Aren’t you just all excited over the latest proposal from the all-but-named Repug presidential candidate to “award $300 million for the next generation car battery” (here)?Given this, I wondered what it would have been like in this country if our great inventors had been a bit more, shall we say, preoccupied with financial concerns as opposed to the betterment of mankind.
Would Ben Franklin have said, “Nah, I’m not going out in that thunderstorm to fly a kite with a key on it and risk my life for anything less than 200 pounds,” or Thomas Edison had said “What? Develop the incandescent lamp just for the joy of scientific discovery? Not for at least 5 grand, baby!”
Now granted, I know those guys were capitalists in their own right, but my point is that anyone who comes up with an invention like McBush’s battery could acquire a patent from it and collect royalties from the automakers. There’s no need to pay anybody $300 million for that type of a discovery (unless the person who comes up with this invention is expected to waive all royalties..??).
And more to the point, who is supposed to pay that $300 million. Do I even need to ask?
Besides, this story from February 2007 tells us that President Brainless had a little party with people trying to do exactly what McBush is encouraging today; the groundwork for his battery has already been done – why encourage something that doesn’t need encouragement (and it’s not like his record on alternative energy is so hot anyway).
Now if he were instead to offer $300 million for development through a windfall tax on oil profits...
1 comment:
It was said the 300 million dollars was equal to 1.00 for each American.
Hmmm, maybe if someone passes the hat and we each toss in one dollar it works...but the 300 million will come out of the treasury, and be tacked onto the deficit with interest.
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