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How the U.S. became a science superpower

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Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#101

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jack_h wrote: post #92
regularization wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way they math is presented is off. The US is deficit spending this year, yet you present the interest payment as something separate from the military. Obviously that interest is partially from the military spending the US makes this year that it has not paid for, military payments from last year it has not paid for etc. The billions sent to Israel, the Ukraine and the hundreds of military bases the US has spannin…

I have no idea what you’re talking about honestly. The data for government spending can be seen in multiple places, here is the CBO numbers (this might be an older article or out of date, I don’t have time or access to a laptop right now). https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61172

What the GP is talking about is that there are differing opinions on what counts as "military spending" or "defense spending". The CBO has its definition, but that is not universally accepted, particularly by people who think that the USA spends far too much on its military.

The question of whether or not e.g. veteran's health care should be considered part of military spending is not a stupid one, even if people may differ on their answers.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#102

Post by jack_h »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #96
jack_h wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with Trump beyond the fact that his plans could hasten how quickly this blows up. Bond rates were already going up before the election, the bond market was already nervous. Your indication that the world isn’t starting to have doubts isn’t born out by the bond market rates. > And as this chart says, it's not all owned by "Chaina" I never said that. China has been rolling US debt off of their bo…

Are you saying that hastening the catastrophe is the right move?

No.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#103

Post by jack_h »

mola wrote: post #99
jack_h wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic projections I’ve seen have shown taxing the rich will increase tax revenue by around 1.5% of GDP. We’re slated to borrow 7.3%. That math doesn’t work. To be fair, the republican math with cuts (assuming no tax cuts) also doesn’t work. Neither side is serious about this issue.

You can tax the rich, and then cut less of the good stuff. Or you can cut taxes and decimate everything. Guess what the billionaire class chose.

I fully expect uncomfortable spending cuts with raising taxes while trying to balance economic growth in order to correct this problem. Im dissatisfied with what both sides of the isle are actually doing.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#104

Post by jack_h »

9283409232 wrote: post #98
jack_h wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economic projections I’ve seen have shown taxing the rich will increase tax revenue by around 1.5% of GDP. We’re slated to borrow 7.3%. That math doesn’t work. To be fair, the republican math with cuts (assuming no tax cuts) also doesn’t work. Neither side is serious about this issue.

Taxing billionaires is just one of many necessary steps but it is the most important and vital step in my opinion. There are fundamental problems with how the US is run down to the local level but it starts with taxing billionaires and getting money out of politics.

To be clear, I think raising taxes on everyone is going to have to happen along with spending cuts.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#105

Post by fallingknife »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #93
oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems don’t remain constant, though, and every system gets “gamed” once the incentives are well understood. I’m 100% for investment in scientific research, but I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds. We’ve seen so many reports of celebrity scientists committing fraud at our most elite institutions, and a publish or perish model that encourages that bad behavior as well as junk sc…

> I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds Probably. But the solution almost certainly doesn't involve the federal government policing what is and isn't researched, discussed and taught. We had a system that worked. We're destroying the parts of it that worked, while retaining the parts that are novel. (Turning conservatives into a protected class, for instance--not even the CCP expl…

Why would the people paying for the research not control what it can be spent on? Letting the people who spend the money decide is typically not a good system.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#106

Post by saulpw »

fallingknife wrote: post #33
bilbo0s wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reminder that in a democracy, it's probably best to make sure the gold is widely shared. Lest the poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold vote to kill the goose.

Inequality isn't the cause of our problems in the US. It's basically the same as it was in the 90s https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA Inequality in general is a complaint that is most often heard from people making 6 figures complaining about billionaires, but you don't actually hear it from the "poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold" as you put it.

You can quote statistics to show that "inequality is the same", but that's obviously not the case. To wit, Bill Gates became the richest person in the '90s with wealth of $13 billion. There are now 10 people with more than $100 billion each. Meanwhile inflation since 1990 has been only 2.5x.

The richest individuals have an order of magnitude more wealth, and you can't say this is inconsequential when the richest person in the world (net worth $300b+) is actively leading the effort to dismantle US government institutions.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#107

Post by Tadpole9181 »

fallingknife wrote: post #39
b_emery wrote: post #2

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion: > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build…

I don't see any reason why specifically "indirect cost reimbursement" is anything to do with this. Sure, individually billing labs is administrative burden, but it's a tiny drop in the ocean of inane bureaucracy that university researchers already have to deal with today. And maybe if we got rid of the blanket overhead percentage, it would put pressure on universities to cut a lot of the crap. Researchers are much mo…

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of research funding, and quite frankly repeating it without even basic research borders on negligence.

Universities use indirect funds for maintaining facilities, the shared equipment, bulk purchases of materials, staff for things like cleaning and disposal. It is pivotal that these funds are available in the right amount or research physically cannot happen despite being "indirect" (due merely to the legal definition of the word). And these rates are aggressively negotiated beforehand.

Can university administration be trimmed? Can their heads be paid less? Of course. But the idea that that's going to happen is absurd. If you want to stop that, you make laws and regulations. If you want to stop the science, you gut the financial viability of research.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#108

Post by fallingknife »

9283409232 wrote: post #74
jack_h wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over. I find it amazing that this is the conclusion when earlier in the article it was stated that "[Britain] was teetering on bankruptcy. It couldn’t afford the broad and deep investments that the U.S. made." The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Last year the secon…

The problem with US debt comes from their unwillingness to tax billionaires. We just passed even more tax cuts for rich people and are scheduled to add more to the debt. Just tax rich people, it's not complicated.

If you use a reasonable definition of rich like 150k for individuals then yes it could work. But that's not what people actually mean when they say it.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#109

Post by hintymad »

> Britain remained a leader in theoretical science and defense technology, but its socialist government economic policies led to its failure to commercialize wartime innovations.

And the detriment of UK's auto industry, manufacturing industry, and etc. I really don't understand how people still fancy state-controlled economy.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#110

Post by jack_h »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #101
jack_h wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you’re talking about honestly. The data for government spending can be seen in multiple places, here is the CBO numbers (this might be an older article or out of date, I don’t have time or access to a laptop right now). https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61172

What the GP is talking about is that there are differing opinions on what counts as "military spending" or "defense spending". The CBO has its definition, but that is not universally accepted, particularly by people who think that the USA spends far too much on its military. The question of whether or not e.g. veteran's health care should be considered part of military spending is not a stupid one, even if people may…

I suppose that’s fair, but kind of tangential. The point I was making was that if discretionary spending, approximately 25% of outlays, could be completely cut we would still have a deficit. I’m not suggesting this is even possible, I’m merely using it as a demonstration of the scale of the problem.
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