Accountability of the Scientific Stimulus Funding 242
eldavojohn writes "A blog tipped me off to a government site that allows me to see where my tax dollars went when the nebulous 'scientific stimulus' was granted. You might be able to find this information in a bill, but you can click on your state in this interactive site to see what has happened locally to you. Perhaps it's a sign of more government transparency in regards to spending or just more propaganda."
This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:5, Informative)
Data entry errors. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/11/17/looking-big-picture-recovery-act/ [whitehouse.gov]
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I think we should be buying lawnmowers for all the graveyards, since each lawnmower will create 50 jobs.
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:4, Informative)
Such a convenient excuse (if true)... but still doesn't explain all of the fake jobs 'created or saved' in New Hampshire [hotair.com], Florida and Georgia [hotair.com], Ohio [hotair.com], Wisconsin [hotair.com], New Jersey [google.com], Virginia [nypost.com], Texas [dallasnews.com], Illinois [chicagotribune.com], Colorado [hotair.com], Washington [hotair.com], Massachusetts [hotair.com], Arkansas [hotair.com], Connecticut [clickability.com], or Michigan [hotair.com].
Given the scope of the fakery going on... there are two options... even more errors, or a deliberate attempt to cook the books.
Giving the amazing failure of the stimulus... the latter is far more likely given the continued delusional claims that it saved us from the brink... instead it is setting us up for a double dip and massive inflation.
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I was always amused by that portrayal of the Bush administration.
On the one hand they were evil and perpetrated some horrific things with amazing efficiency. They pulled off an intricate and vast conspiracy that any rational thinking human should immediately realize could never happen. To do so he would have to be a diabolical genius.
On the other hand he was portrayed as this completely incompetent idiot who shouldn't be trusted to do anything.
Kind of like the amusing portrayal of Florida voters in the Go
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Same thing with Bill O'Reilly who tried to sue Al Franken when Franken used Bill's image on the cover of his book, claiming people might think Bill endorsed the book [cbsnews.com]. Fox also participated because Franken used the words, 'Fair and Balanced' on the cover and, like Bill, claimed people wou
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Idiot or not, not everyone thinks Obama all he was supposed to be cracked up to be, especially foreign diplomacy at the moment. [google.com] But I guess that's probably China's fault, just like the economy is Bush's fault, the bad health care is doctor's fault, the problems with journalism today is conservatives' (talkshows especially) and Fox News's fault, and the problem with education is religion's fault (nevermind that early American education was because of religion, not in spite of)...
In other words, all problems
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It's interesting how people will defend obvious corruption when there's a Democrat involved.
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Your post implies people don't do the same thing when it's a Republican. Christ, if you are going to accuse a side of acting childish and turning a blind eye to corruption, don't neglect to mention the other side is doing the same thing.
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'" -Bill Hicks
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:4, Informative)
Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I can't trust any web site with that much obvious bias. hotair.com has obviously decided that Obama sucks, and they will do anything to prove it. I've yet to see anything logical or factual from the Obama haters. Not that I've had any high expectations for Obama, but these loons seem to think he kills old people by throwing babies at them, holds seances to talk to Lenin's ghost, and farts demons. It's hilarious to watch loons like you writhe about in abject terror over the coming End of America.
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And yet, I presume you listened to mainstream media (CNN, ABC, etc) when they all decided that they didn't like Bush.
So in other words, your argument: I like Obama, and hotair (and similar journalists) doesn't. Therefore, hotair (etc.) are wrong and I won't listen to them, because they obviously don't know the truth.
I am not so sure that the mainstream media who obviously like Obama are "fair" and "unbiased" in their "reporting" of things. And it actually shocks me that CNN and ABC ran stories about the "
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I find it funny how people never include Fox News when they say "mainstream media".
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Oh, I don't know...I think all of them would, given the opportunity. Fox just has no shame, so they are willing to actually go and do it. None of them are worth anyone's time, though. Their goal (Fox, MSNBC, etc.) is to sell advertising, not relay the news.
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The Mainstream media LOVED Bush. They don't seem to like Obama as much
There is not a bridge large enough to contain this troll.
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I guess you don't read/watch/listen to much news do you :)
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Of course hotair is super conservative, but what does that have to do with what is said? There are facts, citations, and original documents in those posts that the OP put up, and that conservative hotair commentator uses those facts to try to illustrate a point. Maybe it is a d
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It is important to keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out.
