Is $100 Million Per Year Too Little For The Brain Map Initiative? 190
waderoush writes "At a time of sequesters and shrinking R&D spending, critics are attacking President Obama's proposed Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, which would have a $100 million budget starting in 2014. But in fact, the project 'runs the risk of becoming a casualty of small-bore thinking in science business, and politics,' argues Xconomy national life sciences editor Luke Timmerman. The goal of the BRAIN initiative is to develop technologies for exploring the trillions of synapses between neurons in the human brain. If the $3 billion Human Genome Project and its even more productive sequel, the $300-million-per-year Advanced Sequencing Technologies program, are any guide, the initiative could lead to huge advances in our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and consciousness itself. Only government can afford to think this big, argues Timmerman. 'Even though $100 million a year is small change by federal government standards,' Timmerman writes, 'it is enough to create a small market that gives for-profit companies assurance that if they build such tools, someone will buy them. We ought to be talking about how we can free up more money to achieve our neuroscience goals faster, rather than talking about whether we can afford this puny appropriation at all.'"
Faster than expected! (Score:2)
Apparently they've already achieved augmenting the mind to psychic powers, because there's no other way he knows what my (as, yes, a member of the set of "our") neuroscience goals are.
Since, however, I am not a consulting neuroscientist nor a corporation poised to monetize discoveries in this field, my goals, at least in the "money" terms, probably vary.
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What are you on about?
The focus of this research is on the technology necessary to map and study the brain. So, it accelerates pretty much any brain related research. So, as long as you plan not to get dementia or alzheimers you may well be right, but there's a ton of research left to be done on all sorts of things that's held up by the limited technology for studying brains of living subjects.
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Protip: They were.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/04/35479 [wired.com]
On the other hand, I have in mind a number of pursuits that I personally expect will "return many times over what was spent on it", that is, return to someone, perhaps even coincidentally you.
Ready to invest? Wait, not "invest" per se, as my actual investors/political-friends will get any payback. Let's call your contribution an "enforced donation". I await your check.
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Protip: They were.
Celera didn't come into existence until an entire decade after the public genome project started, and was able to take advantage of a decade's worth of technology development - as well as the initial results of the HGP, which were immediately deposited in a public database.
Ignore the Critics, Research is Necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ignore the Critics, Research is Necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
The big question isn't so much whether brain research is good and needed (I think it is), but whether handing out wads of cash to private profiteers is actually the most effective way to do research. There are plenty of highly qualified, smart, and innovative academic researchers who would be glad to get grants without tacking on a fat profit bonus for investors. Private business is great at self-promotion and sucking up cash from public coffers into private pockets, but it's doubtful whether those massive added inefficiencies are balanced by equal or greater gains in quality of results over publicly-funded non-profit research.
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Nope. Jealous would mean that I wished academic researchers would be paid millions and millions, and be able to rule over all the peons below. That's not the outcome I want. I just don't think multimillionaire profiteers should be granted such societal power, either, especially when they're only doing a less efficient job of what academic researchers do with far lower wasted margins.
Re:Ignore the Critics, Research is Necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, you can't just throw money at anyone who talks pretty about brains. That opens the door for scammers and frauds to come in and steal a lot of money.
The guys in the article don't really seem to have a clear plan, they just want investments in things like nano-diamonds. Also their idea is to take the money away from cancer research, which is weird. I'd like to see ideas that are at least a little more concrete than that before supporting a billion dollar commitment on the topic.
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Research is good no doubt. The problem is, as always, that there are limited resources, and sometimes using those resources responsibly means saying "no" to an expenditure that you may really really want to make.
For instance (to use an extreme example), if we were talking "Zimbabwe", and you were to say "they should definately invest in space research", I might respond that, while true, their limited resources should be spent on their many more pressing issues.
We're not Zimbabwe, but we do need to watch ho
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Agreed on all points, though I'd have to agree with femtobyte as well that profiteers make horrible scientists. $100 million is peanuts, as the original article notes, but that is only a bad thing if it operates in complete isolation. If it cooperates with the Connectome Project and other neurological studies, this study could be quite useful. But that is only true if the division of labour is correct. You cannot break a scientific project into N sub-projects at random, even $100 million ones. If everyone g
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Not all research is worthwhile. When you're going bankrupt, the threshold / burden of proof ought to be pretty darned high to ensconce new spending.
