BigBallinStalin wrote:Would you like to dispute the above facts or for once actually concede and maybe learn something that contradicts your beliefs?
Your fact are open to interpretation.
The amount of money poured into R&D is not the same as the output. Much R&D is done to either form a monopoly, (thus at best giving an advantage to the whole world once the monopoly expires) or to block potential rivals from using the technology. (abundant examples) And then there is the research that fails. Money spend, but no public details about the failed research because that is helping rivals too. In all, more money is spend on R&D by companies, but its beneficial effects for the community will either have to wait or are in fact slowed or lowered because of the difference between what is good for a company and what is better for a community.
Publicly funded research usually is publicly available and not protected in the same way as commercial inventions. So that manufacturer now does not have to do as much research to make his product..but the entire community profits are greater here.
And half of that 33% of government funding isn't necessarily invested in sectors which are most useful to citizens. According to Charles W. Wessner, Ph.D. (Director of the Technology and Innovation at the National Research Council), in 2005 52% of $132bn goes to the Department of Defense.
http://www.6cp.net/downloads/04brussels_wessner.ppt
I agree that the military is not always the best place to blow your savings on, although internet, satalite communication gps and a few others actually found its way to the consumer while being incepted for the military. Again facts but its meaning is subject to interpretation.
[queote]You're denying that the achievement of the assembly line employed by Henry Ford was not supported by big business[.quote]
Ford did not conceive the concept, he perfected it. But eh, how did Ford get supported by his rival company’s to build his assembly line? Neglect is not really the same as suppost, and the competition simply neglected to put a check on Ford..
just me thinking ofcourse.
overall, I see the need for indivudual reward and recognition system, even if it now is used primerely by compagnies.



