The Wrongologist

Are you tired because you got an extra hour’s sleep last night? Let’s get your brain started with a question: Who benefits it the government funds the development of new technology?

Answer: Private corporations.

Economist Mariana Mazzucato’s book about the role of the State in innovation, The Entrepreneurial State says that the image of a useless State at odds with a dynamic private sector is a myth. Mazzucato reveals in multiple case studies that the opposite is true; the private sector is only willing to invest after someone in a garage has a good idea that must be commercialized, or after the State makes a seed investment.

She describes how it worked with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s search engine. In both cases their popular consumer products benefited from state financing of basic research. For the iPhone, some of the technologies that make it “smart” were funded by the US government, such as the global positioning system (GPS), the touchscreen display, and the forerunner of the voice-activated personal assistant, Siri.

As for Google, development of its fundamental search algorithm was funded by the National Science Foundation. Plus, of course, there’s that thing called the Internet, another government funded venture, which makes the iPhone “smart”, and makes Google searches useful and valuable.

The right-wing myth is that the government needs to be completely out of the way of business, except for providing tax and regulatory incentives for private companies, to make them “want” to create the products they sell.

But, in the real world, many successful companies harvest the work of others and repackage proven technologies into successful products. In the 21st Century, companies often just mine the surface of their technology estate. When “innovative” companies are hugely profitable, often they buy back their shares and/or raise dividends, but do not invest that much in their long-term futures.

Finally, despite the fact that some companies directly benefit from taxpayer-funded technologies, they “underfund” (via tax breaks and holding profits offshore) the government that helped develop technologies that led to their success.

The obvious way for the public to ‘profit’ from socialized risk is to retain some ownership of the technologies that underlie those successes.

Another myth that needs to be exploded is that companies will not introduce new products if they can’t own 100% the intellectual property behind the products. Not true. Today, they often share their technology ownership with other firms. And it is inconceivable that a growing public estate of licensable technical know-how would sit under-exploited, if it could be licensed by corporate America.

Monday’s breakfast buffet of linkage:

Heard of the 27 Club? The idea is that pop stars are more likely than the general population to die at age 27. Not true, but they do tend to die much younger than the rest of us.

Of course milk is good for you! Well, maybe not as much as the milk-industrial complex wants you to believe. Swedish researchers took two groups, one with 61,000 women and the other with 45,000 men, and followed them for 20 years to see if milk intake was related to fractures or to death. Apparently, not so much. Maybe you should give Almond milk a try.

Using CDC data, a study finds that high rates of ADHD diagnoses correlated directly with state laws that penalize schools financially when students fail. An ADHD diagnosis can take a student out of the statistics. The five states that have the highest rate of diagnoses — Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and North Carolina — are all over 10% of school age children. The five states with the lowest percent diagnosed — Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, Utah and California — are all under 5%.

The US has changed its H-1B record retention policy. The US Department of Labor said that records “are temporary records and subject to destruction” after five years, under a new policy. But, the H-1B visa lasts 6 years. The total database is about 1GB, so what’s the issue?

The Air Force doesn’t have enough mechanics for its new F35 fighter: The reason is political. The Air Force was counting on training A-10 mechanics, but Congress is blocking the Air Force’s plan to retire the A-10 aircraft. It could take 12 months longer than proposed to get the F-35 in the air, if the A-10 stays online.

International News:

Japanese journalists didn’t do independent reporting about the Fukushima melt-down, they simply reported the press releases of Tokyo Power and the government. Now some are speaking out. Sound familiar?

The war between the banks and phone companies over mobile banking in Kenya heats up. After the huge success of mobile banking in Kenya, commercial banks began to invest in mobile phone-based banking, including selling their own SIM cards instead of using those issued by mobile phone providers. Now, the mobile phone operators are crying foul.

When the TuNur project in the Tunisian Sahara comes online in by late 2018, it will provide clean and reliable power to more than 2.5 million UK homes. The project will be connected to the European electricity grid via a dedicated cable from Tunisia to Italy. The UK participated in funding the project.

Your wake-up song is from Trigger Hippy, a new roots super-group founded by Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman, and singer Joan Osborne. It is an amalgam of country, blues, soul and rock. Here is “Rise up Singing”, so time to rise up:

 

Let this thought guide your week:

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. – Muhammad Ali