Far enough along to throw money at it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Throwing money at a problem only works if you known roughly what you want to do. The Manhattan Project had a well defined goal - 1) separate uranium isotopes or make plutonium, and 2) figure out some way to assemble them fast enough to get a fast chain reaction. They knew up front roughly what was needed. The Apollo program was a step up from the previous rocket programs, but it wasn't the first big rocket.
On the other hand, throwing money at controlled fusion has not been very successful. We don't know how to make that work. Throwing money at artificial intelligence didn't accomplish much until recent years. Interestingly, mobile robotics is now far enough along that throwing money at it works. NASA blew about $80 million on the Flight Telerobotic Servicer in the 1980s and got zip. DARPA has spent over $100 million with Boston Dynamics on BigDog, LS3, PETMAN, and ATLAS, and they're getting results.
The trouble with the BRAIN program is that they're talking about developing bigger computers to emulate a brain, but don't really know what problem they have to solve. This could turn into another supercomputer boondoggle. The comment I've made previously (once to Rod Brooks) about emulating a human brain is that you should try to emulate a mouse brain (1/1000th the mass) first. All the mammal brains have roughly the same architecture. Until you can emulate a mouse brain, you're not ready to try for a human brain. Brooks replied that "he didn't want to go down in history as the person who created the world's best robot mouse." So he tried Cog, which was an embarrassing flop, and hasn't been heard of much since.
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Oh we know what we want to do. More basic research.
This, OTOH is just a typical presidential PR stunt [npr.org]. A 'dream team' approach. Well, that doesn't even work so well in sports and science isn't a basketball game.
It's just a way to 1) make noise 2) make some more noise and 3) toss some money to some politically connected friends.
Nothing to see here, move along.
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It's just a way to 1) make noise 2) make some more noise and 3) toss some money to some politically connected friends.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Sounds like the IRAQ war Bush friends got us into. Unfortunately, it took us over 10 years to "move along"...
Personally, I'd rather spend *only* 100 million on brain research.
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toss some money to some politically connected friends
Which friends would those be? People like George Church are not exactly politically connected, not in any way that matters. If a politician wants to hand out spoils to guarantee future party loyalty, giving money a relatively tiny clique of academic scientists is one of the least effective methods I can imagine.
Re:Far enough along to throw money at it? (Score:5, Interesting)
the initiative could lead to huge advances in our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and consciousness itself
The goal is right in the summary, you wouldn't even have to RTFA...
Ever meet anybody with the former 2 conditions? $2/year an American is less than I'm about to go spend on lunch, saying its not worth it implies a general misunderstanding of the scope of the US economy and a disregard for fellow human beings suffering from these conditions.
I also feel I've met way too many people with the third condition, some of it is pretty atrocious.
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the initiative could lead to huge advances in our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and consciousness itself
Ever meet anybody with the former 2 conditions?
Even more useful, spend that money simply studying the last item (consciousness) on members of the House and Senate. I'm sure we'd find *something* - eventually...
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We're on a topic where understanding the why leads to the how though. Understanding the how has proven impossible up to this point.
I think a lot of the responses here are the government's fault though for botching an infinite number of these studies where nothing actually got studied and the money was just recycled among a few staff until it was gone. But, still I think it's a worthy goal, and I support it, though I'd just like to see more checks and balances.
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I have given many thousands of dollars of my money to charities, including Alzheimer's. How about you?
About seven years volunteering for a non profit aerospace group with some donations over that time. I am satisfied by your explanation.
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There are countless conditions that cause human suffering. To decide to fund one group or another necessarily means that funding can not be used to help a different group. Saying that people who don;t support this don't care about suffering is retarded. It is *as* retarded as saying you don't care about suffering because you'd don't want to spend those $2/year on a campaign to stop "texting while driving" which also saves lives.
You might say ok fine, lets spend $4/year then. The problem is that you coul
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so how do you decide then? do you not think this is an important project then?
I've also never seen anybody in science take the pre-emptive on I'm going to solve this or cure this... it's always trial and error, so making promises beforehand would be stupid imho.
You guys hear government and money and immediately protest, but guess what, that federal tax is coming out of your paycheck either way, so might as well put it towards something that CAN be useful.
