Every one in the world has availed from the research carried at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet), the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and numerous other government agencies. But the percentage varies according the capital they have. The very rich have made their fortunes in good part because of taxpayer-funded research.
Over the years private businesses have received government contracts to produce and market the results, and "entrepreneurs" have rearranged the pieces into products that seem to appear out of the magical world of a single individual.
The richest 10% own 80% of the stock market, providing billions in "unearned income" that is taxed at less than half the rate of income earned through real work.
Newly released Census data shows the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record. The top earning 20 percent of Americans received more than 49 percent of all income generated in the country in 2009. The income gap has nearly doubled since 1968. The US has the greatest income disparity among Western industrialized nations. Despite the growing income gap, Senate Democrats last week put off a vote on whether to repeal President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy until after the midterm election. A recent Associated Press poll found that 54 percent of Americans support raising taxes on the highest US earners.
Hedge fund managers call their income "carried interest" instead of "income" to keep their tax rate at 15%. Even this small amount may not be paid. Hedge fund managers with incomes in the billions can pay ZERO income tax by deferring their profits through their companies indefinitely.
It is often said that at least some of the technological developments and advances in science, medicine, engineering and other disciplines that arose – directly or indirectly – from NASA’s programs no doubt eventually would have occurred anyway. When, where and by whom cannot be known – nor how different such developments might have been without the interaction of multiple advances in multiple areas, freely shared, within what has been, in the history of human advancements, the blink of an eye. But there is also no doubt that space is a unique environment, demanding rapid innovation and new ways of thinking, with little tolerance for error. And these demands reward all of us when they spurred creativity and technological invention.
Remote robotic surgery - Aquanaut Tim Broderick demonstrates a robotic surgical arm on the ninth NASA Extreme Environmental Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission. NASA research aimed at keeping astronauts healthy far from Earth holds great promise for people on Earth.
Photo credit: CMAS
The areas in which NASA-developed technologies benefit society can broadly be defined as: health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, environmental and agricultural resources, computer technology and industrial productivity. Since 1976, the annual NASA publication Spinoff has detailed the influence and impact on society of agency activities. More detail on these and other programs, technologies and spinoffs can be accessed through NASA’s Spinoff data base or accessed on NASA’s Web site, www.nasa.gov. Also, since 1990, NASA has recognized its “Government and Commercial Invention of the Year” and, since 1994, the “Software of the Year.”
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