Can the millitary make a profit from R&D (research and development )?

We have a rich tradition of socializing research and privatizing profits. They could make cash from it but it is easier to gift some patents to a friendly corp. Same shit happens at Universities and medical research.

And.. The United States no longer gives a fuck about the deficit/debt. You should see the monster we just just passed. Between the tax bill and the omnibus LOLOLOLOL poverty. Like it is the most reckless spending I have ever seen so Trump and Congress can get a “WIN” people don’t understand.

@johnpowell The news said that the US is $1 trillion in deficit per year and $21 trillion in debt. Is that true? I don’t even know what the Canadian in deficit and debt is.

And now for a real answer.

No and Yes. Take NASA, the US Space Program, and ARPA and DARPA. The last two are “advanced research projects agency” and “defense advanced..”. All of those, and likely more, are R&D – based agencies.

For example, NASA gave us Tang, for example. ARPA gave is the internet. One of the NASA computer systems (NASA RECON) gave us the idea of computer-based indexes for research. And so on and so forth.

My understanding is that if the US does research, it cannot profit from it or license it – it becomes public domain. So companies can use NASA research (again, the example is Tang) and never pay a cent for it.

This is UNLIKE stats and state university research. Take the drug WARFARIN (it is a blood thinner). The WARF in in WARFARIN stands for “Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation” and they get a royalty for every pill sold.

@RedDeerGuy1… We were about 665 billion in the hole last year. That is not total debt. That is we took in 665 billion less than we spent. For the year.

The new budget and and tax cuts will balloon that into the trillions for just the single year. It is fucking insane. And I love to spend the taxpayers money. But even this is a bit bonkers for me.

@johnpowell @elbanditoroso Thanks.

@elbanditoroso :: You should talk to Shilolo. I have listened to endless bitching from Shilolo about how he busts his balls getting funding for a TB cure while working at a University hospital. And in the end if successful it will be sold off for on the cheap to a private company.

Actually Tang was created and marketed by a private corporation (General Foods) the year before NASA was founded. They only pitched it to NASA a few years later as a marketing scheme to stimulate the brand’s anemic sales.

Profit yes. Very much so. Putting into paying down the debt, isn’t going to happen. Trump approved a massive increase in military spending. Couple that with the tax reform, and you’re looking at an exponential increase in the debt. The administration will need a perfect storm of unlikely ,consistent financial growth to even get close to paying the debt down.

Didn’t you hear? The tax cuts are going to pay for themselves from taxes on higher corporate profits. Oh, and in case that does not work, they are going to pay off the debt by gutting social security and medicare.

It would be unethical for the government to patent an idea and to get revenue for it. The tax payer ends up paying twice, once for funding the development of the idea and again when buying products from manufacturers paying to use it. The only equitable thing is to allow the free use of the idea.

I don’t know if manufacturers have to pay any licensing fees, but the GPS system is developed, owned and controlled by the US military.

@LostinParadise . The ONLY thing that I know for sure, is that the wealthy won’t have any burden if the debt goes into numbers that can’t fit on a calculator. I wonder if Trumpers, and conservatives, will ever understand that they have been cutting their own throats with their blind support?