I read most of the sources you cite, to get a balanced picture. hotair isn't one of them, it's of no importance and so far off the radar even the loons have a hard time finding it. I'm not dismissing it out of hand. I'm dismissing it for entirely valid reasons. It is a copypasta clone of a thousand other ignorant hate sites. If you've seen one, you've seen them all.
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My point is that dismissing it because it is "biased" or, as you put it, a "hate site" is a bad way to go. If, as a country, the US reaches the point where one side dismisses the other side's arguments as simply "stupid" or "hateful" or "evil" or whatever without even understanding the arguments... then yes, that is the very definition of closed-mindedness.
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On the other hand, we should never be tolerant of hatefulness and stupidity just so that we can seem tolerant and balanced. Hate is hate, and stupidity is stupidity, and I'm not going to sugar coat my opinions just because some hateful loon might get offended.
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I agree that a lot of the Obama hate seems way out in left field, but I also am sorely disappointed by the contrast between what was 'sold' and what we 'got'. I think that this is likely the basis for the fervor. Either personal disappointment, or more likely disillusionment around how someone could actually 'like' him.
On the other hand, it isn't all totally baseless, either. As a minor example of some hate that is true (that honestly surprised me): It is in fact true that he does not make a habit out of
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I'm sorely disappointed in Obama, too. He is in no way leftist or progressive. He is a right-center Reagan worshiper. He has admitted that Reagan is his favorite president.
However, it is in fact a complete fabrication that Obama won't put his hand over his heart:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/11/obama_nabbed_by_the_patriotic.html [washingtonpost.com]
http://robinhoecker.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/obama-observes-memorial-day-at-arlington/ [wordpress.com]
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/go9LID8MV0W/Obama+Gives+Commencement+Address+A [zimbio.com]
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You have (deliberately?) twisted what I said.
I said:
It is in fact true that he does not make a habit out of putting his hand over his heart when it would be respectful and customary.
Check out the video on Snopes [snopes.com].
They even have a quote from the Administration on there.
Care to retract your 'lack of logic and facts' statement?
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Re:Biased much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Citation?
How about the fact that it uses the word "Porkulus" as the name of the stimulus bill? Is it at all possible in that context to believe that they're reserving judgement and just reporting facts?
Re:Biased much? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Brendan should take personal responsibility for his own loans and not look to others to bail him out.
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How can you not get the irony of someone bitching about the bailout while asking to be bailed out? It's like getting hit across the face by a huge freaking BAR of irony, and somehow you missed it.
P.S. My posts are never worth reading, I'm a huge dick, like, ALL THE FREAKING TIME! I really don't understand why I keep getting modded up. Oh wait, it must be because the majority of Slashdot readers, like the majority of Americans, nay, the majority of ALL HUMAN BEINGS ON THE PLANET agree with me.
Yes, you DO have a choice, princess (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody is TAKING your money. You have engaged in a voluntary trade. You pay money, you get services. If you don't like it, you can leave, or attempt, through voting and public discourse to have your ideas enacted. No one is forcing you to remain a citizen of the United States, so quite whining. It makes you sound like a spoiled princess who doesn't appreciate how good she has it.
In Germany, the richest citizens just demanded they pay MORE in taxes. [bbc.co.uk] And they already pay more than we do. But they are not whin
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The citation of hotair as a credible site is similar to the mistake of quoting wikipedia-- the sources may or may not be informed or unbiased in a journalistic or even scientific context.
While you replied to someone that's a bit over the top, hotair isn't known for their objectivity-- indeed they're known for their bias. Nonetheless, you might have found supportive data from a more credible source, and I don't necessarily mean the US Gov at all.
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He said he hasn't heard anything logical or factual from the Obama haters.He mentioned nothing about whether he has heard anything from people who simply disagree.
You fail basic reading comprehension.
In fact, I *have* heard things both logical and factual from people who simply disagree with particular aspects of
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Nothing in your post does anything to contradict the original explanation. There are tens of thousands of projects receiving stimulus funding, and of course there will be some errors and oversights. Any large program will have that, but all that you've provided are a few barely sourced links that at most account for an infinitesimally small percentage of the spending. Given that this is all you have after months of public disclosure on stimulus spending, the only rational conclusion is that the program appe
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Recently a very short portion of a road was repaved (1/4 mile at most). The road gets little traffic, at the end of the 1/4 mile you're in the country flanked by two corn fields. There are a couple of small businesses in that section. The road before was not in the best condition, but I've seen much worse.