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Yes I do think it is very important. I think it would probably even be beneficial to spend more than $2/person/year.
I just disagree that being in opposition to spending the money means that people don't care about suffering. They may simply care more about suffering in different areas, or simply want to decide for themselves which causes are worthy (e.g. charity).
Also, government programs have a reputation for wasting money. Something might be a very good cause, but that doesn't mean the government will
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I just disagree that being in opposition to spending the money means that people don't care about suffering. They may simply care more about suffering in different areas, or simply want to decide for themselves which causes are worthy (e.g. charity).
Again, how do you decide?
I agree the government does waste money, but while $9m of this project may get wasted, at $100m a year it seems like it's going to make progress short of complete fraud.
Also, a lot of scientists, depend on grants like this to feed their families and produce future scientists (yes i'm partially joking), so you know, we don't go back to the dark ages.
Funny you should mention debt because it sounds like you've been listening to the republicans: read & behold... we owe most of the d
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You decide the way we decide anything subjective in a democracy... with democracy.
If most people have friends and relatives that have suffered from brain related illnesses, then it becomes very important. If most people don't know anyone with mental illness, then it becomes less important. Maybe everyone knows someone with Alzheimers, but they are just much more scared of other things like cancer and heart disease.
If people don't like the laws that get passed (i.e. the way the money is spent), then they e
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Every $1 we spend now is $10 we need to repay later.
Actually, it's more like "every $1 we spend now is $10 we DON'T need to spend later" where proactive health care expenses are concerned.
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How about just prioritizing it by potential cost SAVINGS, then?
Dementia treatment and care, etc costs over $200B a year to the US, and that's largely paid for by Medicare/Medicaid. It's estimated to be a near unimaginable $1.2 TRILLION PER YEAR by 2050 - it will be far and away the single biggest medical expense, and will make Medicare and other government health-related expenses dwarf anything else we are spending on.
I saw an estimate that it costs almost $100K per person per year to pay for 24/7 long ter
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So you might not actually want to find cures/treatments for some problems
People will eventually die, but before that they often use up a lot of $$$ in medical expenses. And if anyone asks "but what if people could be healthy and fit forever?" they should go think more about the consequences. It's ugly.
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Yes, that's exactly the point of why dementia/Alzheimer's IS something you'd want to cure to save money. People can live for decades with it while getting to the point they need constant care and attention. If people were HEALTHY and FIT, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It's the people who are debilitatingly sick but long lived that will be so expensive to care for.
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Yes, you fuckwit, that's the right way to treat your parents and grandparents. I'm sure you are about 14, but once your family members get to that age hopefully you have actually grown up.
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the initiative could lead to huge advances in our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and consciousness itself
That's not a goal. That's the kind of thing to tell venture capitalists when you want them to give you money. A goal sounds more like this, "We're going to use radiographic injection to observe the brain and collect data." It's a plan that's reachable and achievable.
Remember, AI funding already got cut once (AI winter) because of making ridiculous overpromises.
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$2/year an American is less than I'm about to go spend on lunch, saying its not worth it implies a general misunderstanding of the scope of the US economy and a disregard for fellow human beings suffering from these conditions [Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy].
And if the government does ENOUGH stuff at $2/person/project, pretty soon you can't afford lunch - or a place to live, or a way to get to work, or medical care if you DO get Alzheimer's or epilepsy, ...
Further, government projects are NOTORIOUSLY less e
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putting researchers to work on questions chosen by non-experts
That is generally a worrisome prospect, but it's not normally the case in the US. The government outlines broad areas that it wants to see studied (cancer, infectious diseases, etc.), but the specific questions being addressed are chosen by actual experts in the form of NIH grant panels. In this specific case, while the decision to push for funding for this initiative came from Obama (which definitely gives me pause), the project itself is, aga
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he comment I've made previously (once to Rod Brooks) about emulating a human brain is that you should try to emulate a mouse brain (1/1000th the mass) first.
To me this is the hallmark of an over-hyped project. Setting overly ambitious goals that are not achievable even in the medium term but designed to attract media attention.
The MIT media lab was a classical example of this, with press release after press release promising some life changing research or product (OLPC anyone?) well before the problem and solution space were well understood.
