D'Oh-bama!: If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that.

The difference is I don't presume to force my priorities or assessments of worth on others.

 

Corporations are paying nowhere near the amount of costs they should be. Even conservative economists realize this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigou_Club

Alan Greenspan October 2, 2006 Economist
Gary Becker June 17, 2006 Economist

etc.

It would be laughable how hard profit-mongers try to avoid even the miniscule costs put onto them if it didn't imply so much human suffering.

Ex: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/268581/somalia_used_as_toxic_dumping_ground.html

 

Too bad, because your worth in the halls of capital is about as much as they can be held liable for your death, and as much as your life can give.

If you don't want to work to change that, because you think it makes you somehow noble not to "interfere" in others' lives when they interfere it yours, then so be it. Just realize that you are being taken advantage of.

 

Which is as it should be considering research has a billion to one failure rate if you are lucky. Does anyone care about a researcher finding a previously unknown non-centrosymmetric material containing molybdenum?

Capital likes computers because it is the new science that could bud breakthroughs. Chemistry was the same at the turn of the century and capital loved that. Hall had a larger effect on the world than Gates or boy wonder, he was also filthy rich. If Sherlock Holmes was written today instead of chemistry he might dabble in computer hacking.

 

Good grief.

My worth is what someone is willing to pay me, nothing more dramatic than that.

how so?

Gee thanks for pulling the wool from my gullible eyes. All this time I have been brainwashed by my evil corporate overlords.

If anything I would say I'm overcompensated for the work I do.

 

Awesome.

DRESSAGE anyone?

 

A billion to one failure rate on research that can help people is better than a one to one success rate of finding ways to hurt them for profit.

I personally care about researchers who (against all odds of monetary or other success) try their hardest to help with no inclination towards profit. I find it sad that society in general, doesn't; unless there's some way to make money off it.

Instead we have brilliant young minds being funneled into this crap---

Drugs, Terrorism And Medicare Fraud: HSBC's Messy Money Laundering Investigations

http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahto...-hsbcs-messy-money-laundering-investigations/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/03/us-hsbcusa-probes-idUSBRE8420FX20120503

 

You measure your life, according to how much others are willing to pay you?

Hmm. Must be a hell of an interesting way to live life.

 

Commodore, a factory down the stream wants to release toxins into the water because it saves them costs. They would not hesitate twice if regulators let them do it, as they have done for Somalis who are not protected by laws. Did they receive your consent? No. Are they interfering in your life? Yes. Do they care? No.

Libertarians live in a dream world of mutual consent, that quite simply does not exist except in the most fanciful interpretations of Rand's fairy-tale novels; novels that did not consider asymmetric information, market externalities, and how a modern economy actually worked when it posited a perfect world of smiles and contracts.

 

You are presenting a false choice. The USA has been the leader in finance and science for centuries.

 

We're not talking about the Roman Empire here, are we?

In any case, this is not a false choice. While it is true that in the demographic boom that followed WW2 America could do anything well (just as China is experiencing now), that simply isn't true now. Corporations are not paying their fair share in a declining pie. It is especially troubling to see because America is now retreating from the dreams that once made her so great in order to fix the mess being caused from within the system.

If JFK had said "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. " these days, he would be laughed out of Congress, forced to watch the debt ceiling debate, and then see the money that could have been devoted to this cause vanish into corporate tax credits for multinationals who have to hold onto impossible profit expectations.

 

I have no problem with laws regulating activity that unduly impacts third parties. But it should be a law, not and edict or decree from an executive agency. And it's jurisdiction should be as localized as possible.

 

You are claiming that young people are flocking to wall street and away from research because it is scare to succeed in that field.

If I'm wrong tell me what you meant here:

The fact is, we continue to lead in science and engineering and people who have breakthroughs in those fields are the best compensated of all.

 

Let's switch to a more complex set of issues.

How do you, for example, deal with bankers who money launder for criminals, and terrorists? These are issues to which you are affected (I'm assuming you don't like having criminals and terrorists around and being able to function), but for which you could never sit at the table, even if you had the specialized knowledge to know these things were happening in the first place.

Or pharma companies that would replace your pills with some with less expensive and less effective excipients that could purposely up the risk of adverse side effects, if they could get away with it? etc.

 

Say that to Lloyd Blankfien and Gary Cohn.

The average IBanker makes more money than a researcher could ever dream of.

There was a good study somewhere out there that actually calculated the dead-weight losses of diverting talented people into Wall Street. They were quite significant if memory serves, and I will definitely post it if I find it. Also, I can say from anecdotal evidence (not something I would take a full face value, but something nevertheless), that a whole bunch of mathematicians and talented engineering types that could be better served trying to push the world forward are falling for Wall Street. It's not as bad as it used to be since the industry smells like so much s**t now and the compensation has been slashed, but if it gears up again, you can rest assured that people will fall into the same trap again in the same numbers as they used to.

 

OK and when they say they wish they had Bill Gates money what is your response? The average research scientist toils away in a basement dreaming of being famous and ends up methodically working a process with his only contribution being later someone can know that a particular method might have already been tried. You can't compare that to an investment banker.

The average actor makes less than poverty wages but they still flock to hollywood.

Advanced mathematics is making its way into all fields and those going to wall street are just higher paid. They will never be famous, so who cares. You are making some altruistic argument that I respect but it is WAY to far into fantasy land. If a comp sci grad wants to do protein folding, video games or risk management software I have no feelings at all on who should be better compensated.

 

People in the industry wouldn't say so.

I'd recommend reading Liar's Poker or Monkey Business to see for a brief moment just how outrageous the industry is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/b...banking-to-turn-around-a-family-business.html

You'll have to excuse me for focusing a general malaise with capital-holders into Wall Street. Banking is the industry that touches me at heart because a lot of people I know are involved in it, and I study in a field where it touches everything. I know alot about the dirty laundry there, so it's my default go-to when it comes to my feelings with the dirty parts of the system, and how corporations could be contributing more. I'd have more testimonials of how capital-holders waste the privilege governments give them and cut corners to avoid giving anywhere near what they get in other fields if I knew other fields more.

I also have to say that I have a general distrust and unease when it comes to these things, because even if I have tried hard to find things, I feel like I'm just brushing the top of a very dirty iceberg.

Stuff like this, for example, gives me chills---and makes me think that there's a lot more nefarious things corporations are up to where they are hurting people rather than contributing to their advancement.

 

Meh depends how far removed they are. If they knowingly aide/profit from criminal activity sure. If they just open up an account for someone who they don't know is a criminal, no. That's like blaming a hardware store for selling a terrorist fertilizer.

If they promise a specific recipe and deliver something else, that would be a contract violation.

Not sure why a company would do that since it would destroy their reputation with customers. I remember when J&J recalled tens of millions of bottles of Tylenol despite no reported incidents.