Jed sed: >> I have a similar set of quote for the canals that governments >> were building all over Europe and the Erie canal in 1817, and >> the railroads they soon subsidized, and the Transcontinental >> Railroad built with Uncle Sam's loans in the 1860s, and later >> the transatlantic cable (mainly a British government project) >> the automobile industry, electrification, the highways, the >> airports, transistors, integrated circuits, the Internet, >> the aerospace industry, weather satellites, nuclear power, >> and all the other massive investments made by governments in >> infrastructure and technology.
And then Craig replied: > How pleasant! Governments take money from people through > threats of violence, to subsidize special interests. > [...] I'm baffled, Craig. How do you go about equating certain government funded programs that have occasionally helped out the automobile industry, the electrification of the grid, building hiways, airports, transistors, integrated circuits, the Internet, and weather satellites so "special?" as somehow associated with generating threats of violence. And there's more... >> In _every single case_ there has been a chorus of conservative >> people saying "the government should not be picking winners and >> loses. If it is real, it will come on its own." Maybe they were >> right, but most of those technologies might have been delayed >> by 20 to 50 years. > If the technology is cost efficient, then the market will bring > it. Even if delayed by 20 to 50 years, this is a small price to > pay for a moral society run without threats of violence. It seems to me that you have not heard a single thing Jed sed, or perhaps you simply are not interested in listening. Certain new technologies for which Jed was referring to were not cost efficient at the time they were receiving lots of financial assistance from the government. Under a 100% free-enterprise system I know of few business enterprises that could justify to their stock holders a plan to make investments that could take up to 20 - 50 years to start generating dividends for their stock holders. If free enterprises was the only game in town funding the development new unproven technologies like integrated circuitry, electrification of the grid, building highways, transistors, etc... could have never gotten off the ground. There was no profit in funding new technologies, especially if the investor realized he could very well be dead and buried before he gets the chance to enjoy the fruits of his investments. You also seem to keep bringing up "threats of violence" which I presume is somehow equated to government funded programs - I presume because governments want to tax you and me. Do I have that right? You're giving me the impression that you have little regard whatsoever for any kind of government assistance - and what it costs to pay for such assistance in regards to the affairs of humanity. Do I have that right? Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson orionworks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
