a vast amount of cash floating around, but it's not being spent on creatin
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
GBP 3,000 is much smaller than the average income in the UK, which was GBP 23,607 [guardian.co.uk] in 2002, somewhat above the GBP 3,000 you quote. (This is an average, but given that the minimum wage [dti.gov.uk] is at least GBP 3.80 per hour (GBP 4.50 for those over 21), and as
Re:sure, why not? (Score:3, Informative)
Let's say 2 adults, 2 children that's GBP 12,000. The figure of approx GBP 23,000 you quote is before income tax, national insurance, council tax and all the other various taxes levied by various parts of the government. They can easily eat up half of your income.
Surely, that depends whether you are unemployed, sick, disabled, mentally ill or living in poor accommodation, do
Re:sure, why not? (Score:2)
What you suggest is extreme right-wing economics. The government would no almost nothing, and people would use their own money. What would occur is companies providing services (including education, healthcare, etc) instead of the government. Sure you get competition in the services but if you ha
Re:sure, why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are assuming one earner per household. While this might have been true in the 1970s, it certainly isn't true today.
I agree, but the proportion of income paid in tax by a low income earner is smaller than that paid by a high income earn
Re:sure, why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
One reason that public enterprise sometimes seems more inefficient is because unlike private enterprise, it cannot choose to service only profitable customers. This is evident in the schol systems, where publicly-run or -subsidized schools must deal with the hardest educational cases, such as children with disabilities. Ano
Re:sure, why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that's not generally true; typically students at private schools are enrolled there as boarders because their rich parents want to be rid of them until they're adults and hopefully have something interesting to say. Maybe that's different outside the UK.
The rich often pay less a percentage of their incomes than the poor or middle class, when
Re: Boy, ain't that the truth! (Score:2)
High-tech welfare (Score:2)
Only if it feeds back (Score:5, Interesting)
If the US intends to maintain its lead, rather then "sink" into a parity position with many countries (by staying relatively stagnant while other countries catch up), this is probably the biggest win that is feasible. (Note that everybody really ought to be rooting for this, even non-Americans, because if the US is rising, so is everybody else in absolute terms; without somebody leading the way I'm fearful we could all end up stagnating together. Yes, some other country could take over but the US could take over more quickly; for a real-life tech example of this, note how quickly IBM because the largest Linux company.) It's worth a try.
In this sense, its utility as an economy saver will be directly related to how deliberately it is run with this idea in mind, to be bold, to deliberately ask private companies to produce technologies and benefit from them, etc.
To the extent that this is run like NASA, it may not be a waste but it will not be an "economy saving" gain.
So, it depends on how its run. As is too often the case, if it is run too "selfishly" (too much focus on the short-term gain), it will be useless. But if it is run well, it could be an amazing boon for the entire human race.
I know which one I'd bet on if I had too... but I can still hope...
Re:Only if it feeds back (Score:2)
Re:Only if it feeds back (Score:2)
Speed is time is money is life; the faster we get into space the bett
Re:Only if it feeds back (Score:3, Insightful)
That we have read about them does not mean they exist.
If you know of any, why have you not shown the evidence to the men in suits and got yourself a few billion in venture capital to go get them? These people were willing to fund .coms for KaTe's sake.
There may be payback from space exploration in a few generations, even Vinland turned out to be us
It's a bad idea (Score:5, Interesting)
That aside, socialistic space programs like NASA (sorry, but that's pretty much what a government funded program like NASA amounts to) are unable to grow, and being a monopoly, NASA has very little incentive to become more cost-effective. The historical record shows that the inflation adjusted NASA budget is roughly fixed (within a factor of 2). That's a political reality-no huge growth is likely; business atleast has the chance to grow; and often has a much bigger incentive to reduce costs, which allows growth also; via lower prices.
This analysis suggest that the US government should ramp down NASA, and encourage private industry to take up the slack. It's the only thing that makes any sense in the long run; it's the only way to get to Space in any big way.
Re:It's a bad idea (Score:2)
What I am is sure that empire building is not economically feasible in the long run any more. If the choices are go to war, or to go Mars, I think it's pretty clear which most slashdotters will pick. (Unless the fed gov't is declaring war on SCO and/or Microsoft, but that would be over too quick to generate any jobs.)
It's true that spending money on the military
I don't think this can possibly work. (Score:3, Flamebait)
This means it must be entirely bankrolled by the government.
Which, in turn, means it must be entirely bankrolled by the public taxpayer.
Government efficiency being what it is, I hardly imagine my dollar of tax is going to pay a dollar worth of economic improvement. Most of that dollar -- like 99 cents of it -- will go to administration overhead, corporate looting, and general waste.
Which means, basically, that I'll lose a dollar, some rich corporate bastard at McDonnel Douglas will gain 99 cents, and Joe Frontline Worker might make a penny.