Ok, they paved the road. Then they put up a 20'x20' si
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It depends.
If they improve their standing in the advertised area enough and they gain $100k in new business as a result, everyone wins. The charity gets $20k, the company is up $30k.
Oh, and don't forget that the $70k is a tax writeoff. $20k for the donation and $50k for business expenses.
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Normally I prefer not to engage ACs, but I'd like to figure out what point you're trying to make. You made a statement about The Daily Herald being "far left," but then copied the GP's link to the Chicago Tribune. I don't know what Daily Herald you're referring to since I didn't see a link to one in the GP. However, I live in Chicago and read the Tribune daily; I also know it to be a center-right paper and an organization that helped found the Republican party.
As for your claim about the Illinois education
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Folks on the inside know that the house of cards is coming down and are grabbing all that they can while they can?
Re:This is all I've got to say about this. (Score:5, Informative)
You can't help idiocy. This idiot multiplied 508 by 1.84 instead of by 0.0184. People make stupid mistakes, and the failure here is that no one checked it.
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Oh, well, that explains everything. Certainly we should trust all of the data that's not obviously in error--after all, just because the people entering data (and presumably the people proofreading it) didn't realize that districts like the 69th, 86th, and 99th don't exist in any state in the Union, and that anybody who has ever watched a Presidential election could figure it out trivially, doesn't mean that we can't trust the facts and figures they've published that don't have such obvious sanity checks.
O
DId you even read (Score:4, Informative)
that story? it's about people not correctly reporting their district.
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It's a story about a system that doesn't verify data sent to them.
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The main difference here is that Obama isn't going to go to war, using this false information as backup, in the face of people clearly telling him it's wrong.
Bush stood up on that little plinth and demonstrably lied to the population, Obama didn't read these numbers off an autocue, claiming them to be the truth. If they're wrong, they'll fix it.
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Well, if Obama didn't lie when he got information telling him a certain number of jobs were created, then Bush didn't lie when his intelligence departments told him there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Stop being biased toward one side just because you're a member of that side's political party. Learn to step outside the bubble.
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I'm not a member of the Democratic party.
They're too right wing for me. I'm not a US citizen either.
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The main difference here is that Obama isn't going to go to war, using this false information as backup, in the face of people clearly telling him it's wrong.
Bush stood up on that little plinth and demonstrably lied to the population, Obama didn't read these numbers off an autocue, claiming them to be the truth. If they're wrong, they'll fix it.
So we've brought them all home, then? Because it seems that this breaks your 'wrong > fix' cycle to me.
Problem with the science stimulus funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Problem with the science stimulus funding (Score:4, Insightful)
But without the stimulus those projects wouldn't have got started at all and have no chance at getting funding when the money stops.
Its a 'stimulus package', not a 'do it all package'.
Re:Problem with the science stimulus funding (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem with the stimulus as a whole was that it was too short term. That's why we see economic growth picking up, but not employment. Employers scramble to get their share of the dough, but they don't hire people because they know the dough is going to be gone in a few months.
The very idea of a short term science or technology stimulus is silly. If you have something that will be worth doing in the short term, that should be easy funding -- especially in technology. A real stimulus needs to give people the confidence to make long term decisions -- like where to direct their careers, or to start up companies to develop technologies that won't be market ready for two or three years.
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Just to be sure, you're aware that the vast majority (somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-85%) of the stimulus money hasn't been spent yet, right? I think there's a lot of talk as if we went to the grocery store when the bill was signed and laid $787 billion down at the checkout counter. Even TFA sort of implies this when it refers to the argument over how many jobs the stimulus package actually created, as if all of the money is spent and we're now just trying to measure the results. Also, a lot of the
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Yes, I'm aware of that. That's the way it should be. There was a great deal of pressure to restrict stimulus dollars for "shovel-ready" projects, if you recall, so more money may have been spent faster in order to get those particular legislators on board. The publicity may have blunted the package's immediate effects somewhat.
In an ideal world, you'd get the entire stimulus from promising "jam tomorrow", but never delivering "jam today".
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That's why we see economic growth picking up, but not employment.
Please provide at least one citation of an economic recovery in which employment did not lag behind all other major indicators by at least 6 to 18 months. Because, based on all historical data, employment is always a lagging indicator of a recovery. And the current trends show employment improving by February 2010, which is right on schedule given that the other indicators picked up around July 2009.
