Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
09 April 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
09 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa

The Great Ripoff

04 March 2015 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
Cutting government research spending and short term profit maximization that disinvests in the development of longer term human research capital is killing US technological innovation. Other countries are moving ahead of us now, particularly those with public investment.

Most major technological breakthroughs have come from combinations of longer term private human capital development and well funded government research. Smart phones, beginning with the iPhone, are a perfect example. Let me go further and argue no great wealth, such as Apple's, is to be had without private and public interaction on both the development of human and physical capital for innovation. Without both, serious wealth formation becomes nearly impossible.

But there are two main villains now destroying this successful mix. One is the incredibly ignorant drive of conservatives to cut the funding for government research as being wasteful and the best way to curb deficits because they won't raise taxes, and the second is the neoclassical maxim that corporations should be run so as to maximize the present value of future profits. This latter rule presses too hard for a view that is much too short term, as I will explain.

Short term profits get maximized because they weight much more heavily in the present valuing of future profits and hence higher current share prices. As bad, corporate officers' compensation too much takes the form of stock options which cue on these results. A worse case scenario is the neoclassical position coupled with stock buy backs to raise share prices. The term structure of profits is skewed toward the present. Short term profit maximization and CEO compensation both badly squeeze the development of private human capital within corporations needed for innovation. Quick easy projects and higher employee turnover replace projects that are much more profitable in the longer term and better developed internal human capital The neoclassical view is too narrow and short-sighted and it gets the incentives wrong in too many regards here.

The keys to great long term growth are a) well funded longer term government research, b) the longer term development of human capital for innovation with in the private sector, and c) a stable and reasonably certain economic environment to allow for investment in the interactive results of a) and b). Our problem is we simply don't get it. Conservatives kill a), Short term profit maximization kills b) and the resulting economic consequences of both destroy c).

The ripoff is because what I describe currently was not always so. Once, government invested heavily in longer term, less restricted research. The private sector recruited and developed longer term human capital for innovation. And government provided a stable and predictable economic environment and infrastructure for longer term investment. The result was the formation of the great wealth and fortunes that we see today -- but whose owners now claim they did all by themselves and that to tax them at rates reflecting what actually happened, so as as to obtain the public's return, amounts to stealing from them personally.

And conservatives actually buy it!
Comments
Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
Extra:
Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
Altaira's Photos - Main
No items in this gallery.

Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