Does the private sector create wealth anymore?
By Bob Lewis
Created 2010-01-05 10:20AM

Let's start the year wrong. Instead of useful advice, I'm going to
indulge myself by asking a question here that I posed in Keep the Joint
Running [1] this week: Does the private sector create wealth anymore
("Creating wealth for fun and profit [2]")?

Wealth -- real wealth -- isn't measured by money. If it were, printing
more money wouldn't cause inflation. It would result in more wealth.
Thus, neither money itself nor any of the financial instruments that
wreaked havoc last year have anything to do with creating wealth.

Wealth is what you can buy that you value, whether it's a ticket to
"Avatar," a piece of artwork, or a beer, not the money itself.

The column points out that no matter where you look, many or most of the
foundations of innovation came from government investment, not private
research and development. That's significantly true of our own industry
-- NASA fostered microprocessor technology; Admiral Grace Hopper
invented Cobol; the federal government created the Internet; an employee
at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, invented HTML; and the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications developed Mosaic, the first Web browser to
gain enough visibility to matter.

Foundational research in health care is funded by the National
Institutes of Heath. The private sector does spend quite a bit to
commercialize, but relatively little at the core of things.

Other industries? Agribusiness depends heavily on government-funded
research. Energy? Nuclear comes from the Manhattan Project, fossil-fuel
generation depends on 19th-century innovations, and nobody seriously
expects the private sector to fund much green-energy R&D.

Only the entertainment business funds its own R&D, and even there,
professional sports teams expect the public sector to build stadiums for
them.

This matters, because whatever else is true of the economy, if we don't
create wealth, we won't be able to create well-paying jobs, and we'll
all suffer the consequences of that.

So here are my questions, and please post your answers as comments:

1. Am I missing something, and private-sector research and
development is actually alive, strong, and ready to carry our economy
into the future?
2. If you think I'm right, what do you think should happen next to
improve things?

- Bob

This story, "Does the private sector create wealth anymore? [4]," was
originally published at InfoWorld.com [5].

On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?

What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.

On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:05:30 -0700, Canuck57
wrote:

On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?

What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.

Speaking of GM (and Chrysler and Ford), it looks like Ford is going
strong at the expense of the other two - again.

http://tinyurl.com/y8qhvv8

Backlash, anyone?

John H wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:05:30 -0700, Canuck57
wrote:

On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?
What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.

Speaking of GM (and Chrysler and Ford), it looks like Ford is going
strong at the expense of the other two - again.

http://tinyurl.com/y8qhvv8

Backlash, anyone?

What's wrong with us? The government is trying to practically give us
cars and we are turning them away. Is this a rebellion against big
government? Is government the "big business" that Krausie was warning us
about. Are high government officials the "super rich" that Krausie says
we should scorn?

On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:49:59 -0500, Jim wrote:

John H wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:05:30 -0700, Canuck57
wrote:

On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?
What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.

Speaking of GM (and Chrysler and Ford), it looks like Ford is going
strong at the expense of the other two - again.

http://tinyurl.com/y8qhvv8

Backlash, anyone?

What's wrong with us? The government is trying to practically give us
cars and we are turning them away. Is this a rebellion against big
government? Is government the "big business" that Krausie was warning us
about. Are high government officials the "super rich" that Krausie says
we should scorn?

Who, in the USSR, a socialist state, was rich? Either the politicians
or the mafia, take your pick.

I'll guarantee you the poor, downtrodden, inner-city dwellers didn't
win in that environment.

I think it was a Democrat who said, "If we want to keep winning, we
just have to keep them fat, dumb, and pregnant."

John H wrote:
On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:49:59 -0500, Jim wrote:

John H wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 20:05:30 -0700, Canuck57
wrote:

On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?
What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.
Speaking of GM (and Chrysler and Ford), it looks like Ford is going
strong at the expense of the other two - again.

http://tinyurl.com/y8qhvv8

Backlash, anyone?
What's wrong with us? The government is trying to practically give us
cars and we are turning them away. Is this a rebellion against big
government? Is government the "big business" that Krausie was warning us
about. Are high government officials the "super rich" that Krausie says
we should scorn?

Who, in the USSR, a socialist state, was rich? Either the politicians
or the mafia, take your pick.

I'll guarantee you the poor, downtrodden, inner-city dwellers didn't
win in that environment.

I think it was a Democrat who said, "If we want to keep winning, we
just have to keep them fat, dumb, and pregnant."


