There's also the issue of comparing research to other forms of production; research is different. Research isn't something that is easy to measure "profit" in.

There's also the issue of comparing research to other forms of production; research is different. Research isn't something that is easy to measure "profit" in. Rather, research is a lot more like the exploration of the unknown or sparsely known. Discovery of a new process or physical law of nature could lead to more benefit than even a gold rush. Maybe we figure out how to actually make fusion work at small scale (economically). Maybe a new way of looking at atomic interactions allows for the creation of entirely new classes of devices across many categories; getting us closer to actual science fiction toys. Without research, we probably won't get there, and it'll sure take a lot longer if we aren't trying. Research can also be compared to efforts to break 'enemy messages' during a WWII. In some ways success was possible and that made victory much easier to achieve. In other ways it was either harder or didn't pan out; that didn't mean it was impossible, it just meant that it wasn't within reach of the general level of technology that existed at the time. The tools of today make those old techniques prone to even brute forcing, which means that problems that fail conventional searches today MAY be unlocked by future advances in other fields. You never know if you don't try to look.