🚀 go-pugleaf

Philip Young <young@bunyip.ap.dg.com> wrote:
>[...]Having eaten the seed corn, we wail and
>gnash our teeth; but let's not pretend that this situation has come
>about because of spending on investments for the future, such as the
>space program. It's the neglect of such investments (and here I include
>science R&D in general), and the lack of embedded structural solutions
>in social programs, which has brought us to this unhappy pass in the
>first place.

c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (rex i beard) writes:
>We have a tremendous debt because we didn't spend *enough* money!!?

No, because we didn't INVEST enough money.  Pay attention.  The phrase
"eating our seed corn" is a good soundbite; listen to it.

> Do we have enough wealth?  Why do you insist on rocketing our wealth to 
> mars?
>>Poppycock!  Hardware, and maybe wetware, to Mars; the money stays here.
>>It goes to the parts suppliers, the systems integrators, the 1001
>>companies who do business with the space program.  It means jobs to
>>the people who work in those companies.  It filters through to the
>
>But don't you see. That is the same as giving it away to the poor.
>(OK, we get neat stuff, folks have to work hard to get the money,
>And the folks who get it get larger sums than the poor so they can
>invest more.)

Right.  We GET stuff.  Understand?  There is a real BENEFIT.

>All the things you listed are just work-fare. We could have these
>guys digging ditches and filling them back up and the money
>would still provide jobs and go to parts suppliers and such.

No, no, no, no, no!  Digging and refilling ditches ONLY provides jobs
to the diggers and their supervisors.  It does not PRODUCE anything;
there is no value added anywhere in the system.  The inevitable
administrative burden MUST be a net drain on the economy.

>>universities who work on the scientific instruments, and helps to
>
>Sort of like "spinoffs" well why not make your intent
>spinoffs in the first place?

You can't be serious.  If your intent is to spin off stuff, then you're
focusing in the wrong place.  You do something because that is what you
want to do, not because what you do will do something else.  If that
something else is what you intended, than you'd do it in the first place.

>>provide a better education for the students.  When you're old enough
>
>Why not spend it on education in the first place?

(Off-topic: "Spending on education" is a nice idea.  It usually fails
when the emphasis is on the SPENDING and not on the EDUCATION.)

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Alan Anderson                               | Ignorance can be fixed,
(I speak AT, not FOR, Delco Electronics)    | but stupidity is permanent.