Daggett, nope the Castro questions were not answered on the other thread, more like
excuses and apologies made, as to why he does not stand for elections and let the
people vote, for instance. If Howard did the same, you would rightfully have a
hissy fit. But read Castro’s speeches, if it makes you happy. Others of us judge
him by performance, which has been pretty hopeless. Hopefully he’ll fall off
the perch soon.

There is no reason why Telstra could not have continued with its research labs.
They still make billions of $ in profits. GE and other technology companies
make progress because of their research. So its bad management and bad
management occurs when there is no competition, which has always been
Telstra’s problem.

Wiz, I agree, Govt sponsored research is extremely important, but its not
up to Govt to take risks and turn it into consumer products. It needs to
be accountable. I was once on a research review committee, where
scientists had to justify their funding. They were horrified, as they had
this cosy little agreement of dividing up the money and being accountable
to nobody. So waste was enormous, as one would expect.

Yup Linux is great and you have heaps of companies taking it and turning
it into consumer ready solutions, for which they charge. Fair enough.

When it comes to innovation, have a look who registers patents and how
many, that tells you a bit about innovation and what drives it.

As to creating wealth, take a company like Microsoft. By virtue of
the stock exchange, it clearly has a value. So innovation creates
wealth, apart from consumers benefiting. The amusing part is then
how the wheel turns full circle. Both Gates and Buffett, the two
wealthiest individuals in the US, are giving their fortune to charity!

Compare that system to the Govt planned economy system of the
USSR, where the Govt decides who makes your toothpaste and
anything else you might want to purchase, no matter how shonky
the product, I know which system I prefer. Yup 2 posts is not enough.

Yabby - I'm not sure our positions are too far apart, but it concerns me that the last few decades' of drift towards "free market fundamentalism" and lowering taxes (arguably more in the U.S. than here) has starved government of the funding it needs to contact big research projects on the scale of the Manhattan project or the Apollo program - many have argued that it's time we need a similar sized project with the goal of producing new energy technologies (potentially solving several problems simultaneously - reducing our dependency on unstable oil-exporting regimes, mitigating the oil supply shortfall that even the IEA is predicting by 2012, and of course to address global warming). But that would inevitably mean higher taxes and "bigger government", which many seem so ideologically opposed to.
Further, I dispute that government-run enterprise is capable of bringing consumer products to the market - many have pointed out that the ABC produces its multiple television channels and radio stations on a much smaller budget than its commercial rivals (which typically only have a single channel to worry about, and produce less local content). And the U.S. has shown us that private enterprise has failed to supply health services with the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of universal government-run programs that the rest of the world enjoys. I do agree that the private enterprise should be allowed to compete with government in supplying such services (this was Milton Friedman's argument - he never suggested that governments should get out of supplying consumer services altogether), but to suggest that government can never have a place supplying consumer products is pure ideology that again ignores the reality of cases where it works well.

BTW some alternative forum suggestions:

http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/
http://aussiepolitics.proboards51.com/index.cgi
http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl
http://cracker.com.au/threads.aspx?categoryid=11121
http://tooright.info/

Wiz, I agree that spending on r&d is important and not wasted, as so often
is the case. But when r&d budgets are compared to military spending, they
are very small indeed, so it’s a question of allocation of resources.

Governments already spend 35-55% of GDP. Fact is, no matter how
much you give them, they will spend it. The problem with r&d is that
its not a vote winner, politicians prefer to allocate money to buy voters.

Don’t underestimate the ability of venture capital to bring about change.
Its tiny in Australia, but ever since 911 the Americans are getting serious
about energy, as they realise that the Arabs have them by their proverbial
testicles. So a lot of that money that was made from
IT venture capital is being directed towards energy solutions. Bring
together innovation, technology and money, you might well be amazed!

I see the ABC and commercial channels as having different goals, so
its hard to compare them. The commercial stations are all about
entertainment and ratings, whereas the ABC and SBS provide a niche
educational service that private enterprise is not really interested in.
One reason why the ABC has to perform, is because its so public,
so under huge constant scrutiny. All that accountability brings
about results.

As to American health care, to me it seems that their biggest problem
is the nature of the American litigious society. I’m sad to see that
starting to emerge here. America is full of lawyers and everyone sues
everyone. If you go to a doctor there, he’ll make decisions based on
avoiding malpractise lawsuits, as much as anything. That adds hugely
to the cost of American healthcare, which I gather is around 15% of
GDP, compared to our 8-9%.

I’ve started an economics thread in General, so that allows us each
4 posts a day, so feel free to post there. IMHO the whole topic
of what role Govts play in the economy, is an important one
and makes for interesting debate. I’m less into the black and
white, I hate Howard or Rudd thinggy.

Yabby
"I’ve started an economics thread in General, so that allows us each 4 posts a day, so feel free to post there. IMHO the whole topic
of what role Govts play in the economy, is an important one and makes for interesting debate."
Great. How & where can I partake?

"I hate Howard or Rudd thinggy." If that is "thuggery" I agree!

Yabby wrote, "the Castro questions were not answered on the other thread, more like excuses and apologies made ..."

Why not let others be the judge of that?

Yabby continued, "... as to why he does not stand for elections and let the people vote, for instance."

In fact, that was the very first point made against me in that discussion at : http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/12/castro-and-pinochet/#comment-104227

... and I responded to it here: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/12/castro-and-pinochet/#comment-104253

... here: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/12/castro-and-pinochet/#comment-104347

... and here: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/12/castro-and-pinochet/#comment-104858

Arguments on http://johnquiggin.com can often last for many months, but that discussion lasted barely more than two weeks after I made my first post. My suspicion is that the usually tenaciously argumentative right-wing ideologues quickly grasped the severe weakness of their case and the futility of their perseverence.

In any case, if you had read my posts properly, you would know I wasn't being uncritical of Castro, I simply considered that, as Castro appeared to be close to death at the time, he deserved, for all his faults, to have the monumental achievements, made by his government in the face of such adversity, duly acknowledged, instead of my just taking a cheap shot at him, as appeared to be the fashionable thing to do.

Also, it needed to be pointed out that the feigned concern for the democratic rights of the Cuban people is nothing more than a smokescreen to allow Castro's opponents to ransack the Cuban economy and to steal the wealth of the Cuban people as happened after the USSR collapsed. If their naked selfish hypocrisy is not exposed, then there is a grave risk that they could hijack any transition to democracy in a fashion similar to that which occurred in the former USSR.

Now, how about pursuing this discussion elsewhere? But, before you post anything more to wherever you decide to, please, this time, look more carefully at the discussion at http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/12/castro-and-pinochet/#comment-103920 in order to find out if what you want to say has not already been said and responded to.

James Sinnamon (author)

"My suspicion is that the usually tenaciously argumentative right-wing ideologues quickly grasped the severe weakness of their case and the futility of their perseverence"

Daggett, I had read your various arguments, you are free to believe
whatever you want. To me it was more like the case of BD, when he
preaches about Jesus. I don't even bother to argue the point with
him, apart from a few cheeky or humorous comments. Now he might
be convinced of his alleged "amazing" points. I see him more as
a bit of a Jesus fanatic, so don't even bother with rational arguments
anymore. No matter what my points are, Jesus is his lord and saviour,
so I can't see the point.

There is no excuse for not holding democratic elections in Cuba.
Yes, the US might try to interfere, but they could do the same
anywhere in the world, including Australia. So do we cancel elections
because of that threat? I doubt it.

Yendis, if you go to the top of the page, click on the General
link right on top. You will find a heap of threads. The economics
thread is listed under "General"