30 years of innovation

Must we then conclude that there is no beneficial innovation that may be attributed, even indirectly, to the GOVERNMENT's space program?  Whenever there is some proposal to cut funds for NASA, its defenders emerge to remind us of how many wonderful technological innovations are the products of space research, which is an activity predominantly undertaken by or financed by the GOVERNMENT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...pin-off_technologies

Instead of posting cutesy little wingnut "graphics," you might have considered doing some RESEARCH of your own concerning the contribution of GOVERNMENT to technological innovation.

<<<<Of course, the rationale for government support of R&D would be weakened if governments had consistently performed poorly in this sphere. Certainly there have been disappointments; for example, the surge in federal investment in energy technology research in the 1970s, a response to the energy crisis of that decade, achieved less than its initiators hoped. In the United States, however, we have seen many examples—in some cases extending back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries—of federal research initiatives and government support enabling the emergence of new technologies in areas that include agriculture, chemicals, health care, and information technology. A case that has been particularly well documented and closely studied is the development of hybrid seed corn in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Two other examples of innovations that received critical federal support are gene splicing—federal R&D underwrote the techniques that opened up the field of genetic engineering—and the lithium-ion battery, which was developed by federally sponsored materials research in the 1980s. And recent research on the government’s so-called War on Cancer, initiated by President Nixon in 1971, finds that the effort has produced a very high social rate of return, notwithstanding its failure to achieve its original ambitious goal of eradicating the disease.

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What about the present? Is government support of R&D today at the “right” level? This question is not easily answered; it involves not only difficult technical assessments but also a number of value judgments about public priorities. As background, however, a consideration of recent trends in expenditures on R&D in the United States and the rest of the world should be instructive. In the United States, total R&D spending (both public and private) has been relatively stable over the past three decades, at roughly 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). However, this apparent stability masks some important underlying trends. First, since the 1970s, R&D spending by the federal government has trended down as a share of GDP, while the share of R&D done by the private sector has correspondingly increased. Second, the share of R&D spending targeted to basic research, as opposed to more applied R&D activities, has also been declining. These two trends—the declines in the share of basic research and in the federal share of R&D spending—are related, as government R&D spending tends to be more heavily weighted toward basic research and science. The declining emphasis on basic research is somewhat concerning because fundamental research is ultimately the source of most innovation, albeit often with long lags. Indeed, some economists have argued that because of the potentially high social return to basic research, expanded government support for R&D could, over time, significantly boost economic growth. That said, in a time of fiscal stringency, Congress and the administration will clearly need to carefully weigh competing priorities in their budgetary decisions.>>>>

http://issues.org/27-4/bernanke/

More analysis of how government spending can and does produce innovation and economic benefits:

"Government support plays a vital role in incubating new ideas that are harvested by the private sector, sometimes many years later, creating companies and jobs. A report published this year by the National Research Council, a government advisory group, looked at eight computing technologies, including digital communications, databases, computer architectures and artificial intelligence, tracing government-financed research to commercialization. It calculated the portion of revenue at 30 well-known corporations that could be traced back to the seed research backed by government agencies. The total was nearly $500 billion a year."

Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10...n-research.html?_r=0

The FACTS here trump the carping of critics who devote more time to creating cutesy, but ignorant, displays such as the one that is featured in your post.

The FACTS of government funding/programs are pretty clear and easy to see.  But sometimes the biggest wastes and malinvestments are unseen...

Kids throw rocks and bust windows of a store.  Store owner has to buy new glass...that's a boom to the glass guy.  But what goes unseen is what the store owner would have done with those funds and resources.

The Broken Window Fallacy

The point being what would the private sector have done if left to natural market forces of serving customer wants and needs.

Don't be afraid of economic liberty.

Can't believe that Condie quoted the old broken window argument.  Dems, libs and progs had several blogs and forums about that a few years ago, and stated it shouldn't be used. Old Condie must be out of their mainstream.

It's true that quite a few innovations have come from government labs because of the Cold War and it cost the taxpayers Billions if not a Trillion or two. It is also true that it took capitalists to take those innovations and profit from them to add Trillions to the economy.

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Pay attention; it was Renegade Nation, not I, who cited the Broken Window argument.

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Not Renegade's direct use of the fallacy argument, but your arguments.  No telling how many advancements and businesses were squelched by using the taxes for government vs, private sector.

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Yeah? Well then, you may now advise as to just what part of the Broken Window fallacy you say that I QUOTED. You wrote THIS:

"Can't believe that Condie quoted the old broken window argument."  

The issue is whether or not research funded or stimulated by government--NASA or other sectors--has contributed greatly to progress and engendered economic benefits.. You might decide to evaluate a given instance of government research and  decide whether or not it created economic/technological good, but until  you have done that, all-subsuming conclusions to the contrary implicitly, and vaguely, linked to Bastiat's Broken Windows fallacy are presumptuous.