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Post by Retrograde on Apr 23, 2011 12:07:29 GMT -4
I've always been confused by one point of yours--you always say that space exploration doesn't create jobs. The first-order effect is no net job creation. Interesting question. Prior to the 1960s, no one had ever sent a rocket to the moon. How did they know the rocket would fly according to Newton's laws, and not some other system of physics? Studies of the effects of taxation policy, spending policy, and the like would fill libraries. Their are, of course, differences from the way one studies something like physics (in particular, it's usually a lot tougher to run a controlled experiment), but some of the basics are more or less the same - watch the world, collect data, analyse it, construct models, make predictions based on those models, evaluate the predictions, revise as appropriate, etc. There are different schools of economics out there, and they disagree on some things. They agree on a lot. It is immediately obvious that there are people whose livelihoods are driven by space exploration. There are people directly employed in various programmes, and there are people who indirectly benefit. This is beyond dispute. What is also beyond dispute to everyone but people at science web sites is that the money for all this doesn't fall from heaven. It comes either from taxation, or from borrowing. Taxation reduces the amount of money in people's pockets for private spending or investment, and borrowing has a similar effect - money borrowed to fund these things is not available for spending other things, or for investment. It is completely intellectually dishonest to point to the people employed in space programmes and say, "Look, jobs!" while ignoring the effect of the taxation or borrowing that came along with the funding. Every lobbyist knows this trick, and although people often talk about stupid politicians, I don't know that there are many who swallow it. Let's have casinos, people will spend money in them and create jobs! Well, what were the people spending their money on before? I mean, have you looked at how many jobs there were before versus how many jobs there were after? I am certainly familiar with broad employment trends over time in your country, but what would that tell you? Do you expect that the number of jobs would have remained constant if there had been no space programme? If the number of child molesters now is higher than in the 1940s (I don't know whether it actually is), ought we to conclude that that was caused by the space programme? It's obviously possible to have different numbers of available jobs in the economy, right? Yes, it is, and the factors that determine these numbers have been studied very extensively. The first-order effect is that spending on something creates jobs in that sector; taxation (or borrowing) to support the spending destroys jobs in other sectors. The two main schools of economic thought differ somewhat about the effectiveness of spending programmes on job creation during times of recession, but the one that advocates spending during recessions to stimulate the economy is not about achieving a permanently higher level of output; it's about smoothing over economic cycles. Space exploration is a terrible candidate for stimulus spending; it usually requires long-term committment before it achieves any results. You wouldn't get much out of a space programmes that are funded when entering a recession, and cancelled within months or even a couple of years (for a really bad recession) as the economy recovers. Not true, you're shifting the burden of proof. It's up to the critics to show that what they want to spend the money on is more beneficial than spending it on space exploration. Rubbish, I'm not shifting anything. My statement, quoted by you, says that if you want to make a certain type of claim, then here is the level of evidence needed to support it. Your response says it is up to others to prove the person making the claim is wrong. If you think there are default claims that are special, and exempt from evidentiary requirements, that's up to you. I don't. Bob B. B. - picking this one up after a long time away, but reading your posts, I agree with much of what you say. I may have some comments later, but not right now.
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Post by Retrograde on Apr 23, 2011 9:36:45 GMT -4
I admit that I wanted to choose 4 but then I said I'll choose something not likely to be chosen so I chose 1 But مايا, the fact that you chose it suggests it was likely to be chosen The next time you see a donkey, you will receive a great fortune, provided you don't think about the donkey's tail
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 29, 2008 2:43:03 GMT -4
I was agreeing with Obviousman’s comment " They probably said it could be spent on better things here on Earth." In other words, I agree with you that I've never seen anyone argue that the money leaves Earth’s economy. OK, then I'm rather confused, and I reread the post, and am still confused. I thought this was the bogus argument you were debunking, and took that mean that you thought someone was making that argument. If that's not the case, then I'm not sure what the bogus argument is. But, if all agree, then maybe there is no point in further debate on this particular point In any event, in the interest of keeping things short, I will only comment on a few of the points in your post. I think an investment in something that stimulates the economy, spurs new industry, and creates jobs is ultimately better than a free handout. I have heard the job creation argument many times, and I have also pointed out many times (including in my last post) the problem with this argument. Spending on space exploration does not create jobs, it moves them from one sector of the economy to another. Maybe it moves jobs away from the production of caviar and MRI machines, or maybe it moves jobs away from the production of heroin and kiddie porn. But either way, it doesn't create jobs any more than moving money from my checking account to my savings account creates money. my argument was about spending money on any R&D project that will stimulate economic growth versus spending it on welfare type programs. The argument from before sounded a lot different to me, but let's not worry about that. I suppose if all you want to do is point out that certain arguments raised against spending on space exploration are stupid, then all you need to do is point out that spending on space exploration is better than spending on whatever the critics advancing these arguments want to spend it on. But if you want to go to the next step and argue spending on space exploration is a good idea, the relevant benchmark is the best alternative use of the money, not the worst. If an R&D project results in less useful R&D than another project with the same price tag, then it doesn't stimulate economic growth, it depresses economic growth. They allude to some magic way in which NASA's budget can be used to solve all the world’s problems without providing any justification for their argument. I am not interesting in their hand-waving arguments. Not to be too harsh on you, but that's pretty much how I feel about allusions to the ways in which NASA's budget creates jobs. As I have pointed out, it is supported by taxation, which has an offsetting job destruction effect. It doesn't create jobs; it moves them. Maybe you or I on the whole like the total effect, but either way, we ought to call it what it is, and it is not net job creation.
