5 ms·

Want to Startup America, fund Mega Projects and R&D not more web apps

36 points by messel 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lowglow 16y ago
I have a tiered system of ideas. At the bottom I have the easiest and cheapest to deploy (aka web based), and as I move up the tiers the ideas become more expensive and require more capital than I have right now -- these costs are prohibitive in my execution.
sausman 16y ago
>>>The most beneficial action government can take to support long term growth of startup ecosystems throughout the nation are large Research and Development projects. Unfortunately the government can't magically create resources. The only thing the government can do is reallocate funds from one area to another which is inefficient. The most efficient form of allocating resources is the market, not central planning. When the market allocates resources there is a much greater chance of the resources being put to good use because they are seeking to generate a profit. In order to generate a profit people must not only want something, but find the price reasonable. When the government allocates funds it takes money away from entrepreneurs. More often than not what the government invests in would not be bought by citizens for how much resources they actually put into it. This is completely inefficient, as we are putting in let's say 100,000$ to get something that is worth 10,000$ to the people using it. If this were a business, they would be operating at a huge loss and go out of business. But since it is the government they don't go out of business and continue to misallocate resources. In the off chance that the government uses these resources efficiently, it is certainly not because of any magical "gift" the government has. In this case, the same exact thing could have been accomplished by entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurs are incentivized to seek out these opportunities because there is profit involved. The only investments we need the "gift" of government to pursue are those that we get less value out of than we put into. It's hard to argue that these are good investments.
- tyhjnmyh 16y ago
  >The only investments we need the "gift" of government to pursue are those that we get less value out of than we put into. Or those that need more than one person to implement. An entrepreneur can decide to buy a cab and offer rides to the airport - but there isn't much point unless a million tax payers have already got together and built the freeway.
  - sausman 16y ago
    Entrepreneurs and businesses can hire workers just like the government can. And public works such as roads and bridges also apply to my argument. For example the infamous "bridge to nowhere". A lot of these projects are a waste of resources. If the private sector were in charge of building roads/bridges they would be much more inclined to make sure they were actually needed and good investments.
    - cyrus_ 16y ago
      I don't understand why business project failures are treated like normal occurrences but government project failures are treated like fundamental and systemic problems with social democracy.
      - messel 16y ago
        It's hard to imagine a government which embraces risk and failure as par for the course for learning and improving, but it's worth doing.
      - juiceandjuice 16y ago
        Because people have been conditioned over the past 40 years to believe the government is wasteful, and failures just strengthen those arguments. Also, the government is generally lousy at PR, and people rarely understand how to connect the dots. The internet, (or specifically, world wide web), and google are good examples of things fostered initially by the government. Whether or not they might have happened without the government is debatable, but they did happen, and the government did help. The wins are far less visible than the failures.
cyrus_ 16y ago
Its insane to me how much leverage a first-approximation model of economic activity, developed more than a century ago, has amongst even highly intelligent people. As soon as you leave the limit of omniscient investors with infinite capital you will quickly see why government investment is necessary for large projects with long-term impacts.

36 points by messel 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

I have a tiered system of ideas. At the bottom I have the easiest and cheapest to deploy (aka web based), and as I move up the tiers the ideas become more expensive and require more capital than I have right now -- these costs are prohibitive in my execution.

sausman 16y ago

>>>The most beneficial action government can take to support long term growth of startup ecosystems throughout the nation are large Research and Development projects. Unfortunately the government can't magically create resources. The only thing the government can do is reallocate funds from one area to another which is inefficient. The most efficient form of allocating resources is the market, not central planning. When the market allocates resources there is a much greater chance of the resources being put to good use because they are seeking to generate a profit. In order to generate a profit people must not only want something, but find the price reasonable. When the government allocates funds it takes money away from entrepreneurs. More often than not what the government invests in would not be bought by citizens for how much resources they actually put into it. This is completely inefficient, as we are putting in let's say 100,000$ to get something that is worth 10,000$ to the people using it. If this were a business, they would be operating at a huge loss and go out of business. But since it is the government they don't go out of business and continue to misallocate resources. In the off chance that the government uses these resources efficiently, it is certainly not because of any magical "gift" the government has. In this case, the same exact thing could have been accomplished by entrepreneurs. In fact, entrepreneurs are incentivized to seek out these opportunities because there is profit involved. The only investments we need the "gift" of government to pursue are those that we get less value out of than we put into. It's hard to argue that these are good investments.

tyhjnmyh 16y ago
>The only investments we need the "gift" of government to pursue are those that we get less value out of than we put into. Or those that need more than one person to implement. An entrepreneur can decide to buy a cab and offer rides to the airport - but there isn't much point unless a million tax payers have already got together and built the freeway.
- sausman 16y ago
  Entrepreneurs and businesses can hire workers just like the government can. And public works such as roads and bridges also apply to my argument. For example the infamous "bridge to nowhere". A lot of these projects are a waste of resources. If the private sector were in charge of building roads/bridges they would be much more inclined to make sure they were actually needed and good investments.
  - cyrus_ 16y ago
    I don't understand why business project failures are treated like normal occurrences but government project failures are treated like fundamental and systemic problems with social democracy.
    - messel 16y ago
      It's hard to imagine a government which embraces risk and failure as par for the course for learning and improving, but it's worth doing.
    - juiceandjuice 16y ago
      Because people have been conditioned over the past 40 years to believe the government is wasteful, and failures just strengthen those arguments. Also, the government is generally lousy at PR, and people rarely understand how to connect the dots. The internet, (or specifically, world wide web), and google are good examples of things fostered initially by the government. Whether or not they might have happened without the government is debatable, but they did happen, and the government did help. The wins are far less visible than the failures.

cyrus_ 16y ago

Its insane to me how much leverage a first-approximation model of economic activity, developed more than a century ago, has amongst even highly intelligent people. As soon as you leave the limit of omniscient investors with infinite capital you will quickly see why government investment is necessary for large projects with long-term impacts.