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Of course employment always lags other indicators, because employers don't want to hire until they know the improvement is permanent. That's why *short term* stimulation is ineffective. We aren't going to get sustained economic growth in this country without employment. You want jobs to come back as quickly as possible, but it's not going to be instantaneous.
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A real stimulus needs to give people the confidence to make long term decisions -- like where to direct their careers, or to start up companies to develop technologies that won't be market ready for two or three years.
Yep. I.e., cut taxes.
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Short term results in employment come from businesses making decisions about long-term prospects. So the impact of money *not spent yet* is actually more important than the money that's actually been spent. The only reason to spend money *now* is to make the promise of future money credible. We don't want an economy that rides on the shoulders of government demand, after all.
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The stimulus funding shouldn't have occurred.
There, corrected that for ya.
Misperceptions of Purpose for Science Funds (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Problem with the science stimulus funding (Score:4, Informative)
That's not the way it works. For starters there's rarely, if ever, a definitive "end point" for a study. There's always something more that could be done; it's a piss-poor paper that doesn't bring out new issues to explore. Running out of money or key personnel moving on to a new position often times is the end where whatever you've got is bundled up into a publication(s). If it isn't at the level of a..."least publishable unit" then it might sit around for a year or three until the principal investigator can scrounge up time or more often the case money to get it to that LPU point.
"Many if not most of those projects will then be scrambling for funding..."
This is what academic scientists call "situation normal" or "Wednesday" it's how the game doesn't work for about the last 15 years or so, and getting worse every year. You are constantly scrambling for money, any money, to keep yourself and your staff employed and doing science.
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And the sort of misunderstanding perpetuated by the OP is exactly why I'm of a duality when it comes to making the underpinnings of scientific funding and research available to the general public.
It's not that I think people shouldn't have access to and be able to find out where their tax dollars go (I pay them too!), but it's all too easy for someone not in the hard sciences to look at what's going on and say, 'Where's my output?' or, 'Why are they studying cannabis. Isn't that illegal?'
Having said that, t
Why is R&D even in a "stimulus" package? (Score:2)
Looking over various lists of projects, I am thinking there is not a lot of stimulating going on - a lot of this cash is going to be hoarded by projects, eeked out over a few years.
R&D spending is important, but it should be in it's own bill covering scientific advancement - not a giant bill covering everything everywhere, with very little thought into what the best projects are to actually get funding.
Re:Why is R&D even in a "stimulus" package? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are absolutely correct.
But the sad reality is that a) scientific spending has the highest return of any government policy (most of which has a negative return), and b) the alternative is not to get science funded through a R&D bill, but to release the funds to other frivolous projects that lobbyists like, and leave nothing for pure, long-term-oriented scientific research.
So I'm going to have to cynically label this "it shouldn't be in the stimulus, but something else" as a low-priority issue.
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I think the problem is that R&D is good for long-term stimulus. By maintaining human progress, we are attempting to stock tomorrows shelves, and to provide our children with a few less broken windows. Unfortunately, it does not fit into an ROI equation, so it is hard to justify.
Is it dishonest to try to pass off a long term strategy as a "holy hell, the apocalypse is nie!" reaction? Yes. But, doing so helps get an effective strategy off the ground. I won't lose any sleep over it.
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I don't know about this particular issue, but the rationale for including some of the not-really-stimulus spending in the stimulus bill was that it was compensating for shortfalls that were due to the economic contraction. So for example, increasing unemployment benefits isn't exactly stimulative, but it helps people out in the mean time until the economy recovers. Likewise, increasing scholarships isn't exactly the most stimulative thing, but as the economy contracts and people can't afford to pay for co
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>> R&D spending is important, but it should be in it's own bill covering scientific advancement
R&D spending IS important, and it should be done by companies and non profits that are motivated to create things you need, not politicians.
Government spending (Score:5, Insightful)
is very transparent. Most of it is published. Budgets are public.
While we always need more transparency, I am surprised how many people don't even know that budgets are published and kept in libraries.
What is better is letting people know where this data is, and also getting it online.
Do you those idiots care? (Score:2)
No, they'd rather huff and puff about big gubbermint and how since they never go to the library they shouldn't have to pay taxes.
Not a government site (Score:4, Informative)
This isn't a gov site. from the about us page:
ScienceWorksForUS is a joint effort of the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and The Science Coalition (TSC) to demonstrate the impact of stimulus-funded university research activities across the country.
