There's an old saying, "The customer is always right about what they wish to purchase." That is, people know their own needs. Being a customer requires money. When the US had a growing middle class, they were the customers individually and collectively. We were able to buy all kinds of nice things. Now, the wealthy have all the money, and they're the customers for symbolic stuff, not physical stuff. So, we have a crappy consumer market and a wasteful efflourescence of venture capital backed crazes.
"The basic proposition is as follows: we should provide public funding for public goods." However, public funding tends to involve taxation, and the rotten core of "conservatism" is myopic selfishness, so denying public goods even exist is typical of "conservatives". Moreover, the USA is so collectively brainwashed in this regard that even ostensible liberals often fall into thinking of public goods as if they weren't. For example, it's common to say things like "higher education is the single best investment that you can make in yourselves and your future"*, which may be correct as far as it goes, but it leaves out that education is foremost a public good, something we the people fund because it benefits all of us to live in a society where most people are well educated, to whatever level suits their talents and interests. So as a matter of realpolitik in the USA, good luck getting much traction with the eminently reasonable arguments you've presented here.
"It's also that their eye for science, technology, and even consumer products just kinda sucks." I'll be blunter: the guys you've mentioned are just kinda dumb. For example, Peter Thiel famously cheered for Candidate Trump but was disappointed with President Trump, declaring the latter and his shambolic administration "incompetent"**. Um, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. But the way Cheetolini governed, if you call it that, was perfectly consistent with his public conduct for decades prior. Only dullards were surprised. Evidently, Thiel is one of them.
"The big pile of government money is tied up in bureaucracy, which means it isn't especially nimble or responsive.": Often but not always. In my experience, DARPA and NSF have been fairly nimble and responsive. It can be done!
You probably want to read up on MMT - which (obscenely simplified) contends that Government SPENDS money into existance - and makes a lot more sense than "I created all this money by inheriting it and it's MINE and you can't have it". The failure of your (winderful) contention is the "have to tax it back" part - no, FIRST we have to spend it.
When this landed in my inbox I initially thought the title was "On giant piles of TRASH, and their origins"
Given the kind of crap VC money funds, and the dirty dealings they get up to, it still works as a title.
What boggles my mind is why, after several years of vaporware and huge public failures and blowups like WeWork and FTX and Metaverse and Cruise and Blockchain and the obvious bubble of AI and the ongoing environmental catastrophe and how most of these jerks are outing themselves as just awful people why is anyone giving these clowns money at all?
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me several times and cost my employer and customers tens of millions of dollars on vaporware and how do I still have a job?
Quick remark on the first downside: "You’ll need to make the money back through taxes on the industries that develop as a result." - as the MMTlers point out, that's not true in a modern monetary system. If a government is currency-sovereign, as the US one is, it can create money into existence by spending, and that money then circulates in the economy until it is removed by taxation. So there's no need to "refill the coffers" and the government can just decide to spend more for the next important project.
We *do* still want to tax because taxes drive currency acceptance, encourage/discourage certain behaviors in the marketplace, control inflation, and reduce political influence (and yes, the tech bros will lobby furiously against that) but for funding purposes, they are not needed.
A well written and well reasoned piece. I'm on board with most of your conclusions except for the notion that tax dollars should support the failed legacy media. Why you believe turning journalism into NPR, a thoroughly failed endeavor, is beyond me. I'm signing up as a future subscriber.
Excellent, thank you. Yes, take Sam Altman, please, and Elon Musk with him. Also worth a mention in the pile of money list are the philanthropic foundations such as Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg, etc. who invest in junk like carbon capture and storage to keep the show going. And on top of the direct harm these people are doing to science, they're also corrupting our public universities who have to whore themselves out to them. And even government money can fund bogus stuff. Low carbon beef?