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 28, 2008 15:38:54 GMT -4
I’m sure that’s what they say, or at least what they mean. I'm not so sure. I have never heard anyone object to spending on space exploration on the grounds that the money leaves earth's economy. I have heard people ridicule this argument, but no one has yet been able to point me to anyone who actually makes this argument. Can you show me someone who argues this? Of course I’ve always found this to be a bogus argument. It certainly sounds bogus to me. But I have yet to find a person who actually makes this argument. The only place I have ever heard this argument is second-hand (and always misrepresented) at BAUT and here. I have heard people make arguments that money spent on space exploration should be spent on something else, because the benefits from something else exceed the benefits of space exploration. For fairly obvious reasons, people would rather address a specious argument than the real one, because the real one just might have some merit. But, I've spent a great deal of time and effort looking for evidence one way or the other on the matter. So far, I've found precisely zero real economic analysis. Sure, I can find pages and pages of woonalysis at BAUT, but I have not found any actual economic analysis on the benefits of the space program (for or against). The funny thing is, that's true no matter what they spend the money on. If $100 billion were spent to build and operate the Benny Hill Museum of Comedy, the money would follow a similar trajectory. If they spent it building skyscrapers in Antarctica that nobody would ever use, the money would get spent on materials, on workers who would in turn spend their salaries on food, housing, education, automobiles, holiday travel, etc. This job creation argument seems to be used on every public works project that there is, with equal (in)validity. Another odd thing, nobody ever emphasizes the offsetting job destructive effects of the taxation (or borrowing) required to finance their spending projects. Why is that? The argument ought to be, the benefits from spending $X on activity A are greater than spending $X on activity B. Since arguments that the workers on space exploration spend their salaries on all kinds of other stuff applies equally well to spending on any other activity (and also applies if you just leave it in the hands of the taxpayers - what do they do with their money?), this is not an argument in favor of spending on space exploration. I guess by saying it should be better spent they mean it should be given away to those who produce little in return rather than using it to R&D technology that generally benefits humanity, produces new industries, Oddly enough, that's what a lot of people who want to cancel space funding say. Spend it on medical research, new R&D technology, benefits humanity, produces new industries - why give it to the space people, they'll just crash something into a comet or something like that. So, those are the competing claims. Who is right? I have looked high and low for an economic study showing that the benefits of spending on space exploration are greater than the benefits of spending on other things. So far, I've found precisely nothing, for or against space exploration. If you know of such an analysis, I'd love to see it. I've gotten a great deal of ridicule, scorn, and abuse at BAUT for having the audacity to ask, which tells me that they don't have any evidence. Apparently, asking for evidence makes you a Luddite. stimulates the economy, and generates tax dollars to more than offset the initial investment. This is another thing I would like to see the analysis for - an actual equilibrium analysis, numbers and all. I guess I need one of these too: [/rant]
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 28, 2008 8:05:54 GMT -4
One letter-writer seemed to think that US taxpayers should have been forking out to ensure that toilets in West Australia flushed properly. Well, that seems pretty reasonable.
