$5 billion return from program that funded Solyndra

Are you being serious here?

How could you take that away from my post? I asked him a question about his opinion: "I heard the work they are doing with robotics is going to basically enable the automation revolution. Do you have any insights into that, that you are allowed to discuss?"

Does asking a question constitute a definitive statement to you?

 

The US military services, DOE, et al, have billions in research that is given to private companies. These companies would never spend that amount of money.

 

There were 'expected' returns from Solyndra too.

 

And your evidence of such "functionality" is where, in relation to costs? robotics tech that the private sector has been developing for decades? thin. More importantly, the authorization for general US R&D programs not necessary and proper to the very few enumerated functions of government is where? Here's the type of thing that government "R&D" usually results in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxU6n4pAnrU

So you want folks like -that- overseeing R&D, and somehow the best and brightest who go to the private sector are inferior? I don't think so. If MIT folks want to innovate, why do they need the corrupt crutch of govt to do it?

What? Where? And when you wind up to claim the internet in your next post, you'll be flat wrong. Same cave man/Maserati analogy applies. Every dollar taken from the private sector for govt research on fat girls, robotic squirrels and Indian reality TV is a dollar denied REAL private sector innovators.

Glad we can agree. Let's start with all govt R&D, grants, contractor payments, including the entire program in the thread topic, not directly related to defense or other necessary legitimate, enumerated govt functions. Let the private sector do what it does, keep grafty, corrupt govt out of it entirely.

 

disagree, had we left the highway system to private investors, we would never of had it

 

Incorrect. Listing a single historical example to back up my point does not imply anything beyond the content itself. Consider this: you are, for some reason, trying to minimize the importance of being given 10% of the territory of the United States for free. They did buy private property themselves, yes - as I said earlier, this was a private-public partnership. I made that perfectly clear from the start. But the entire project would have been impossible to do unless taxpayer land was simply given away. It is a classic example of how large infrastructure projects require government support.

None of these projects are authorized by the Constitution. They are authorized by law, passed according to the guidelines laid out by the Constitution, and funded by Congress, who has the right to pass laws, raise taxes, and spend money providing for the general welfare of the United States. I'm sorry that your originalist interpretation of the Constitution hasn't won the day, but that's really all there is to say about that.

The point is that government needs to be involved in projects that are otherwise unprofitable, but necessary. In fact that is pretty much the entire point of having a government. So for you to say "Oh well the roads worked, and the railroads worked, and the internet works, oh and the defense industry works, and the people who took us to Mars within sixty years...... and also subsidized farming that feeds the entire planet, and a health care industry that basically lives off of publically-funded institutions... all of that works but no, government involvement in the economy doesn't work..." Well, it speaks for itself.

The total budget for NASA for the past sixty years has been $550 billion. Literally one year of military spending. Are you really trying to say that $550 billion dollars hasn't been generated by the technological developments developed by NASA in the past sixty years? The structural analysis software that they developed has generated that much economic activity alone.

 

Thanks for this informative, unsubstantiated post..........

Companies spend billions in R&D

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Toll roads say HI!!

more left wing lunacy

 

I'm sure there were, as I don't know of too many investors deliberately toss their money into what they expect to be a losing proposition, but, then again, that's why any financial advisor's first bit of advice is to diversify as much as possible. And that's why the program is in the black now.

 

The program is not in the black.

Its potentially in the black if the other 32 billion is not defaulted on.

 

Right now, they're in the black. What may happen ten or fifteen years from now? Hey - they could all pay back their loans early and the program would have made a bundle? Why is that not possible?

 

They are not.

The liabilities still outweigh the assets............

They are in a theoretically in the black......

Loans getting paid back early is the worse thing that could happen as far as a making money perspective.

Finance 101

If they all paid the loans back today they made this measly 30 million

 

So, nothing has actualized yet.

Kind of like California's "projected" surplus that hasn't happened.

 

The Sun'll come out TOMORROW, TOMORROW, bet your bottom dollar...

 

I would not want to live in the repubicans world of mass toll roads wherever you wanted to go

 

Yeah because, the Internet, nuclear energy, weather, let alone the interstate highways, et al, would be done by private industry.

 

Correct. And based on the track record of government estimates I'd venture a guess this DOE report is based on a best case scenario (a pipe dream) instead of actual performance. I say that as an investor who pays very close attention to the when/what/how details companies disclose in financial reports, and the DOE report doesn't measure up very well in regards to disclosure. But hey, what else is new when it comes the "transparency" in government reports.

 

Well, at least you'd have one less thing to whine about and that would be a plus.

And the program would have made money and they'd be able to loan it out again. Winner, winner chicken dinner.