Thanks, George, but I'd prefer to give my dollar to Joe directly.
There are jobs, and there are jobs... (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is: Are those the jobs the best way to go about goosing the economy, and is this the way we want to develop them?
Unless President Bush plans to privatize the whole effort, we're talking about jobs paid for with federal contracting funds, and those are some of the most inefficient jobs you can release into the economy.
There's nothing inherently wrong with jobs generated by federal spending -- after all, the government needs to buy stuff just like any company. However (and this is the important part) jobs that grow out of federal spending programs aren't the most efficient way to translate capital into work.. First, the money has to come from somewhere (i.e., taxes). Then, it goes through an inefficient bureaucracy that needs some off the top to perpetuate and grow itself. Then, it goes back into the economy in the form of federal spending, but the spending is often uncompetitive because of pork set-asides or
Bottom line: If you put a few billion dollars into federal spending in the private sector and compared the economic impact with simply leaving the capital in individual and business hands to figure out what their highest and best uses were, you'd see more efficient use of the capital (read: more net benefit) from the latter.
Oh, and although everyone likes the high-tech aspects of the space program, the fact is that there would be many, many old-economy manufacturing jobs created or sustained for every engineer or scientist.
Re:There are jobs, and there are jobs... (Score:2)
The third paragraph should end as follows:
"... the spending is often uncompetitive because of port set-asides or the artifically high costs imposed by doing business with the federal government.
Burn the straw men (Score:2, Insightful)
Well duh, of course government spending on anything to create government jobs isn't going to improve the economy. Only democrats believe that.
But since similar space programs have been done before, perhaps one should (gasp!) look at past performance and ROI before setting up straw men to knock down.
Ever wonder why the US leads the world in many areas of computers, electronics, manufacturing, matereials, etc.? The space program isn't the only reason, but it's a big one.
Ever wonder what the real ROI is,
NASA stopped creating most of its amazing spinoffs (Score:2)
Let's take the first dozen or so alleged spinoffs from the first article linked above [thespaceplace.com].
GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch
Re:NASA stopped creating most of its amazing spino (Score:3, Interesting)
History of VR re NASA (Score:2)
He makes a good point about near-space interaction, but again, much of this was also being worked on in other places.
Even he refers back to Ivan Sutherland's work back in 1968!
VIEW was seminal. Just as VPL was. Just as Warnock's work was. Just as was the work b
Re:History of VR re NASA (Score:2)
Agreed. The space program was just one of the industries interested in exploiting and expanding upon the technology. There were plenty of others.
For instance, medicine was another big application area at the time. People liked the idea of using virtual cadavers for some instructional purposes as an alternative to real ones. Real cadavers are expensive, bulky, unique, difficult to ob
Whoa! (Score:2)
That's a pretty bold claim there, professor
Insanity (Score:2, Interesting)
Have we forgotten? (Score:2)
Not fast enough to help Bush re-election (Score:4, Interesting)
Government spending can contribute to growth but it's a degenerative feedback loop - government "expenses" like taxes tend to eat up a portion of the economic kick each time money flows back through the goverment since most income is taxed. Thus government spending creates a blip which dissipates - if other growth sources aren't on the edge of recovery, the economy won't catch "fire" and start growing.
A space mission would eventually create technological innovation to fuel growth but it takes time to develop new technologies in the first place, more time for a critical mass of technology portfolios that are cross-purposeable outside of government/military to accumulate, and even more time for those technologies to finally take root. The rule of thumb is 15-25 years from the first scientific discovery/creation to the point when noticeable economic benefit results. Consider the Internet. Consider transistors. Consider integrated circuits. Of course you may not pick the correct newly discovered technology to bet on today.
It's not entirely clear how cost effective a Space Program would be. Sure there have been "homeruns" like semiconductors, computers and integrated circuits which never would of existed with the Cold War and the Space Race, but what's in the pipeline that would apply to a space mission, and then be applicable to a broader. The next "Velcro" won't power a major economic burst. Another internet or transistor might. Unfortunately computers and semiconductors themselves are mostly in evolution mode, rather than revolution mode. The "next big things" like nanotechnology and biotechnology are either just entering their 20-year obligatory incubation period or have industrio-technological structural impediments that will prevent revolutionary advances, and neither would seem to have a major role in a space program anyway.
My net-net is: don't assume a new space program will fix anything economically. If Bush thinks it will, he's, again, deluded. The time-constants are all wrong. If you use economics as a justification for a space program you are perpetrating an improbability. There are other good reasons to have a program. Jobs mean stability even if you don't have net growth. A space program, done right, can inspire a nation which is not a trivial thing. If you allow a economic window of 10-30 years, by then a space program will almost certain contribute to technology - the Net Present Value is still debateable. We certainly don't think that far ahead often enough though.
