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DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

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Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#11

Post by 1cvmask »

markkanof wrote: post #9
Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

The defense budget is in fact over 1.25 trillion dollars in real terms. We just don’t count it like most other countries. For example nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...

https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-...

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#12

Post by gnulinux »

markkanof wrote: post #9
Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

Right, so we need both. Defund the military, make sure rich people still pay their fair amount of taxes, and use that money to invest in science, education, healthcare, education etc.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#13

Post by MattGaiser »

1cvmask wrote: post #11
markkanof wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

The defense budget is in fact over 1.25 trillion dollars in real terms. We just don’t count it like most other countries. For example nuclear weapons are under the Department of Energy. https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-... https://tomdispatch.com/hartung-and-smithberger-a-dollar-by-...

Yeah, but a vast amount of healthcare is under the DoD in America while it wouldn’t be in other countries.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#15

Post by b9a2cab5 »

gnulinux wrote: post #12
markkanof wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like DARPA's budget is about 3.5 billion a year vs. the overall defense budget of something like 715 billion. I'm betting that a lot more people would feel ok about paying taxes if more of it was going towards these types of projects rather than empire building in far away parts of the world.

Right, so we need both. Defund the military, make sure rich people still pay their fair amount of taxes, and use that money to invest in science, education, healthcare, education etc.

Defunding the military has real impacts. Those free trade deals that lower the cost of goods for average people don't just magically get signed, generally U.S. military presence is also a part of the deal.

More generally if the U.S. loses global hegemony then so does the dollar, and a mass exodus from the dollar as foreign reserve would cause rampant inflation as demand for dollars crashes.

The geopolitical situation is more complicated than just "defund the military". You can see both the current and past administration are trying to get other countries to pay more for the U.S. presence, which is a form of slow withdrawal of U.S. power, so I think they recognize that there is a need to redirect funds, but I don't think you can just outright leave in a year.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#16

Post by vmception »

Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

US government would never balance its budget even if tax compliance was 100% and the tax rate was 100%.

The math does not check out and the taxes fund nothing except the interest payments on international debt.

The things that were going to get funded will still get funded, because they are funded by the debt issuance and the continued market tolerance for US government debt issuances.

So, no, tax avoidance has practically nothing to do with this. The "roads and schools [and innovations]" argument is particularly weak, because whatever wasn't funded was never going to get funded. The only limit to budget allocations is the market tolerance of the debt and currency. So again - since that market tolerance is extremely vast and expansive given the lack of liquid alternatives - if it wasn't funded, it wasn't going to get funded.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#17

Post by shigawire »

jonplackett wrote: post #10
lrem wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-zero is all you need in this case, isn't it? :)

I wonder if it’s possible to calculate a rate of return on that. How much worse off would we be now without mRNA vaccines? I doubt anyone would be complaining about blood clots.

Seems like China did fine with more conventional vaccine technologies. I'm glad we have another tool in the toolbox, but I am missing why the mRNA vaccine tech was necessary for COVID.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#18

Post by hencq »

Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

This is exactly the argument made by Mariana Mazzucato in The Entrepreneurial State. It argues that the state is a major driver of innovation. DARPA is a great example of that. It argues that governments should be receiving some of the returns that private companies make because of this innovation. E.g. Apple makes enormous amounts of money selling iPhones that is full of technology like GPS, Internet, etc. that wouldn't be possible without the state as a driver of innovation. It seems fair that they get a share of those earnings in return.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#19

Post by golergka »

Egidius wrote: post #4

This is why tax avoidance is a bad thing. Governments can accelerate innovation with stimulations like this.

Tax avoidance is a moral responsibility, because violence or threat of violence is morally wrong regardless of the outcome.

Re: DARPA Awards Moderna a Grant for Up to $25M to Develop mRNA Therapeutics (2013)

#20

Post by JumpCrisscross »

shigawire wrote: post #17
jonplackett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it’s possible to calculate a rate of return on that. How much worse off would we be now without mRNA vaccines? I doubt anyone would be complaining about blood clots.

Seems like China did fine with more conventional vaccine technologies. I'm glad we have another tool in the toolbox, but I am missing why the mRNA vaccine tech was necessary for COVID.

> China did fine with more conventional vaccine technologies

China's Covid vaccine is far less effective than the mRNA vaccines, a fact that's been recognized by its own leaders [1]. It's also less extensible--we have covered most of the parameter space conventional methods offer. A new platform allows us to target e.g. HIV anew [2].

[1]https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n969

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/moderna-is-working-...

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