Actually, isn't that the motto of your church?

Canuck57 wrote:
On 05/01/2010 1:47 PM, Harry wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?

What is left of it does. It is an Obamanation, everybody works for the
government, banks and corporations like GM now.

The next President is going to have his work cut out for him trying to
straighten out the mess we're in.

wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:47:04 -0500, Harry
wrote:

Does the private sector create wealth anymore?
By Bob Lewis
Created 2010-01-05 10:20AM

Let's start the year wrong. Instead of useful advice, I'm going to
indulge myself by asking a question here that I posed in Keep the Joint
Running [1] this week: Does the private sector create wealth anymore
("Creating wealth for fun and profit [2]")?

Wealth -- real wealth -- isn't measured by money. If it were, printing
more money wouldn't cause inflation. It would result in more wealth.
Thus, neither money itself nor any of the financial instruments that
wreaked havoc last year have anything to do with creating wealth.

Wealth is what you can buy that you value, whether it's a ticket to
"Avatar," a piece of artwork, or a beer, not the money itself.

The column points out that no matter where you look, many or most of the
foundations of innovation came from government investment, not private
research and development. That's significantly true of our own industry
-- NASA fostered microprocessor technology; Admiral Grace Hopper
invented Cobol; the federal government created the Internet; an employee
at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, invented HTML; and the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications developed Mosaic, the first Web browser to
gain enough visibility to matter.

Foundational research in health care is funded by the National
Institutes of Heath. The private sector does spend quite a bit to
commercialize, but relatively little at the core of things.

Other industries? Agribusiness depends heavily on government-funded
research. Energy? Nuclear comes from the Manhattan Project, fossil-fuel
generation depends on 19th-century innovations, and nobody seriously
expects the private sector to fund much green-energy R&D.

Only the entertainment business funds its own R&D, and even there,
professional sports teams expect the public sector to build stadiums for
them.

This matters, because whatever else is true of the economy, if we don't
create wealth, we won't be able to create well-paying jobs, and we'll
all suffer the consequences of that.

So here are my questions, and please post your answers as comments:

1. Am I missing something, and private-sector research and
development is actually alive, strong, and ready to carry our economy
into the future?
2. If you think I'm right, what do you think should happen next to
improve things?

- Bob

This story, "Does the private sector create wealth anymore? [4]," was
originally published at InfoWorld.com [5].


The government may have contracted out the internet, integrated
circuits and Tang but it was a private corporation that actually
figured out how to make consumer products that turned them into
wealth.
On the other hand if you look at the human genome project you will see
the NIH duncing around with this for 10 years and $3 billion dollars
with no real progress and a private company breaking the code in 24
months at a tenth the cost.

The government may spur innovation but they do not translate that into
wealth by promoting it.


We're talking basic research here...not products for sale.

On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:35:34 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:13:31 -0500, Harry
wrote:

The government may have contracted out the internet, integrated
circuits and Tang but it was a private corporation that actually
figured out how to make consumer products that turned them into
wealth.
On the other hand if you look at the human genome project you will see
the NIH duncing around with this for 10 years and $3 billion dollars
with no real progress and a private company breaking the code in 24
months at a tenth the cost.

The government may spur innovation but they do not translate that into
wealth by promoting it.


We're talking basic research here...not products for sale.

There is plenty of research going on at Intel, IBM and the various
phone/PDA/gaming companies that translate into wealth.

i dunno that there is. i used to work for bell labs. they don't exist
any more. i used to work for texas instruments. they laid off all
their researchers and decided to buy what they need from the chinese.

bpuharic wrote:
On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:35:34 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:13:31 -0500, Harry
wrote:

The government may have contracted out the internet, integrated
circuits and Tang but it was a private corporation that actually
figured out how to make consumer products that turned them into
wealth.
On the other hand if you look at the human genome project you will see
the NIH duncing around with this for 10 years and $3 billion dollars
with no real progress and a private company breaking the code in 24
months at a tenth the cost.

The government may spur innovation but they do not translate that into
wealth by promoting it.

We're talking basic research here...not products for sale.
There is plenty of research going on at Intel, IBM and the various
phone/PDA/gaming companies that translate into wealth.

i dunno that there is. i used to work for bell labs. they don't exist
any more. i used to work for texas instruments. they laid off all
their researchers and decided to buy what they need from the chinese.


Bell Labs exists under different names. I also used to work for the Labs.