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 27, 2008 20:36:59 GMT -4
My strict definition is that anyone who believes Jesus was the divine Son of God is a Christian. The Arian Christians, during the early history of Christianity, stressed the human rather than the divide nature of Yeshu ha-Nosri. For a while, at least, it seemed like Arianism would become the dominant form of Christianity. Of course, we can keep the definition simply by defining the Arians as non-Christians I suppose there is a continuum of belief. Certainly Moslems believe that Yeshu ha-Nosri is a prophet, not a divine being, and yet in Dante's Divine Comedy, Moslems are in the sixth (I think - need to check the number, but for sure, it is close to the middle) circle of hell, reserved for mis-believers, rather than the outer circle, reserved for non-believers. So Dante seemed to consider Moslems to be bad Christians rather than non-Christians
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 27, 2008 20:22:18 GMT -4
It was probably my bad wording rather than the people who penned the letters. They probably said it could be spent on better things here on Earth. If I get time today, I'll go back and get a copy of one of the letters. Sorry, my comments were not directed towards you - I think the wording is fine, and I think that everyone here knows the kinds of things those letter writers were arguing ETA - ugh, I tried to change my display name, but the non-ASCII characters are crap. I'll change it back
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 27, 2008 19:35:24 GMT -4
...or against it saying how it was a waste of money better spent on Earth. The money was spent on Earth. I haven't seen the letters referenced, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest the writers of the letters knew that. I'm also going to suggest that nobody here seriously believes that the writers of those letters were claiming the money was actually given to extraterrestrials. At least, I have never seen anyone who claimed this; I have only seen this claim in strawmans constructed at BAUT (and maybe here - I can't remember).
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 17, 2008 20:02:16 GMT -4
GDP and deficits are not an indicator of how the debt is to be paid. They tell me the statement "We didn't put World War II onto our kids' credit cards" is false. I did do the math. That's why I know the statement about the second world war is false. I suspect that if you had done the math, you wouldn't have made the statement in the first place. But that is an untested hypothesis... My point about the tax rates in World War II was to point out that the generation of WW II largely paid for that debt and that they were willing to do so. You may believe this if you like; the evidence does not allow me to believe it. The evidence tells me that during the second world war years, the US government spent about $2.37 for every one dollar it took in revenues. As the US government ran only a few small surpluses in a few years since the second world war, most of the debt from that time still hasn't been paid off.
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Post by Retrograde on Jul 16, 2008 23:05:40 GMT -4
We didn't put World War II onto our kids' credit cards -- but that's what we're doing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cumulative budget deficit from 2002 until 2011 (projected) is about 18.6% of annual GDP - take budget deficit as percentage of GDP each year, add them all up. This period includes all recent and projected future years in which the total US budget is in deficit. You could quibble with this methodology, as GDP is changing over this period, but not by a huge amount. Here is a source document - see page 24: www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/hist.pdfYou could make a case for using the "on-budget" numbers instead of the total numbers, but that isn't going to change the basic story here. The comparable numbers for WW II are on the previous page, and add up to 88.7% of annual GDP for the period 1942-1945. So in this four year period, the credit card you mention was charged up with about 10.6 months of income, whereas the projections for the 10 years of deficits 2001-2011 are for about 2 months of income. So that credit card was used quite a bit more heavily for WW II than it was recently. "The Right will say any stupid thing about Obama" - well, some of them will, but leftists using made-up facts isn't exactly a rare event either...
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 12, 2008 2:17:27 GMT -4
Just because the speculators are causing artificial demand Don't believe everything you read on the internet. If you really want to piss people off, ask them where all that excess supply is going. If supply exceeds demand at current prices, inventories should be growing. They aren't. The usual response is for them to become abusive and insulting. Maybe the speculators are keeping their secret stockpiles in the tunnels in New York City, along with the Chinese soldiers.
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 9, 2008 20:44:56 GMT -4
I did misspeak about Ann Coulter. Hmmm. Maybe I secretly like her. I've suspected this for a while.
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 6, 2008 19:54:21 GMT -4
Man, having to use a proxy sucks. I couldn't click on this link any way that I tried. I had to quote the post, going through the motions of replying (which I am now doing for real), so I could see the link, and paste it into a browser bar
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 6, 2008 16:17:20 GMT -4
I'll stop talking about politics then and aim for funnier political quotes in the future on this thread. Do what you like. Just don't call anyone "risk adverse"
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Post by Retrograde on Jun 6, 2008 16:05:15 GMT -4
Wow, the topic changes, but the conversation is always the same...
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