These are trade/lobbying organizations, not government agencies.
Stimulus Funding (Score:5, Informative)
It's important to note that this stimulus funding (they're also called 'Recovery Act' grants) were under a very short submission cycle.
Essentially, we only had a few months to prepare and submit a proposal to get funded, which isn't a lot of time -- unless you already had a proposal ready (or nearly ready) in the wings. What this means in a practical sense is that a lot of what the stimulus funds would have ended up going to is work that's in-progress, or stuff that larger labs want to do as pilot projects.
Also: someone in here suggested shorter-term studies. That's not how real science is done. We try to encapsulate some specific aims in the grant time-frame, but what really happens fundamentally is that we end up using the grant funds to answer enough questions that we can go and apply for another grant.
It's a much-less cohesive and efficient system than many people realize.
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It's important to note that this stimulus funding (they're also called 'Recovery Act' grants) were under a very short submission cycle.
Essentially, we only had a few months to prepare and submit a proposal to get funded, which isn't a lot of time -- unless you already had a proposal ready (or nearly ready) in the wings.
Was it even months? I recall it being less than that. It was an incredibly short cycle. Also, reading through the list of proposed areas of research was obviously reading through a list of project summaries that were culled out of program officers' piles of unfunded grant applications, making it seem like the decisions had already been made.
The ironic thing about the ARRA funding was that new investigators are the best way to create jobs and economic stimulus. New investigators need to buy equipment and
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Was it even months? I recall it being less than that. It was an incredibly short cycle. Also, reading through the list of proposed areas of research was obviously reading through a list of project summaries that were culled out of program officers' piles of unfunded grant applications, making it seem like the decisions had already been made.
That's absolutely true. In my particular example, we re-submitted a grant that had already been rejected (after making the requisite changes, of course). I expect that happened quite a lot, since the alternative was writing a whole new proposal in a very short span of time.
That's not to say that none of the things proposed weren't fundable-quality, but more that the recovery act funds aren't going to say, make new jobs. Technicians who are already hired will stay hired, postdocs like myself will get another
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I'm really pulling this out of nowhere (no sources or anything, just what seems to make sense to me), but I would think that during times of severe recession/depression, the R&D areas of the economy would be one of the most vulnerable sectors. The problem is they primarily fall into two categories: Tax-funded/grant-funded institutions (Universities, mainly) and R&D either dependent on or connected to a corporation. There may be a lot of independent R&D shops out there that don't fit this pictu
Not very useful (Score:2)
Chicken or Egg? (Score:2, Interesting)
A quick look at the site, and I found this: http://www.scienceworksforus.org/virginia/u-va-receives-grant-to-study-effect-of-federal-stimulus-on-science-and-engineering-jobs [scienceworksforus.org]
Stimulus money to study the effect of stimulus money!
Sure let's just keep printing money! I am sure the value of the dollar won't go down.
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amazingly... (Score:2)
It turns out that the most efficient type of stimulus spending is spending on studies of stimulus spending.
Sunglasses at the ready (Score:5, Funny)
from the we-blew-it-on-bubblegum dept.
Well clearly it wasn't spent on kicking ass.
Responsive Team (Score:4, Interesting)
So I used the easily found feedback form to quickly point it out, figuring I'd forget about it later today and never find out or really care if the link was fixed. 18 minutes later I got an email thanking me and saying they'd fix it today. Then 4 minutes later I got another email from a different person saying it was fixed. I refreshed the page, and the link was good.
I know this is one, small incident. But I think it's evidence of a highly responsive, competent, and organized team (technical or support, I'm not sure). I think this indicates that if the upper people and committees allow for it, this web site can do Good Things.
Back in February (Score:2, Informative)
Back in February after the Stimulus Bill was passed, I was flying from Washington DC to Raleigh Durham. Onboard the plane were two congressmen, one so myopic that he literally had to read things two inches from his nose. This is with glasses too. You couldn't help but overhear how proud they were of passing the legislation but what was funny is that both of them were commenting on specific parts of it and each passing back pages of the legislation back and forth.
"Did you know that was in there?"
"Hey, wha
Improved Internet Info and Communication (Score:4, Informative)
Just the improved information availability is a significant improvement.
Not a damed thing .... (Score:2)
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Good idea for a scientific study. Is tin foil more or less effective than aluminum for hats to protect us from those mind control satellites? I'll bet the feds won't approve that, since it's their satellites were we're trying to protect ourselves from.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww [youtube.com]
Clearly, we need a map stimulus spending.