There's an old saying, "The customer is always right about what they wish to purchase." That is, people know their own needs. Being a customer requires money. When the US had a growing middle class, they were the customers individually and collectively. We were able to buy all kinds of nice things. Now, the wealthy have all the money, and they're the customers for symbolic stuff, not physical stuff. So, we have a crappy consumer market and a wasteful efflourescence of venture capital backed crazes.
"The basic proposition is as follows: we should provide public funding for public goods." However, public funding tends to involve taxation, and the rotten core of "conservatism" is myopic selfishness, so denying public goods even exist is typical of "conservatives". Moreover, the USA is so collectively brainwashed in this regard that even ostensible liberals often fall into thinking of public goods as if they weren't. For example, it's common to say things like "higher education is the single best investment that you can make in yourselves and your future"*, which may be correct as far as it goes, but it leaves out that education is foremost a public good, something we the people fund because it benefits all of us to live in a society where most people are well educated, to whatever level suits their talents and interests. So as a matter of realpolitik in the USA, good luck getting much traction with the eminently reasonable arguments you've presented here.
"It's also that their eye for science, technology, and even consumer products just kinda sucks." I'll be blunter: the guys you've mentioned are just kinda dumb. For example, Peter Thiel famously cheered for Candidate Trump but was disappointed with President Trump, declaring the latter and his shambolic administration "incompetent"**. Um, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. But the way Cheetolini governed, if you call it that, was perfectly consistent with his public conduct for decades prior. Only dullards were surprised. Evidently, Thiel is one of them.
"The big pile of government money is tied up in bureaucracy, which means it isn't especially nimble or responsive.": Often but not always. In my experience, DARPA and NSF have been fairly nimble and responsive. It can be done!
*https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/06/09/remarks-president-opportunity-all-making-college-more-affordable
**https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/peter-thiel-and-donald-trump
You probably want to read up on MMT - which (obscenely simplified) contends that Government SPENDS money into existance - and makes a lot more sense than "I created all this money by inheriting it and it's MINE and you can't have it". The failure of your (winderful) contention is the "have to tax it back" part - no, FIRST we have to spend it.
When this landed in my inbox I initially thought the title was "On giant piles of TRASH, and their origins"
Given the kind of crap VC money funds, and the dirty dealings they get up to, it still works as a title.
What boggles my mind is why, after several years of vaporware and huge public failures and blowups like WeWork and FTX and Metaverse and Cruise and Blockchain and the obvious bubble of AI and the ongoing environmental catastrophe and how most of these jerks are outing themselves as just awful people why is anyone giving these clowns money at all?
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me several times and cost my employer and customers tens of millions of dollars on vaporware and how do I still have a job?
Quick remark on the first downside: "You’ll need to make the money back through taxes on the industries that develop as a result." - as the MMTlers point out, that's not true in a modern monetary system. If a government is currency-sovereign, as the US one is, it can create money into existence by spending, and that money then circulates in the economy until it is removed by taxation. So there's no need to "refill the coffers" and the government can just decide to spend more for the next important project.
We *do* still want to tax because taxes drive currency acceptance, encourage/discourage certain behaviors in the marketplace, control inflation, and reduce political influence (and yes, the tech bros will lobby furiously against that) but for funding purposes, they are not needed.
A well written and well reasoned piece. I'm on board with most of your conclusions except for the notion that tax dollars should support the failed legacy media. Why you believe turning journalism into NPR, a thoroughly failed endeavor, is beyond me. I'm signing up as a future subscriber.
Excellent, thank you. Yes, take Sam Altman, please, and Elon Musk with him. Also worth a mention in the pile of money list are the philanthropic foundations such as Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg, etc. who invest in junk like carbon capture and storage to keep the show going. And on top of the direct harm these people are doing to science, they're also corrupting our public universities who have to whore themselves out to them. And even government money can fund bogus stuff. Low carbon beef?
It is something terrifying that the entire direction of humanity is pushed by people who want us to die, more or less.
But we just meekly write more articles rather than find out where they live.