🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3oqj6j$187@kocrsv08.delcoelect.com> c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com (rex i beard) writes:
> But astronauts and welfare recipients aren't. *I'm* giving them the
> money and they aren't giving me anything that I value enough to give
> the money they have taken.

    You don't consider the knowledge they've obtained about our lives, or bodies,
and our *planet* valuable?  (^_^)

> Just like NASA the money spent on welfare is done so for a reason. The "value"
> we get is relief from a guilty conscience and hopefully a reduction in

    Well, to each his own.  (Personally, I don't see any value in a warm, fuzzy
feeling inside - and even if I did, how do I quantify it?  If I give more, will
it make me feel better?  If I give everything I have, so that I don't even have
enough to feed myself, I ought to feel incredible... but I only feel hungry.
^_-)

> crime. And the money *IS* going back into the economy just like all the NASA
> spending someone recently glorified.

    But NASA (such as it is...) is doing something that we can export.  The
information obtained about Earth, the technology required to maintain life in
space, can all be sold for more than we put into developing it.  Welfare doesn't
do that.

> working for NASA and therefore your car (notice the address) wouldn't
> run as well. My nephew, a math teacher, would instead have gone into

    Your job space would be open and someone would be trained to do it.  Someone
else who was good at math would be able to take your nephews' teaching position.

    (Heck, Delco might even be able to EXPAND into space ventures - producing
igniters for rocket engines, fuel pumps, etc.  An expanded company means an
expanded workforce.)

> engineering and your kids would be dumber. Scientist doing medical
> research would be working on life support systems instead. Video game

    Scientists working on closed-cycle life-support systems would teach us what
we need to know about recycling everything we use, and how to extract energy from
our wastes, and thus prevent us from ruining our world further.

> developers would be doing flight simulators. The developers at Intel
> would be designing space robot arms. Bill Gates would have made
> SOS (Shuttle Operating System) instead of DOS... (Wait a minute.
> maybe it wouldn't *all* be counter productive)

    EVERYTHING you've cited points to a larger job market - positions vacated by
someone going into the space effort would be replaced by someone else.  Companies
working to expand the frontier would gain knowledge that could be applied to
making existing products better, or to making new products.  New products means
more income, which means increased production, which means more hiring, which
means fewer folks on the dole.

> What have we given up because of the resources that were diverted to
> an endevour that could not sustain itself in the market place?
> Economically these are called "opportunity costs".

    OTOH, what have we given up by NOT diverting resources to an endeavour that
could not only sustain itself, but pay back handsomely on a number of fronts?

    Economically, this is called 'suicide'.  (^_-)

--

Len Lekx                IRC Nick: Nammo | Television does not honour tradition.
InterNet: LFLekx@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET | Most times, it does not recognize it.
FidoNet:  1:250/742.2@fidonet.org       | Therefore, it can only destroy.