The classic race to the bottom. Because it's so much easier to pocket the money and complain about losing jobs/manufacturing/FX to China.

"WE" live in a Financial Oligarchy in the Age of Globalization. Everything is right on schedule, Charles. The areas that the Powers That Be can't seem to get a handle on is what to with the 99%. It's not that The Elites don't have many thoughts and plans for us, it's that they can't come to consensus. An Age of Darkness is in view.

Yes, federal funding is down. As discretionary spending these budgets tend to be hit first.

http://ceramics.org/ceramic-tech-today/s…

@3 did you just wake from a 5 year nap?

If we taxed wealth and the taking of income and not businesses a lot more money would stay in companies that would then fund things like R&D, which distributes funds much more broadly across the workforce (and makes a bigger workforce) and helps build market cap.

As soon as I saw the non-word "financialization", I knew it was a Mudede story.

Corporations don't like R&D. They don't need R&D. They get along quite well without it.

pilotless aircraft, driverless cars, hydrogen fuel cell car, electric car, average lifespans improved 6 or 7 years in US since capitalism supposedly stopped growing and went into financialized rentier stage (during which time the world's most populous countries have grown hella in GDP terms), computers showing up gangbusters in the productivity statistics, crop yields on smash, e-cash in E Africa, laser eye surgery, AIDS a chronic disease in wealthy countries, post zero bound monetary policy in all of the big anglophone states and japan

capitalism seems eco-disastrous, but I'm not certain that it's running out of spunk and ideas for reproducing itself and growing productive accumulation. huge chunks of the world are eagerly opening up as markets. Eurp hasn't printed or fracked in earnest, yet, and capital will win class struggle that's got work mrkt regs under the gun. Russian, West and Central Asian nat gas pipes to Eurp n Az still rn't machr. Iraq pumpn again. Saudis still have spare capacity. Nndia is barely electrifyd. urbanized authoritarian temp agency state form so successful in China/Indonesia seems primed to spread, with Thai farmers' subsidies under threat and Modi a favored candidate in India. charter schools are US bipartisan hardon. global arms procurement should take off as US empire becomes a weaker guarantor and a bunch of Asian great powers and competent states scared of great powers try to balance each other out. big biz wants more immigrants; hella latinos do, too. aging Eurp and Japan will nevitably rationalize migration. big biz wants infrastructure refreshed. right to work in MI and WI in last couple years. massv new trade deals en route. huge water pipes from great lakes and Canada to SXSW. L.American left populism under pressure. Mexico building hella cars. US, China buying hella cars. world's #2 economy 6%/year. buildn booms in major cities as zoning regs relax and global wealthy purchase real assets in wealth-friendly West to hedge against revolutions. it seems like the economy will grow

imagine the markets for sex toys as marriage customs liberalize outside the west, guns in poorly policed countries etc

Wells Fargo is back in the subprime business. We're heading back into disaster, lead again by the banks.

@3 Yes.

But share buy-backs and paying for R&D are apples and oranges, financially speaking. Usually, companies buy back shares when they believe they are underpriced, in which case the shares generate wealth that could be spent on things such as, oh I don't know, R&D?

@sarah70: Tech corporations spend tons on R&D.

@Pope Peabrain: Interesting, although it should be noted that Wells Fargo is one of the big banks that did not require a bailout.

People here don't give much of a fuck for the sciences either, so why does anyone expect large corporations to act any better?

@14 Japan was on our side in the first World War, too. But years later, that meant nothing.