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>> Clearly, we need a map stimulus spending.
I personally believe that, U.S. Americans are unable to do so, because some people out there in our nation that don’t have maps.
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Yeah, the thing about the bank bailouts is that pretty much everyone who understands the issue agrees that they were more or less necessary. Whether they were handled properly is still a question, and we arguably never should have gotten into that kind of situation, but once we were there, the bailouts were necessary.
If you don't understand why, here's the deal (just a simplified overview as I understand it): Many banks were apparently not solvent. If the government did nothing and your bank went under,
Re:Oh God queue the fucking wingnuts (Score:4, Insightful)
However, the whole "FDIC insured" thing means that if the bank goes under, the government will take control of the bank, effectively socializing it completely, bail it out, and then sell it off. That's not really any better. To make matters worse, these large banks are fairly interconnected, which means if even a couple major banks were to go under, it would have caused problems for anyone who it owed money to, including all the other banks. Letting a company like CitiGroup go under would cause a chain reaction that would cause lots of other banks to go under.
So if I understand you correctly, the government putting a large bank into receivership, taking it over with full tax-payer backing, and selling it off for parts in a systematic way would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the entire financial system of the world.
Sweden--a far more capitalist nation than the US, apparently--did exactly this in the '90's without the world ending. The only counter argument I've heard to that is, "Well but the US is SO MUCH BIGGER and we have SO MANY BANKS."
But it isn't the thousands of mom-and-pop banks that were in trouble: it was a handful of big banks, and AIG. Rather than socialize the risk while leaving the profits in private hands, which is what the Bush/Obama administration did, putting them into receivership was clearly the right thing to do.
It's been clear that as American imperial power grows, the US becomes a more "conservative" place, in the sense of being afraid to try anything outside the envelope of "business as usual". This is a common effect of imperial power, which is jealous of its reputation and therefore afraid to try anything that might fail.
But we need to call a spade a spade, and not pretend that the fearful fantasies of world-wide collapse were remotely realistic, when clearly putting a small handful of big banks into receivership would be just a minor variant on what actually happened--which was banks continuing to operate with taxpayer backing, except that the taxpayer would have actually been the owner rather than simply absorbing all the risk.
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Rather than socialize the risk while leaving the profits in private hands, which is what the Bush/Obama administration did, putting them into receivership was clearly the right thing to do.
Meh, maybe. I don't want to shut down discussion or say that the situation was easy and simple and there were no other possible options or variations on how these things could have been handled. I've just read/heard a lot of people complaining about how the government shouldn't have been involved *at all*, how the government's investments in the banks are evidence of Obama's socialist agenda, etc.
So my post was sort of a condensed version of a conversation I've had many times before, going something lik
Re:Oh God queue the fucking wingnuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the thing about the bank bailouts is that pretty much everyone who understands the issue agrees that they were more or less necessary.
I think there is a lot of disagreement on the issue, actually outright nationalization of the banks is probably the more common solution globally to the problem.
If you don't understand why, here's the deal (just a simplified overview as I understand it): Many banks were apparently not solvent. If the government did nothing and your bank went under, you may have essentially showed up at your bank one day to find your checking and savings accounts no longer existed. To this, many people respond, "But my money is FDIC insured!" However, the whole "FDIC insured" thing means that if the bank goes under, the government will take control of the bank, effectively socializing it completely, bail it out, and then sell it off. That's not really any better.
It's much better. Small people (deposit holders) keep their money up to FDIC limits and investors and counter-parties are wiped out, as they should be for their stupid investment decisions thus avoiding moral hazard. Even better, bankruptcy cleans the slate so that losses are recognized immediately instead of put off indefinitely, like Japan did after its crash. There would be no need for changes in accounting rules (mark to fantasy) and quantitative easing. In any case, the bailout hasn't worked. Obama explicitly stated he was giving money to banks because they could use the multiplier effect to generate more money than they were given. However banks aren't making those loans, they are hoarding money to absorb future loses and because they can't find enough credit worthy people to loan to. So even though the money supply is going up, credit is going down which is why we are not seeing inflation. If Obama wants to stimulate the economy, he is better off spending the money on science R&D (to lay the ground for future industries) than in saving big banks.
