Despite this, companies are moving out and new ones are not moving in. Silicon Valley is great - but its dominance is already passing, as it must, because the centrality of know-how is already being distributed by its own products. The great technological development no longer need happen, and often is not happening, in Silicon Valley, though of course it will continue to be important.
What I object to is the idea of spending vast sums of public money thinking you can just produce another one. It’s a grossly risky bet, which can’t* have the anticipated effect, have the same kind of payoff. Moreover, in incurring the debts, you also have to consider what else could have been done with the money, as well as the probabilities of success.
A previous poster mentioned an argument which can be summarized as “We will spend billions in a gamble with unknown odds and payout in the hope that after an unknown period of time, it will pay itself off and more.” Mate, it ain’t legal for a private organization to offer that. You’d go to jail. That’s like taking your money to Vegas, and then throwing it out on the street in the hopes that karma will take a shining to you and you get twice as much playing craps. Plus, to be honest, I’m not even certain stem-cell research can profitably use that much money in such a short span of time.
*This is a product of the basic science. Stem cell research, by nature, must be distributed to be useful. People want medical services close to them unless they are very rich, and stem cell treatments have always been distributed like other medical services. That’s how medical services work, period. Plus, stem-cell options are vasly more limited in long-term benefitsthan, say, genetics.
Frankly, while the possibilities are great, the reason why financial support for new cell lines was banned federally was not only its link to abortion, but also that the use of new cell lines was of little value in stem-cell research. It was always neccessary to develop them out of adult cells, because that’s the only way to make it useful to anybody over age 1.
Yeah, I know. But at least we’re grizzled old vets when it comes to a spartan existence.
You know, if what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, I don’t know if I want to be this strong.
The study was in the Mercury News - I’ll check to see if it is still on-line. It was from before the most recent plummet in revenue. The immediate problem today, as I said, is that our revenue system is far more sensitive to economic downturns than one based more in property taxes, while spending is not. As I also said, this encourages the legislature to spend more in good times. Prop 1A would have forced some of a surplus to be set aside, I voted for this.
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Why is this a stupid requirement? I think it’s a great thing. Yes, it handcuffs the legislature somewhat … that’s the point.
Yeah, the legislature was handcuffed while the building was burning down around them. If the Dems were looking for tax increases without spending, they’d be in the wrong also, but they were looking for a compromise, and the Republicans with more than a vote each in this case, didn’t want to compromise at all (or even give a counter-proposal.) The few who were willing to vote for a budget to keep the state out of default are not being called traitors.
That’s why the propositions suck. If there is a spending bill, they have to figure out how to pay for it, either through more taxes or cuts. The voter for a proposition thinks it is free, and other people have to worry about the impact - and don’t cut school funding, prisons, healthcare, and don’t raise taxes. (All of which get majority support.) If the propositions came with specific cuts in other areas, or specific tax increases, I suspect that fewer would get passed - or even be on the ballot.
I was being nice. I wasn’t proposing releasing the criminals into the back yards of these people. They don’t want to pay for the prisons, let them take the consequences.
The Democrats are far from blameless. Proposition mania is pretty universal. However, the Dems are more willing to pay for this stuff through higher taxes, so they get a bit of a pass.
Not all the propositions are bad. My objection is that the system lets people vote for them without considering the consequences, and that will always get you into trouble.
I’ve been in this business a long time, and I don’t see it. India and China are important in manufacturing (hardware and software) and Taiwan is now dominating the non-Intel fab market. But the innovation hasn’t move. Japan seems less influential today than it was 20 years ago. There aren’t a bunch of new companies now, thanks to the recession, but when vc comes back they’ll be here.
Hmm, the thing you said was illegal was exactly what Bell Labs Area 11 did, and what I bet Microsoft Research does now. This kind of thing is exactly what government should be funding - stuff too risky and out there for short term private investment, now that most of the forward looking private research labs have closed.
Actually, a big reason this was popular because people wanted there to be work on it, and were frustrated that Bush basically killed it at the federal level. I bet it wouldn’t pass today - there is no need if it is being NIH funded the way it should be.
So? The patent holders won’t make money? The people who manufacture the therapies won’t make money? Of course genetics deserves (and gets) more money, since it is a much broader field. But genetics research wasn’t being stifled, so there was no reason to do it with state funding.
When I was in college the nuts in Cambridge were going crazy about the dangers of recombinant DNA research - mutant genes were going to kill us all. If they had won at the federal level, don’t you think a state funded research effort would have been successful?
Do you have a cite that embryonic stem cells can only be applied to children? I’ve always heard that the benefit of adult stem cells is that they don’t need to come from an embryo, and are easier to get - but they don’t have inherently greater therapeutic value for adults.
