🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <LFLekx.0208@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET>,
Len Lekx <LFLekx@Booster.Tor.HookUp.NET> wrote:
>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?  (^_^)

Yes, I do consider it valuable. I just don't give it as much value as the
money they took from me to pay for it. I never said I didn't value it.

>> 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

Now you get it. *You* don't value it that much, but others do.

>feeling inside - and even if I did, how do I quantify it?  If I give more, will

That is what a free market is all about. The same question can be
applied to NASA. "How do I quantify [the value I receive from NASA]?"


>> 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

A "something we can export" is just another thing to value. But
If you can sell all the knowledge for more than was invested then
private investors would be jumping to buy NASA at inflated prices.

>
>> 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.

But that new person has to come from somewhere else. This is *not* good for
the economy. That's like saying that hiring more soldiers is good for
the economy. No. It isn't (Unless of course the soldiers are needed to
prevent the Canadians from invading) The reason is that all those soldiers
are no longer doing the things they use to do.

And an economy *is* the "things" people do and make. Money is just
a good form of accounting. When people do and make things that no
one else values they are not contributing to the economy.

>    (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.)

Sure there might be jobs and there might be work, but there wouldn't
be any *CARS*. People would be working but they wouldn't be producing
the goods and services that other folks *want*.

I really didn't expect anyone to take the position that spending $600
billion dollars on NASA like projects would be good for the economy.
We're talking 10% of the GNP! Which 10% of the national economy do you
want to do without? Health care? The auto industry?


<deleted similar tit for tats>


>    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.

The number of people in this country is large but it is finite!
You're talking about taking the best doctors, lawyers, teachers,
medical researchers and auto designers and making them work in
space industries. If we do that we will have *less* of everything *else*.
We're describing "Opportunity Costs" here. Any economics text book
should explain it.

>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

But there wouldn't be anybody *LEFT* to apply the knowledge to make
the existing products better OR to *build* them.

Which means we will have *less* of the existing products.

>> 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?
>

NASA:
1)First you can not prove that it has "payed back" more than was invested.
2)Next you certainly can't prove that it will do so in the future.
3)What NASA "invests" in is determined by politics.

ME:
1) I invested in Latin America and the Pacific Rim several years ago. It
   has paid back a couple hundred percent.
   I can prove exactly what return I got from those investments.
2) I can't tell you what my current investments will produce.
3) But I *can* tell you that what I invest in is determined by what kind
   of return I can get.

I think that my investments and the investments of millions of others
like me (Which are also heavily into Science and
Technology) have a better chance of getting a decent return than NASA.

-rex-
-- 

Work phone: (317) 451-0358  (8-322-0358)
Internet:   c2xrib@kocrsv01.delcoelect.com   (Ick. It's suppose to be ahw.)