I get a big kick out of arguments based on not doing things because of how expensive things are. How expensive is it going to be to not do them? It was expensive building the interstate system system, it was expensive doing aeronautics research, it's expensive doing medical research. Magically, the money always seems to appear. Why is that? What do you think, did we get an adequate ROI on all those things? Don't you like safe airplanes and reliable air traffic control systems? How about pure research into solid state physics that no one understood, was that money well spent?
Since when has the economy been a zero-sum game? Milton Friedman is spinning in his grave listening to this drivel.
It would be interesting to come up with an estimate of how much money could be raised by a small (say 0.1%) tax on all financial market transactions (you could justify it on the basis of getting the money back that was poured into the financial sector after 2008) or on all online gambling transactions. What? Tax gambling? I must be a loonie leftie. You don't want to tax gambling, it might hurt job creation in that industry. Because that's what the world really needs, more gamers and debt collectors, now that's the kind of economic growth you really want. That's really productive and improves people's lives. Some people, anyway.
Remember when automobile pollution controls was going to destroy the automobile industry? Whatever happened to that armageddon, I wonder. Turns out it was the best thing that ever happened to everyone, consumers and manufacturers alike.
I thought entrepreneurs and capitalists were supposed to be forward thinking and creative. Who knows, maybe the real ones are.