That is not correct. The 4.38% isn’t “average CPI increase”, it’s "average increase in the state’s CPI and population growth.
In fact roughly 3% of that is inflation and 1.4% is population growth. If we use the correct inflation index of (1.03^18), we find that real per capita spending has increased from $2,298 in 1991 to $2,644 in 2009. This is an increase of 15% or 0.8% per year for 18 consecutive years.
Well, because of three strikes, someone who gets busted with 10oz of mj for the third time would have a longer sentence than someone who “only” raped one woman. That would mean the rapist would get released before the dope head. That is real problem with three strikes laws, the flood the system with nonviolent criminals, and when the prisons are over crowded, the violent ones may need to be let go early.
I have been anti initiative for a while. No matter how good the cause, I vote no on any initiative that does not have a real funding method. Right now, initiatives go up with all funding coming from a bond that is paid out from the general fund. That is the state level equivalent of putting it on the credit card. If it is paid for by new taxes, fees, or some other reasonable method, I will consider it on its merits, but I will not vote for a pure bond funded measure.
They have implemented some new tax hikes earlier this year. Tax increases can only do so much when you’re so far in debt - and raising taxes does absolutely nothing to encourage fiscal responsibility, they just seem to encourage the same old spending behavior. California needs to cut spending, and drastically. That’s the only way to get out of their mess.
Now, more than ever, it is time to legalize marijuana. While the added tax revenue won’t be enough to bail CA out of its mess, it will certainly help. Besides, more people getting high will make them forget their economic woes, so the timing’s perfect.
Do you think the cuts already made during the compromise weren’t drastic?
The problem is, with revenues falling as much as they have, the old “cut waste and spending” mantra isn’t enough. I seem to recall revenues are down by 47%. Want to close prisons, schools, or both?
People who lose half their income can stop going to the mall, but that isn’t going to fix the problem.
Just start from the top of the list and keep going down until you run out of money from the budget. If that means that, for example, everything below “City parks” isn’t funded, too bad.
Society will go to hell in a hurry with no police or functioning roads
Not having the latest books at the local library: not so much
We should wait for better times to fund libraries and the non-essential stuff.
I can’t speak for other California voters, but I sure as hell didn’t reject tax increases. I voted against the monstrous power-grabbing POS that was Props 1A-1F, becuse it was (1) dishonest, (2) ill-timed, (3) mostly unnecessary, and (4) didn’t raise taxes enough. If they had put a SIMPLE tax increase on the ballot, I’d have voted for that, especially if it had rolled back Prop 13 at all. But no, Arnold and the fucking CA Republicans couldn’t have THAT. Who knows what the voters might have done if presented with such a proposition, with an honest statement of goals and needs in these times?
That said, I have no problem with taking on a bit more debt right now, as long as taxes go up in thre next couple of years.
California’s tax system is more reliant on income tax because of the property tax limits implemented by Prop 13, and there is a higher concentration of high-income workers here than in the U. S.
[nickpick]Please don’t call it “Cali.” We hate that. It’s like calling San Francisco “Frisco.”[/nickpick]
Education benefits everyone, but the people who largely supported prop 13 were middle-aged people without children in public schools. They believed they had no reason to support public education. Governor Pat Brown worked hard to build one of the best–if not the best–public educational systems in the country from elementary to UC. The investment in UC attracted some of the best academics in the country (well, the weather did too). UC San Diego has more Nobel Laureates than any other school in the country. Some of the most important work in nuclear physics happened at UC Berkeley (and its associated Lawrence Livermore Lab). I think Berkeley is the only state that has an element named after it. K-12 was a good as it good get considering the circumstances. The Cal State and Community College systems were improved greatly. Then prop 13 gutted a lot of that.
But the real problem are all the stupid commissions.
Nonsense, there’s no particular limit on age, much less no one “over age 1”. The reason why research on new cell lines was banned, is because the approved lines were useless. It was an attempt to shut down research without admitting it.
The “rich fat cats” also don’t pay nearly their fair share. Raise taxes on them.
So someone who needs medical care is “on the dole” Or children in school ? Interesting how certain people’s solution to economic problems is always “stomp on the weak”.
That assumes that there will BE better times if we do that. Once they get things like public libraries closed down, I can’t see the Republicans becoming anything but even more intransigent on taxes, in order to “starve the beast” further. After all, that would in their eyes be a huge victory against the the Ultimate Evil of “socialism”, and economically destroying California or the country would be a small price to pay for it.
Not unless they recently made it a state. However, California is the only state with an element named after it, Berkeley does have its own element, and Lawrencium is named after the same person Lawrence Livermore Lab is named after.
However, California is the only state with an element named after it, Berkeley does have its own element, and Lawrencium is named after the same person Lawrence Livermore Lab is named after.