Re:Far enough along to throw money at it? (Score:4, Interesting)
On the other hand, throwing money at controlled fusion has not been very successful. We don't know how to make that work.
We know what we need to do [slashdot.org], the path forward is fairly clear. We haven't exactly been throwing money at it [imgur.com], that's the problem.
Other than that, I agree with your post.
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It accomplished the groundwork that made the recent advances possible.
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Regarding AI and Thinking, I wonder if scientists even know how amoeba and paramecia think.
Most people just assume they don't think. But what makes them so sure? I mostly see circular logic - e.g. "thinking requires neurons and single celled creatures can't think because they have no neurons".
It seems to me that they do somewhat complicated stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvOz4V699gk [youtube.com]
A blind and mute paraplegic could still think. Just because something doesn't have the same senses and physical abiliti
Main Expenses (Score:4, Insightful)
He with the deapest pockets wins... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Only government can afford to think this big, argues Timmerman" Then let the government get a job that will earn $120,700,000/yr so they can have $100,000,000 after taxes to spend on such a project.
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The government has been doing quite a lot of jobs; like providing roads, communications systems, schools, universities, legal systems, parks, environmental quality oversight, labor protections, military support, innovative fundamental research, etc. Now, I don't think they're always doing the best possible job (and in some areas, like murderous foreign wars and torture camps, they're downright terrible). If you don't like the job our government does, you're free to pack up and head over to the competition -
Dynamically Interactive System (Score:2)
Way too little. (Score:5, Insightful)
The US defense budget is 700,000 million. If we reduced the defense budget by .1% (iow, by a factor of .001), we could get another 700 million for this project. If you're concerned about the national security consequences, don't be. We could reduce the defense budget by 50% and still outspend China by more than 2:1.
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Or, we could simply reduce the deficit by that amount, instead of continuing to spend money we don't have.
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Or, we could simply reduce the deficit by that amount, instead of continuing to spend money we don't have.
Yes, because we all saw how well austerity worked in Greece, Ireland, Cypress, etc. Everywhere austerity has been tried it's failed. You have to spend your way out of recessions. If money isn't moving on its own, we have to force it to move. Austerity simply doesn't work [washingtonpost.com].
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Yes, because we all saw how well austerity worked in Greece, Ireland, Cypress, etc.
Don't blame the cure for the disease.
For example, if you get a severe heart attack away from prompt medical care, the usual first aid treatment, cardiopulmonary resuscitation [wikipedia.org] or CPR is brutal. If done correctly, it can break your ribs and there's a good chance you'll die anyway (Wikpedia claims long term survival rates under 10%!). But if done correctly, it can beat doing nothing, most of the time.
The conditions that lead up to the need for austerity are a lot like a predictable heart attack. There mi
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People have ignored that this is an emergency treatment for a country in a situation where the government has lost most of its credibility, and spending and debt are so far out of control that the government lost the ability at least for a time to borrow and spend money
So the real problem isn't the financial deficit, it's the trust deficit. Hold the politicians who committed the fraud accountable, as well as the bankers who helped. That, combined with a huge push for financial transparency should be all t
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Ok. Then reduce the defense budget first, because thats how responsible budgeting works: you start by reducing expenditure, and THEN you talk about using that money elsewhere.
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I'd love to, but the fiscal conservatives won't let us.
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How do you know, the federal government has never actually talked about reducing spending.
That's exactly how I know. It's not like you haven't had your chance on many different occasions since Reagan.
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When people start screaming about "spending cuts", have you made any effort to point out that those "cuts" are merely reductions in the increase in spending? Or do you just complain that no one follows through on
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Considering the fact that you think the problems in Europe that were caused by monetary policy are the result of austerity, I'm going to guess that you were one of those screaming about the "spending cuts".
Not at all. Balanced budgets are great. But the time to balance the budget is when the economy is healthy. Borrow during lean times, pay it back in times of plenty. It's not that complicated.
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Not at all. Balanced budgets are great. But the time to balance the budget is when the economy is healthy. Borrow during lean times, pay it back in times of plenty. It's not that complicated.
And for the most part, it's not done. Countries like Greece are suffering from austerity precisely because they didn't follow the plan.
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It is generally a political no-win to "cut" things because people on both sides will demonize the attempt.
It doesnt change the fact that if your debt is growing, the responsible thing is not to add new spending until you have cut more than that from your existing budget.
