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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

#521

Post by spopejoy »

jack_h wrote: post #425
rurp wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The national debt is a complete red herring here. It's a real problem, sure, but that is completely unrelated to these cuts. The party implementing these cuts is currently debating how many trillions of dollars to increase the national debt by. They are completely unserious about reducing federal debt payments and there is zero ambiguity about what they are saying, drafting, and voting on. That is also the same party…

I posted elsewhere about my displeasure with what is happening in congress. A large chunk of the Republican base is not willing to address the national debt; the $5 billion in cuts from the Senate bill going into reconciliation is a rounding error in the national budget. This seems like a golden opportunity for the Democrats to be the adults in the room and propose a solution to the problem with numbers, charts, econ…

Your arguments are ideological as well. For one you fail to mention how much of the debt is due to war debt servicing and choose, like most debt hawks, to blame entitlements only.

If debt was such a killer the US would have never waged the wars it did. Debt hawks have been saying Social security medicare and medicaid will bankrupt our country for decades. It hasn't happened.

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

#522

Post by philwelch »

9283409232 wrote: post #402
philwelch wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea how you read that and interpret it as "taxing billionaires will pay the entire debt." It’s the direct, logical implication of the statement and you are obviously moving the goalposts after the fact. The truth is, any tax increases will have to affect just about everyone who pays taxes in order to make any real difference. There is no possible way that taxing billionaires more is even a significant ch…

I'm not moving goalpost, you just read my statement wrong. There are many steps to take but taxing billionaires is a crucial step to getting the funding to fix many of the other problems that cities don't have the money to tackle.

I thought taxing billionaires was supposed to fix the national debt, not to fund new spending that will supposedly "fix many of the other problems that cities don't have the money to tackle". (Which is false--lack of revenue is not the reason city governments don't work--but that's another issue). You've just moved the goalpost again.

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

#523

Post by philwelch »

ModernMech wrote: post #463
roenxi wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how will the pardon help? If the assumption is that the prosecutors are going to fabricate crimes, the pardon will only help if they fabricate a crime that happened under certain conditions (see: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385746/ ). If they're just making something up they can make something up and claim it happened in 2013. The pardon doesn't protect him from harassment, it only protects him if he spe…

If they want to prosecute him they'll have to state a rationale to get around the pardon. That rationale will be used to prosecute them when they pardon themselves. If they want to weaken the pardon power, they are welcome to. Biden ensured they have to go to maximum lawlessness if they want to do that. They have the power to, no one is disputing that. But in choosing to exercise that power, they will hang a sword ov…

Actually it's not that hard. The main legal avenue to invalidate the Biden pardons would be to argue that Biden never actually issued the pardons. He didn't sign them (the autopen did) and given his mental state there's no clear evidence that he was even aware of them. Trump, in contrast, routinely signs executive orders and pardons with news cameras in the Oval Office with him, while chatting with journalists. So it would be hard to argue that Trump was not the one actually issuing them.

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

#524

Post by ModernMech »

philwelch wrote: post #523
ModernMech wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to prosecute him they'll have to state a rationale to get around the pardon. That rationale will be used to prosecute them when they pardon themselves. If they want to weaken the pardon power, they are welcome to. Biden ensured they have to go to maximum lawlessness if they want to do that. They have the power to, no one is disputing that. But in choosing to exercise that power, they will hang a sword ov…

Actually it's not that hard. The main legal avenue to invalidate the Biden pardons would be to argue that Biden never actually issued the pardons. He didn't sign them (the autopen did) and given his mental state there's no clear evidence that he was even aware of them. Trump, in contrast, routinely signs executive orders and pardons with news cameras in the Oval Office with him, while chatting with journalists. So it…

If that's all it takes to invalidate a pardon, it would indeed severely weaken the power.

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

#525

Post by robertlagrant »

idiotsecant wrote: post #507
robertlagrant wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also that this wealth is dependent on value. It's not like having cash. It's shares, whose value will go down if the company stops providing value.

Once capital grows large enough it starts being able to bend the fabric of economic space around it. It begins to change rules and accumulate more capital merely because it's so big. This is a natural feature of capitalism. Properly attended to, fire makes steam and runs an engine. Left unchecked, it's a forest fire. Capitalism is like that. It needs moderating influences to keep it controlled and useful and not cons…

It can also lose giant amounts of money. IBM is a shadow of its former self. Microsoft isn't, but could well have been had it continued the 2010s the way it performed in the 2000s. Google search is vulnerable to AI. Businesses can vent vast amounts of capital into space very easily when money gets too easy to obtain.

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

#526

Post by fuzztester »

fuzztester wrote: post #255
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…

>At least in the free market inefficient companies will eventually go defunct which frees those resources for more economically useful output. ha ha. you mean like in 2008 and 2009, the great recession (1), the subprime mortgage crisis (2), etc., and then things like: (1) the great recession (2) the subprime mortgage crisis TARP: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Progra... terms floating around at…

>"privatize profits, socialize losses"

actually, IIRC now, that was "nationalize losses" - meaning, let us (fat cats) benefit when we make big profits, and let the public suffer when we make big losses - by making the government support / prop us up financially through acts / things like TARP.

mea culpa.

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

#527

Post by zipy124 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #277
zipy124 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ciation [1] shows the highest number as being approximately 70,000 USD a year, not 85k. That's 15,000 dollars less than you claim. Your [0] citation is not a share-able link and just redirects to the home-page. In the UK (where I am based so I know the numbers well) a post doc is usually paid around 52,936 dollars a year, or a bit more if in london closer to 60,000 dollars a year. US postdocs seem to be somewehr…

Sorry, I must have added the extra bonuses on top of the gross salary that already included them. The 5 210€ figure indeed matches 70k USD. The first link was ZipRecruiter survey with two peaks at 54k and 150k, leading to the average of 100k. On the cost of living, I see your point, and sure a straight 33% increase is nothing to sneeze at. The actual impact is more complicated depending on the personal situation, I'm…

That's alright, sorry if my tone wasn't as friendly as it should be. Hope you have a good day :)

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

#528

Post by anonfordays »

SecretDreams wrote: post #516
aceazzameen wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they think they're a 100-billionaire too? Life goals I guess.

Maybe it's Elon. He's got a lot of spare time.

Maybe it's someone that didn't get their financial knowledge from reddit comments.

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

#529

Post by chiefalchemist »

thfuran wrote: post #401
chiefalchemist wrote: post #236

A better title would be: "How this one time the U.S. became a science superpower". We all know the rule: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Two significant and obvious difference come to mind. I'm sure there are others. 1) WWII did major physical damage to Europe and Japan, to say nothing of the underlying economic damage (e.g., Britain's war debt handcuffed them). Sans any serious competition, of co…

>Subsidies that aren't benefitting Sam a/o US taxpayers Why do you think that?

Because if they did someone would have a list, and we would be told by our overseers. When a politician has a chance to pat themselves on the back and prove their value to their voters, they do it. They don’t miss a trick. When that doesn’t happen, that’s a tell.
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