Keeping Perspective September 22, 2008
Posted by gordonwatts in politics, science, USA.trackback
The bailout proposed by the US government to keep our financial system afloat is going to be about $700 billion (US). I’m guessing that is going to rise to about $1 trillion or so by the time all is said and done. I can’t really fault the government on this – now that we are here something like this has to be done. It looks bad to even myself and I’m sure if I knew more about economics I’d be even more scared for the US financial system.
The LHC cost about $7 billion. So, you could build 100 of those for the price of this bailout. But it doesn’t stop there – this is going to be a hang-over the US budget will be paying off for years to come. Guess what is going to get hit… you got it. I’m sure funding for science in general is going to be down in the future. Ugh. Not only is that 100 LHC’s worth of science (all types of science!!) we could have done, but it will mean less science in the future as well.
How stupid is that!? I don’t know who to get pissed off at either – this seems to be a problem of group think. Like the echo chamber of the blogosphere.
Life as a Physicist 
Already in the plans. Apparently McCain wants to freeze all science funding. Ugh.
It seems they have better things to do with your taxpayer dollars. Chiefly, prop up the rich ;).
Yeah — depressing, isn’t it? A bit more foresight and all of us could be sharing in the spoils! As they say, 20/20 in restrospect!