Of course, the responsible thing is also to have a budget to begin with, but I suppose baby steps...
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A) Im a fiscal conservative, so perhaps be careful with those broad statements-- theyre not true.
B) If the majority cannot agree to lower spending on defense, then it doesnt happen. But fiscally it is a TERRIBLE idea to say "well, we werent able to lower costs, but we're going to spend on this other thing anyways".
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We could reduce the defense budget by 50% and still outspend China by more than 2:1.
And how many soldiers would be in that army? If you can't answer that question, you haven't thought it through very well.
Careful (Score:2)
Keep in mind this admin is perfectly comfortable with droning, Gitmo, permanent war...
no, megaprojects this nebulous do not work. (Score:2)
Manhattan or Apollo projects were successful primarily because they had such a clear focus.
Sequencing the human genome was just a way to push development of techniques: we didn't learn that much from the primary product. especially since it's become clear that expression is far more interesting/relevant than just a straight read of sequences. and even that is arguably incomplete without better proteomics.
neuroscience is not at any clearly defined threshold where we can see what's needed to get to a state
Too Much, Actually (Score:2)
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/federalbudgetprocess/a/How-Much-Shrimp-Treadmill-Study-Cost-Taxpayers.htm [about.com]
cynical publicity stunt (Score:2)
Spending public money on brain research (and other basic research) is a really good thing. However, spending money in this way, by taking a huge chunk of money and dedicating it in some limited way, is not a good way of doing it. This money will likely mostly go to just a few big institutions and a lot of it will be wasted. In fact, people haven't even formulated a clear plan on what to do with the money. Money like this should be spent as a large number of small grants, awarded through many different grant
I'm pleasantly astonished that this got through (Score:2)
Look, we figure out the brain and we figure out how to build one in silica, thereby making it expandable and controllable. At that point, the whole domain of useful, answerable questions is open to us. *This* is the one best thing we could throw R&D money at. I would say, "throw more if it helps" but I don't know that it would.
Anyway, if we don't, the Chinese and Indians will. The country that owns this, owns the world.
Re:More ways to sped (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many potential projects, so we should spend LESS?
Re:More ways to sped (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, sometimes more, sometimes less, that's how prioritization works.
Although learning more about how the brain works is a worthy goal, it is not necessarily the *most* worthy goal, and it may actually be better to have the government spend less on it (so more can be spent on other things).
If we solved all the other problems in the world except demystifying the brain (even if it wasn't that important), then we should absolutely spend all our research money on that. This is an example of having less potential projects causing the best option to be to spend more on brain research.
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There are many potential projects, so we should spend LESS?
I think it's the potential government contractors who are thinking moar needs to be spent. That's how they think. We have a real POS system running at our state level I cannot believe should have cost $27 million. Take 1/10 that amount and give it to the department that peformed the function formerly and we'd have a better system - the old one really was well done and they were such great people to work with. IBM got the state contract and their system is riddled with bugs and they didn't know how to tr
Re:More ways to sped (Score:4, Insightful)
The government should be a major source of funding for research, the government doesn't have to worry about being profitable in any given quarter, so long as the research leads to prosperity that's all well and good.
As the AC asked, the solution to many potential projects is less funding? In what way does that make any sense at all?
What's more you wouldn't be typing that without US government money for things like the internet and laptops would probably not exist either as battery research was primarily driven by space exploration related needs.
When all is said and done this sort of "thinking" is what's threatening the US, get the government out of it and hope your cause is sufficiently sexy to attract philanthropists.
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we'll just ignore all the waste and fraud!
Sciencemen don't waste and fraud.
You must be thinking of banksters or politicians.
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Anything the taxpayers money is going to be spent on needs to have quantifiable and measurable goals of success or its just some ideological feelgood bullshit.
Truth. If the next James Clerk Maxwell wants to play around with useless curiosities like magnets he should do it on his own dime. The only science governments should fund are those where the outcome is already known.
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LOL, so we should probably just stop funding research altogether as we aren't going to be funding any actual science.
Then again, I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic with your comment.
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You're an idiot.
I said they don't have to worry about it in any given quarter. Also, it's a lot more complicated than you make it sound. How much money has the US made off of battery technology and such? It's not an easily answered question.