The only price to be paid for this approach is the loss of some large banks and a nastier (but shorter) crash. However Obama (like his predecessor) is tied tightly to big Wall Street banks and won't do what is required, preferring to take bank lobbyist money and to surround himself with former members of Goldman Sachs.
The problem is going to get worse once the stimulus money runs out and banks are forced to deal with losses, particularly since government on all levels is now so hugely indebted. The only plus is that it exposed to a lot of people who the government takes care of first.
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Small people (deposit holders) keep their money up to FDIC limits and investors and counter-parties are wiped out
The problem is you would probably have had pretty much all banks, big and small, go under all at once. You think the FDIC is equipped for that?
I guess you could theorize that the best solution is to allow a financial and economic collapse to give us a fresh start and clean the slate. That's fair enough, I suppose... but it certainly isn't such a clear-cut safe and obvious solution that you can blame people for not taking that path.
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There WAS option c:
Bail out the immediate issues, use large guillotines to publicly neuter all the whiny bitches demanding their insane bonuses despite causing the complete financial meltdown. Maybe do the Jon Stewart approach: Give money to the home-owners who were the ones in massive troubles no matter what was done to their bank (since the banks needed the money, they'd foreclose many of the homes), and then they could pay the banks. That way home-owners would get to keep their homes despite the mortgage
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Yeah, the thing about the bank bailouts is that pretty much everyone who understands the issue agrees that they were more or less necessary.
So, then, everyone who disagrees does so out of failure to understand the issue? Sounds like you have a universal truth on your hands, there.
Where in the government's behavior are the banks discouraged from repeating this same scenario? At what point does the notion of a private bank cease to have any meaning? And why is it the taxpayers' responsibility to shore up the accounts of people that invested in poorly-operated banks? Where is this bailout money to have originated? How is throwing fresh money
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Bubbles are going to keep happening anyway. You have a bunch of free-floating money out there just waiting to jump onto the next fad of sure-thing investments. It was tech stocks, then real estate, and it's going to be something else. I think it's just what happens when you treat civilization as a big get-rich-quick scheme. It'd like to think it's possible to instill a culture of solid long-term investments including continual updating of necessary social services and infrastructure, but at least here i
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I always find this sort of attitude to be very amusing. The author advocates government spending, and I'm extrapolating here, be restricted to those things listed in the Constitution. The irony, which is lost on the author, is that the forum he/she uses to express his/her opinion would not exist without government spending. Until 1984 AT&T was a regulated monopoly and, by law, was restricted to how much profit they could earn. Part of AT&T solution to making too much money was to have Bell Labs whi
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Your first quote from Hamilton actually contradicts your own argument; of course, all of the quotes are simply examples of the classic Federalist vs. Antifederalist debate. This is the glaring point you seem to be missing. The framers were not of one mind on these issues.
Hamilton and the Federalists represented urban interests; Jefferson and the Antifederalists represented the rural and southern interests. For every Antifederalist argument you can find from Jefferson's side, you will find a counter from Ham
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
So, what you're doing is presenting one side of a debate that started over 200 years ago. And you're reaching so far back because the the intervening centuries of law have almost consistently sided with the Federalist position, rather than the Antifederalist position you're espousing.
After the Revolutionary War, each state was basically sovereign over itself with a loose Articles of Confederation bonding them in the most trivial manner. It became apparent that the Articles of Confederation couldn't last, so they began debating the formation of a stronger federal government, but with the primary power still being left to the people and the states. In fact, they went so far as to codify that the US government only has 18 powers and, through the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, that all powers
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Consider how little funding the Plasma Cosmologists have gotten, in comparison to the huge amount of money that has gone to astrophysicists who tell us that the universe is almost entirely invisible and virtually undetectable.
You mean except for the fact that dark matter was observed 8 years ago? [space.com] Oh yeah and here too [stanford.edu]. Yeah other than these examples and others that can be shown that it's invisible and undetectable. *yawn*
This is like the medieval Catholic church funding mathematicians to produce increasingly elegant papers on epicycles while ignoring the research of heliocentrists. I, for one, would like to see the government out of science and Natural Philosophy returned to the realm of dilettantes and other assorted rabble who actually base their theories on observed data instead of mathematical conjecture.
Except for those people you berate against have their mathematical "conjecture" backed up by observed data.
The seven warning science of bogus science (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
Yes
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work
Yes
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection
Yes
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal
N/A
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries
N/A
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation
No, but the group id becoming smaller and more isolated as motre data continues to show them wrong.
7. The discover