i <3 stossel, part 536312

[caspian_x]

John Stossel in this article pretty much sums up why I think the government should keep it's grubby, in efficient hands out of healthcare, agriculture, education (at least to less of a degree than it already does), transportation, space exploration, and pretty much everything else it has taken upon itself to remove from the private sector without

Comments

[k_sui]

Generally, things like polio vaccine and penicillin were funded by the government because the government's inertia makes it very hard to stop funding something once it has begun. Therefore, while less efficient in the sense it lacks profit motive, it is also less likely to respond quickly to the capricious nature of the All Mighty Market. Polio vaccine would never have been discovered by modern day companies like Pfizer because they demand more immediate monetary results and are less inclined to allow extended trial and error.

[ikkarus01]

Also, "cures" are a hell of a lot less profitable than "treatments".

[k_sui]

Every time I feel like the most cynical person on the face of the planet, someone inevitably steps in with a darker view of human nature than mine.

Kudos to you, good sir.

[ikkarus01]

I think all the bad things so others won't have to. This is my gift to the World.

[clayfoot]

Jonas Salk's research on the polio vaccine was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (aka, the March of Dimes) at the University of Pittsburgh's Virus Research Lab. Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin was mostly chance, funded by his employer, the University of London. Penicillin was developed into a usable drug by Howard Florey in Oxford, who got funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The federal government does fund research (especially for a military or other government-related activity), but the private sector is usually the first to fund research in a new area, and at least as good at getting results.

[caspian_x]

I love you.