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I assume the Human Genome Project was a waste too? And nearly all space travel?
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I know you're a troll, but on the chance that people are thinking the same thing.
Private funding tends to be pretty short sighted. If there isn't an immediately obvious application for it, and a way of making a buck on it, chances are it won't be done. Government money doesn't mean that you can research things of no significance, it just means that you don't have to be able to turn it profitable by itself. And a ton of research out there is useless by itself, but when combined with other studies and researc
Re:It's too much (Score:4, Insightful)
A large capital intensive project that yields information that cannot be patented. Why would private investors spend money on it?
The Brain map will discover information, that information cannot be suppressed or even hidden (somebody is bound to leak it for free). Therefore it makes no sense for private investors to pour money into it, since they won't be able to get a return.
On the other hand, the value to society is immense .. therefore government should do it.
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'Even though $100 million a year is small change by federal government standards,'
That much should not be considered a small chunk of change.
Question: "How does a country build a debt of $16 trillion . . . ?"
Answer: "One $100 million at a time . . ."
Maybe the US should adopt the European model? When one of the southern countries gets in debt over their heads . . . they just get Germany to pay for it.
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Apparently the answer is more like:
âoe2/3 of an F22 at a time...â.
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So, "we're already spending money hand-over fist in a bad way, whats another few hundred million between friends"?
THATS the way to solve budgeting issues!
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I agree! For a 100mil we could get 2/3 of a F22. Think about it for a minute, in 10 years we could add another 6 to the 187 we already have.
Or we could, you know, borrow $100,000,000 less every year. I know that's outside the box thinking and all, but where the hell has this dichotomy come from where, when we have a spending problem, we always hear, "Well, it's better than spending $VALUE on $INITIATIVE?" Military and social spending BOTH have to come down, and revenue (somehow) has to come UP if we're to get out of the mess we're in. I'm all for basic research (as someone else up thread noted, nothing in history has paid dividends like it)
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Yes, Celera was able to do more with less. But that was due to the technology advancing during the 8 years the public project had already been running. Venter was able to use the experience gained from that time.
Also, Venter was using a shotgun approach that hadn't been fully vetted at the time on genomes that large. It turned out it worked well, but for this first time, you still needed the public project data to check it.
This is much like when Eckert and Mauchly were building the Eniac. Partway thru build
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But that was due to the technology advancing during the 8 years the public project had already been running. Venter was able to use the experience gained from that time.
Yes, and as you hinted at, the technology required for Venter's approach didn't even exist when the HGP started. Among other things, they'd have required a couple orders of magnitude more computer hardware to do the genome assembly.
A fair assessment of the HGP is that it was slow to adapt, and stuck to the older, tested methods several year
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Craig Venter's private company was able to do similar work on the Human Genome Project, in a shorter amount of time, and for roughly 1/10 the cost of Francis Collins' gov't project.
In addition to the fact that Venter was able to take advantage of nearly a decade of technology development, you're leaving out a few important details:
1) Celera was able to use the HGP results, but not vice-versa. Which was convenient, since the HGP's more laborious process could cover parts of the genome that weren't well-suit
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Of course, spending a relatively small amount to study the causes of diseases that end up costing a LOT more in medical expenses makes more sense, unless you subscribe to the penny-wise, pound-foolish school of thinking - which it sound like you do - along with all the others screaming about "spending money we don't have" - usually on the poor, sick, disabled and/or elderly - you know, those 47% er's Romney mentioned to all those rich people (with great health insurance - if they even *need* insurance).
Y
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That's insanely short sighted. The real answer is we can't afford NOT to do it.
Dementia treatment and long term care currently costs a combined $200B (yes two hundred BILLION) dollars a year in the US, and is going to rise DRASTICALLY in coming years with the aging baby boomers. That's literally more than spent on cancer or heart disease. Finding the root cause and an effective treatment for Alzheimer's alone could possibly be the single biggest healthcare accomplishment of the 21st century.
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Yes, but how much of that $200B wouldn't be spent if we had the best possible case and spent $2B (say 20 years of research) to find what the cause was? That's still worlds away from an actual solution, which *surprise* will cost money to implement. And, hey, if you cure Alzheimers - how much longer might someone with other infirmity live? Curing them doesn't actually save money because long term care starts at a point before death, and everyone eventually dies. The reason we spend less on heart disease and
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Curing them doesn't actually save money because long term care starts at a point before death, and everyone eventually dies. The reason we spend less on heart disease and cancer care is because those patients don't last as long. That's morbid, but true.
