Senate approves $250B bill to boost tech research
wsj.com
wsj.com
The purpose of the bill is to beef up domestic technology and decrease dependence on Chinese and foreign supply chains.
I get short term it can affect prices, but long term it accelerates technology. And these types of investments, even though they don't always yield the intended results, have had a massive impact on GDP. The thing we really know is that investments like this pay off, so I really don't get the hate on this other than the fact that the owner is rich.
NASA had initially requested the money for two landers anyway.
However he will not spend billion to pay LM and NG for them to never actually deliver anything.
BO will just continue to plot forward in its glacial style instead.
First introduced last year by Senators Chuck Schumer and Todd Young, the bill would have established a new Technology Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a DARPA-like program structure equipped with flexible hiring and grant-making authorities. With a $100 billion budget over five years, the Directorate would have been empowered to use grants, contracts, prizes, and cooperative agreements with industry, academia and research institutes to push the frontiers of U.S. innovation in ten broad areas, ranging from cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing, to more mature but no less important sectors like robotics, manufacturing, biotechnology, advanced energy technology and material sciences.
That was then, this is now. While the mission of the Technology Directorate remains nominally intact, the scale of the EFA’s ambitions were suddenly curtailed late last week. Following a flurry of Senate Commerce Committee amendments, the $100 billion originally envisioned for the Directorate dropped to just $29 billion over five years, with $54.9 billion reassigned to the NSF-proper. Of that $29 billion, only 15% or $4.35 billion is reserved for the Directorate’s core R&D mission, with the rest earmarked for scholarships, test beds, academic tech transfer, and investments in regional “innovation centers.”
https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-congress-ruined-the-endle...
I've also been searching for a breakdown of how the $250B is divided up but flipping through the legislative text it looks like another $150B is semi-relevant amendments asking for funding tacked on.
On the hate for government contractors---like any R&D investment, they don't all pan out. This is why we make redundant investments. Overall, the ROI has been very positive even including the failures.
On the increased size of government spending---we're already spending trillions, I know it sounds big, we've inflated very quickly. This is how watered down money is now though, we need to adapt to the new inflated price of things. Personally, I have a huge amount of patience for investments in technology research. The other way we get out from under debt is raising taxes. Would you rather see tax rates hike and no real progress be made, or returns from investments help get us out from this hole and advance technology?
In particular, the Federal government, Congress, the NSF and NIH don't have to check the quality of the work closely for each grant because the academic system will check the quality before a researcher gets progress in their career.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/06/08/senate-c...
Senate approves sprawling $250 billion bill to curtail China’s economic and military ambitions
And it links to the actual bill:
That said, while the returns on some government funded investments have been good, the return on others is nil, and the accounting is often puffed up by those who will benefit. It is quite reasonable to question whether this funding will be directed effectively, or whether it will be free money to inefficient dinosaurs like, say, IBM, which has lauded the bill. Others in these pages have noted a Blue Origin bail-out, more or less, which does more to reward the company for being politically connected than it does reward it for successful innovation.
With regards to the question in the grandparent: Yes. Yes, we are desensitized. Do not expect this to change soon. If you fear we shall face ruin, take comfort in the words of Adam Smith: there is quite a lot of ruin in a nation.
Even considering all the blatant tax evasion in the private sector... some of that money will be spent on payroll. And each one of those salaries pay income tax.
Then, each person will go and stuff with their salary, stuff that pays sales tax. And they will also be paying taxes in various ways.
So, tl;dr: some of those $250b will become tax revenue.
Let's hope those $250b won't become stock buybacks, executive bonuses and other forms of corporate welfare.
Given what's happening with commodity prices and the stock market (ie., inflation), I think this is the calm before the storm.
There are enormously powerful deflationary forces (debt-to-income overhang, demographics, automation/wage stagnation, globalization, and the pandemic) operating on the global economy, and I'm finding it hard to obtain sufficiently accurate historical data to discern how it all nets out between these deflationary forces and the inflationary tsunami unleashed. Human nature practically predestines that uncontrolled inflation will break out, the question is when.
I won't be too surprised if Lockheed Martin forms a semiconductor division within the next few months promising to research next generation beyond EUV manufacturing.
Which couldn't be said of Rigetti, D-Wave, IBM, ...
BO additional money, money for Boeing in Mississippi and so on.
Not only they skip taxes (which I have no problem about), but they lobby to get billions in government fundings...
It seems, the "grumpy cat of the day" hat belongs to me now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/upshot/biden-stimulus.htm...
Math? Physics? Bio-science? CS? Gender studies?
Most. Net immigration and foreign students here show a pretty strong signal in that regard