I don't like Dubya, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all the same, no matter if government spends it on bombs or space rockets. When they spend money big time, the main agency gets money and spends it. Its contractors get money and spend it.
And finally: their empoyees get money and spend it. On food, homes, cars, hi-tech gizmos (in any order). But suddenly all the people that produce those goods have money to spend it, and...
This is called macroeconomy, as someone down the page said it. It's better when it's fueled by space program than by another war.
Just my
Robert
Re:I don't like Dubya, but... (Score:2)
Huh? I don't live in the US, so maybe my take on this is uninformed, but I do know that the US dollar has been falling ever since the start of the war and the deficit is sky rocketing, largely because of the war in combination with tax cuts. Are you actually implying that the US economy is healthier now than before the war?
Re:I don't like Dubya, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's great news for the US economy, just like the rising euro is a big pain for that economy. It means your imports are more expensive, and need to be substituted with internal production, and you're exports are cheaper, which means they'll sell better.
Oh, and all those bloody foreigners that hold US Treasuries have just lost 20% of their value
Seriously, though, falling dollar within reason is good for the US; deficit spending
Re:I don't like Dubya, but... (Score:2)
Yes it is. But its the rate that its falling at thats the issue. Its fallen too fast for those people who hold Treasuries and will act accordingly.
Re:I don't like Dubya, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a difference. In the latter, not quite so many people die.
Re-election ploy (Score:2)
I think this will last about 13 months.
Now on my economic rant.
Government contracts don't make money, they redistribute your tax money.
They can create jobs, but these aren't real free market jobs, it's just taxpayer funded job subsidization, when the gov spending stops, so do the jobs.
The real benefit is when they can st
The short answer? (Score:2)
Short Bus (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish I could run my business by taking 40% of people's incomes, wasting 75% of that, and "giving" the rest back to them in crap they don't really need.
It's not really about creating jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
Just one problem with the theory, though (Score:5, Insightful)
What government spending can do is redirect jobs from one part of the economy to another part. Of course, it's hard to know what jobs exactly are lost in other parts of the economy because of this.
What ends up being really important is this: are those jobs being used to produce things that people want? If the money stays in the taxpayers pocket, they are very likely to make their wishes known in the market place and they are very likely to get what they want.
If it is taxed away for a space program, it's less obvious that they'll be getting what they want. I have to admit, though, I love looking at hubble pictures all day. I think the government has given me my monies worth, at least.
The other important thing to ask is whether or not the jobs being moved from one sector of the economy to another are going to improve efficiency. If people are creating as part of their job technology that makes the production of goods and services more efficient, then it might be a win overall because people get more for their money. A lot of military spending has this effect. How much technology was developed that later made production more efficent? Certainly the investment in computer technology has paid off in all sorts of ways.
There are also situations where spending tax money acts a simple transfer of goods and services and this can actually be a real burden on the economy if the recipients don't help improve production or don't recipricate.
Imagine a hamburger-flipper that is taxed at a 15% rate (payroll taxes for example). Now if that money is simply given to another group of people (retirees for example), when this group shows up at the hamburger joint with that tax money, they are in effect collecting free hamburgers and the taxpayer is unknowling giving them away because all the money he sees looks the same.
Now after getting back this money, it will of course be taxed again and some of it will go right back to that group to collect more hamburgers and the cycle will repeat, with 15% of the hamburgers being made for free for some group.
So the question becomes, how much are people willing to put up with this burden before it starts impacting their own production? No hamburger stand ever stayed in business by giving all it's hamburgers away for free.
No way (Score:2)
NASA "spinoffs" are mostly vaporware. NASA has, over the years, tried to claim credit for everything from Teflon to computers. The only real NASA innovation that's had significant market penetration is NASTRAN, the structural analysis program.
Cutting NASA's PR and "education" budget by 80% would be a good start. They try to do the NSF's job, badly. And they
Your responses are purely political! (Score:2)
A major poll yesterday said that roughly half of all Democrats thought Bush's proposal was a good thing when asked if they were told it was a "U.S. Goverment" proposal. When the question was changed to say it was Bush's proposal, then the results changed to 2 to 1 against.
Clearly, the country's future and the benefits of the program were
Yes, it's the broken window falacy. (Score:5, Interesting)
"See, when the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."
It's nuts to assume that throwing money at some new boondoggle will help the economy. Yeah, throwing money into space might employ people. Or alternately, you could employ a lot of people in the hole-digging industry if the government simply funded a giant industry to dig holes and fill them up again. Why not do that? See the parent poster's link [mises.org].
Re:you had to know THIS was coming (Score:2)
--Yeah RIGHT... Bruce Willis will lead the team, Steve Buscemi will go space-crazy, the drill bits will break after finding new densities of rock...