But that's not really true, and even when it is it doesn't diminish the point at all. Heart disease and cancer these days are very treatable in many cases. My grandmother has had a coronary stent and breast cancer, and she's now 88 years old and can still
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Except that wealthy people don;t have any wealth. They are just lucky that trusts in the cayment islands buy them nice dinners and their companies give them nice cars to drive and fancy places to live. They don't own any wealth. They just get to consume it.
This is why we shouldn't have an income tax *or* a wealth tax. We should have a consumption tax. Wealthy people can use loopholes to claim they have no wealth and have no income. What they will be less able to do is to consume less wealth. Afterall
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One problem with a "consumption tax" is that you have several generations that have spent their lives trying to accumulate enough to support them in their old age while the government sucked them dry with income taxes and inflation.
Now that the productive portions of their lives are running out, switching to a consumption tax lets the government loot them AGAIN on what they managed to save despite the previous blood-sucking.
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That's not that big of a problem. Yes it would be unfair to people who paid income tax their whole life, but you can just cut a check to everyone based on how much income tax they've paid. This would be paid for by the new consumption tax being collected.
For example:
Someone worked from age 18 to age 65 paying income tax. This person saved $500K for retirement, but now there is a 40% consumption tax. As long has he gets a check for $200K, he's fine.
This kind of thing can be calculated as yearly or even
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The problem there is it becomes easier and easier to avoid the taxes the longer you let people hold onto their money. Make a bunch of money tax-free, then move to another country to retire and live off it tax-free. Not to mention the crazy calculations or rules you'd have to add to the tax code, etc to deal with inflation, gifts, essential expenses (do you tax someone on *consumption* for medical *expenses* or basic food and housing required to live?)
I'm sure you can try to come up with all kinds of rules
A drop in the bucket for bankers (Score:2)
The geniuses on Wall Street managed to make off with about 80,000x that much five years ago. I'm not seeing most of the banking boards of directors in jail. Every single day they siphon off millions of dollars through HFT and "innovative" financial products at the general public investor's expense.
I suggest you go hunt down bankers if you want some vigilante justice for wasted money.
Not that I endorse this research. It's nice, but as another poster pointed out the EU is already funding somewhat similar rese
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Took the words right out of my mouth... but I'll add "and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out". American citzens who whine about the government taking taxes "by force" need to think about what life is like in Cuba or North Korea where the citizens aren't even allowed to leave the country.
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attempting to prevent the same populist leftist takeover from happening
Anyone who thinks the USA is in any danger of this - in particular, anyone who thinks Obama is representative of such a trend - needs to seek psychiatric help. I happen to live in one of the few places in the country where such far-left agitators (and cult-of-personality followers) group, and they're considered a bunch of nutters by their (overwhelmingly liberal) neighbors. They incite the occasional riot and commit petty vandalism, bu
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Americans didn't really lose squat. The bankers multiply money, and had inflated their value from a somewhat sustainable 15x multiplier to somewhere in the 30x range, thanks to the real estate bubble loans and other insurance gimmicks. Then that scheme fell flat, and they lost half their value on paper, bringing down the accounts of investors foolish enough to invest in those "safe" things. But that value never really existed anyway.
The only real crime was giving them real money to prop up their facade.
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they lost half their value on paper, bringing down the accounts of investors foolish enough to invest in those "safe" things.
Maybe you weren't paying attention, but the entire stock market tumbled when the crash came. People who invested in much safer things like mutual funds also lost a huge fraction of their net worth - not quite half, but around 40% in my case. These may not be as conservative an investment as, say, CDs or (on the extreme end) savings accounts, but they're hardly irresponsible speculat
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Americans who put all their money under their mattress definitely lost out. Americans who invested their money did not. The financial system we have now, while not perfect, is designed to encourage investment rather than just hiding your money and waiting for it to go up in value (like you would do with gold). Having an economy where the investors lose out to the people who can manage to spend the least is a recipe for a depression.
The US government could certainly be more honest about the way it dilutes
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"Does this one have a soul?"