the thing is, that this the main way we can work things out. now, dont get me wrong. we run lots of tests in say, phsycis or chemisty to make sure that its not fluke, but economics proves more diffcult. its a very big experement that can be diffcult reset. or more like impsoble. so we have to make infrences based upon things that happen
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Only the shallowest analysis suggests that the short-term effects are poor. To explain it intuitively, if there's already a trend, and you make a policy change, you can't just look at the trend; you have to look at the change in the trend, and then compare it to the change in the trend in as many other places as possible. Then you use a technique called regression analysis to determine the relative weights of all the different possible causal factors you can think of. This is how we know, for example, that gun control has little or no effect on homicide rates, but stricter laws do decrease suicides while increasing other violent crimes. It's how we know that the biggest predictor of poverty in America is not race, but parents' income. It's how we know that the gender wage gap is around 2%, not 23% as the popular myth claims.
AFAIK, the claim that raising the minimum wage increases job growth has never been supported by this kind of analysis. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, they need to post a link.
I think raising the minimum wage has no significant effect anywhere.
Corporate subsidies and tax breaks are a whole other matter. Corporate subsidies should be handed out only in very limited circumstances and for a very limited time to effect specific economic policies, not as the effectively permanent entitlements they are now. And there should be no corporate tax breaks because corporations should not pay taxes - after we force them all to reorganize as non-profits.
There are plenty of public, non-profit universities that maintain excellent R&D labs--especially among the universities of California, Berkeley in particular.
Yeah, but take the example of UC Berkeley. 80% of the money to fund their research comes directly from the federal and state government. As a consequence of this, most of the research that goes on there has to be approved by congressional committee
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So you're basically saying that both nonprofit and for-profit funds are fucked. You're also overlooking the fact that a private enterprise must base their funds on what will provide the greatest profitable return. They have to do so, because they're at the mercy of their stockholders. Which is why a cure for Ebola was never sought until it came to the USA. And why funds for new food sources for third world countries are basically overlooked by most American corporations.
With nonprofit research, you get a much more level playing field. With for-profit research, the very research itself is dictated by the stockholders in a way much broader than the funds provided by a Senate or House committee, which often go to research in general rather than to a specific research project.
I'm saying that non-profit and for-profit research is funded differently because it's goals are different. Declaring that all research investment be not-for-profit will only constrict the types of research that gets funded. How it that a good thing?
And about your example of Ebola: Do you honestly think that congress would have mandated that UC Berkeley find a cure for Ebola years ago, if only they'd had ... what, the funds? They can't even get their act together enough to send basic medical aid to West Africa right now, let alone preemptively finance research into a disease that has killed zero Americans, give or take a few.
Declaring that all research investment be not-for-profit will only constrict the types of research that gets funded. How it that a good thing? I never said all research should be nonprofit. I simply cited some excellent sources of nonprofit research.
And about your example of Ebola: Do you honestly think that congress would have mandated that UC Berkeley find a cure for Ebola years ago, if only they'd had ... what, the funds? They can't even get their act together enough to send basic medical aid to West Africa right now, let alone preemptively finance research into a disease that has killed zero Americans, give or take a few. The only reason they haven't done it for Africa is that we have no financial stake in any of the countries affected, so we could care less what happens to their people. If there was an outbreak in the Middle East, you can bet we'd be in there trying to protect those countries in which we have financial stakes. Research on a cure or at least an effective treatment didn't begin until American citizens were
Oh good, so you don't endorse madscience's strange declaration that we should re-organize all corporations into non-profits?
I agree, you're right, congress hasn't sent enough aid to Africa because there hasn't been a geopolitical motivation for them to do so. And the WHO didn't prepare for an Ebola outbreak adequately, and has only recently contracted GlaxoSmithKline to develop and mass-produce a vaccine for the disease.
So why do you blame the lack of a readily available Ebola vaccine on private enterprise being "at the mercy of their stockholders"? Doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
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AFAIK, the claim that raising the minimum wage increases job growth has never been supported by this kind of analysis. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, they need to post a link.
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Corporate subsidies and tax breaks are a whole other matter. Corporate subsidies should be handed out only in very limited circumstances and for a very limited time to effect specific economic policies, not as the effectively permanent entitlements they are now. And there should be no corporate tax breaks because corporations should not pay taxes - after we force them all to reorganize as non-profits.
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With nonprofit research, you get a much more level playing field. With for-profit research, the very research itself is dictated by the stockholders in a way much broader than the funds provided by a Senate or House committee, which often go to research in general rather than to a specific research project.
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And about your example of Ebola: Do you honestly think that congress would have mandated that UC Berkeley find a cure for Ebola years ago, if only they'd had ... what, the funds? They can't even get their act together enough to send basic medical aid to West Africa right now, let alone preemptively finance research into a disease that has killed zero Americans, give or take a few.
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I never said all research should be nonprofit. I simply cited some excellent sources of nonprofit research.
And about your example of Ebola: Do you honestly think that congress would have mandated that UC Berkeley find a cure for Ebola years ago, if only they'd had ... what, the funds? They can't even get their act together enough to send basic medical aid to West Africa right now, let alone preemptively finance research into a disease that has killed zero Americans, give or take a few.
The only reason they haven't done it for Africa is that we have no financial stake in any of the countries affected, so we could care less what happens to their people. If there was an outbreak in the Middle East, you can bet we'd be in there trying to protect those countries in which we have financial stakes. Research on a cure or at least an effective treatment didn't begin until American citizens were
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I agree, you're right, congress hasn't sent enough aid to Africa because there hasn't been a geopolitical motivation for them to do so. And the WHO didn't prepare for an Ebola outbreak adequately, and has only recently contracted GlaxoSmithKline to develop and mass-produce a vaccine for the disease.
So why do you blame the lack of a readily available Ebola vaccine on private enterprise being "at the mercy of their stockholders"? Doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
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