Corporate Lobbyists Dominate EU Innovation Conference

[pwobrussels]

That makes me shiver...

[TheHairyHeart]

What a great waste of money and time.

Innovation is the consumer letting the producer know, what they want, not some group of grey haired old tarts wanting more of our money!

[LightsEShadows]

basically yes and to predict what people will want.

Anyway you have innovation with a free market, protected against monopoly and oligopoly expecially the collusions one also said CARTEL like OPEC for example, and protected against trust and foreign dumping.

[LightsEShadows]

The gov. should make investement mainly in the field of basic research.

[yadranko]

Absolutely, very well said!

[yadranko]

Innovation comes from private individuals pursuing their own private interests.

When governments get involved, corruption ensues and lobbyists channel the taxpayers' money to powerful monopolistic corporations which don't have the need to innovate.

[haszo]

Yes your right for the most part but markets, by themselves, will also produce too little basic research. Remember, the government was responsible for financing most of the important scientific breakthroughs, including the internet and the first telegraph line, and most of the advances in bio-tech.

The world wide web was created in CERN, not profit but just to help them with the research they were doing.

But saying that these lobbyists need to be watched very carefully, especially shell.

[yadranko]

Most of the innovation which we enjoy today did not come from governments, it came from private individuals and private industries pursuing profit, the fact which is still true today.

It is true however that governments are responsible for some advancements as well, but history is a testament that the the collectivist model cannot hold a candle to the amount of innovation provided by the free market.

Did we agree on the point of lobbyists and money ending up in hands of the powerful?

[haszo]

Yes, I agree with you, your right on all points, I just wanted to give a more balanced view, saying some good such as the Internet among others has come from Government funded research and that privately funded research tends not to look at long term goals but towards profit. Take CERN which took twenty years or more of funding to create the Large Hadron Collider, no private organisation would have ever funded that. But if we do have to give them money we must watch them like hawks.

[yadranko]

haszo, good discussion!

I agree, I mean, after all the money they squander, there has to be something good that comes out after all.

But I must add that it comes at a great cost, since government is a monopoly and no free market forces are allowed to operate. But then again, the nature of things such as hadron collider is that it is so expensive that most private industries are incapable of financing it, so I would agree that government's role is partly justified here.

[MarquisdeBarrabas]

Your first paragraph in particular is a testament to your raging ignorance.

I suggest that instead of regurgitating freemarket talking points, you learn how scientific innovation actually happens.

It would help you to have scientist friends who work in publicly funded labs and receive government grants to do research on things like stem cells or voice recog.

Barring that, it would help you to read David Bollier's Private Theft.

[MarquisdeBarrabas]

@ 'most of the innovation we enjoy today...'

[yadranko]

this is my last reply to you, some day when you learn how to comment and discuss ideas and not insult people at the same time, let me know.

Aloha!

[MarquisdeBarrabas]

One day you will stop being a political nerd and learn about real-world capitalism, whether through a more direct, prolonged contact with the labour market or through reading factual accounts of the history and reality of capitalism - preferably both.

That is also the day you will stop being a free-market ideologue and become, at the very least, a moderate and a tinkerer.

Aloha to you.

[joetke]

you quote "the collectivist model cannot hold a candle to the amount of innovation provided by the free market. ". It's just ignorant an allegation because we're talking about quality not quantity! You should be aware that China Popular Republic (RPC) is among the most "productive" R&D spot in the world likely before your 1st birthday, and long before they decided -without asking you the right to do so- to embrace capitalism. So was and still is Cuba to say the least. Be honest not ideologist!

[yadranko]

Communist China has adopted a Capitalist model and it has allowed its people to own private property and pursue wealth through Capitalism. A little quote that was added to Mao's red book after his death says: "Getting rich is glorious!" Do you think that was a part of Mao ze Dong's doctrine when he enacted the "Great Leap Forward" plan and Cultural Revolution, collectivist initiatives, both of which took millions of lives and gave 0 results.

Cuba has best R&D? Mind presenting evidence?

[joetke]

Do not simply ask questions, do your own investigations and you'll be surprised -or I expect definitely not - to discover how efficient and effective most of cuban researchers in matter of medical solutions are. Not to speak of the most basic treatment of malaria/paludism or some sort of cancers. Next, I am not that surprised while I read your comment with a huge "parti pris" without any kind of an evidence but allegations or pointing out the sad big number of collectivism.

[joetke]

Perhaps you yadranko don't want to hear about the tremendous victims in third-world countries especially in Africa or in South America, victims of the wild criminal capitilism you're so keen to defend. And all that nice thing happens while I'm writing this post.

Many people over there are starving to death, and you SHOULD know that!

Eventually I have the feeling that you're a kind of newcomer (I mean, a guy who's been living in a former socialist european regime) in capitalism world. Absolutist.

[yadranko]

What are you talking about, if you want discussion, then read my posts again and respond to what I had to say, all you did above was to present claims with no evidence and self elevated your intelect. Vanity.

If I don't see clear evidence in your next post, you won't hear from me again, I have no time to waste elevating soemone's ego.

[joetke]

I DO NOT care to hear from you and your insanities and your HUGE LACK of objectivity, mixing up things and pseudo thinking and throwing at me or at another SMARTER GUY THAN YOU ARE some déjà vu responses from a narrow minded people Please stay away from any one who uses her brain much better than you pretend to be able to. It's not a matter of ego BUT a matter of who has the ability to analyze things with the most objective mind.

[yadranko]

Yet another self promoting comment, nothing of substance nor related to the subject.

This in my last response and a goodbye to you!

[vuffelch]

why if the EU is so great have a wanker like Barroso