I am thinking it's the other way around. Global travel strengthens human immune systems. Human immune systems develop strength by being exposed to disease, they do not become strong without exposure. Isolated populations learn this lesson the hard way, when they become exposed usually some bad years follow. We had over 60 million people come to the US from abroad last year, not counting illegal aliens, and pretty much everyone survived. Ebola isn't all that bad? Are you serious? A disease that has a 70% fatality rate... What is a bad disease then? You sound like a committed isolationist, I didn't think there were any left actually.

Why are the only 2 options in an economy always 'cure cancer' or 'designer handbags'? I have seen this 'designer handbags' theme in like 15 posts now. Why do you hate designer handbags? To be fair, designer handbags have some advantages over bio scientists. Their utility is clear, they are well-made, attractive and they work for their intended purpose. Most PhD research that is 'pure' has none of those attributes and few researchers are known as attractive. So stop hating on handbags. It demeans you and makes your position more ridiculous than it could be, as far as that is possible. No economy in human history has spent more on research than we in the US, do now. If your beef is that those decisions are being made by the wrong people, say so. Cancer does cause immense suffering, and there is immense spending to combat it. No amount of spending will be able to absorb the limitless production of researchers, so I would prefer an economy where there was less over-production of unemployable people. It represents misdirected resources and costs society. Useless degrees have an opportunity cost that is unacceptably high. However, there is an element of freedom in the US that says that no one should be determining your future. So, if one has a useless degree, and one can't find a job. Way to make choices! Go Freedom! Now enjoy them.

I disagree. And I have to dispute the numbers here. Saying something is 1% of GDp is ridiculous and a trick. The UN wants us to give 1.5% of our GDP to the UN. Screw them. I want us to give 0.2% of GDP to me to. Why if we gave 1% of GDP to 5000 or 6000 different things, how wonderful the world would be. We give almost 10% of GDP to welfare currently. We give 3-4% of GDP to our military, and they drive a tremendous amount of medical and physical research and development, both directly and indirectly. The HHSs budget is over 40 billion and they drive a lot of pure medical research, directly and indirectly by matching private money. Private foundations spend billions on targeted research. The Gates Foundation was instrumental in wiping out polio in India ffs. What do you want from the guy? The OP is a bit sophomoric and reaching a tad bit perhaps. Computers were developed for the military, not an accident of pure research, not a happy intersection of physics and chemistry. To crack Nazi codes so that we would know how to direct our forces to break things and kill people where they needed breaking and killing the most. We have fission power because the Manhattan project built us a bomb. So we could use it strategically (ie, on a civilian population) to break the will of a people to continue making war against us. So, other than unicorns and rainbows, science is also driven by need. We didn't go to the moon for science. We went to the moon so that we could clonk the Soviets over the head with the technical accomplishment. Name one thing we know now about the moon that we didn't know before we went there. Maybe the variable depth of the regolith (I'll help), but we could have done that with a satellite around the moon. Come up with a cause that rallies people and they will fund science to fulfill needs, real or perceived. Some people will get to do pure basic science at the same time, along the way. But unfocused, massive spending on ANY endeavor, including science, without goals is simply inviting corruption. I cannot vote for the concept of a jobs program for science degrees, that's basically welfare, and there is already plenty of that.

What fight are you fighting? The fight for the right to be supported in bad choices? You have that right, we have the largest, bar none, social safety net in the world. Not really following your argument. Academic research makes capitalist innovation possible. See Cisco and the explosion of the internet (ie what delivered your rant). Maybe you should check out the stats on R&D spending in the link in the headline. It has trended solidly up since the 50s. The federal share has shrunk a bit, but private money from evil, disgusting capitalist-pig kitty stompers has more than picked up the slack. Science can be good, both for human 'goods' and for capitalists. Where is the conflict there? I think your world-view may be excluding some obvious things. Also, I think you have the wrong view on currency versus wealth, there is a lot of wealth floating around in a 16 trillion dollar economy. And if you compare living standards now versus 50 years ago, it's pretty apparent there are some changes. Also, if you have only income from the US's social safety net, and nothing else, you are in the top 25% of the WORLD in income. So... Not sure what the fight is for. Maybe more cupcakes? Doesn't seem very inspiring.

Things are only going backwards? In what way? Are we going to uninvent refrigeration or elevators or something? Because I, for one, would miss those. Just curious where PhDs in 'Queer Theory' and 'African Women's Studies' fit into this. Universities pander to fads, and whatever makes them money. They are not immune to the temptation of cranking out useless degrees, that they KNOW are useless when they design the program. Maybe they think only rich kids will be stupid enough to sign up for such programs. Unfortunately, we have degrees in LGBT studies (wtf?) where the class is relatively large, and the potential teaching positions are very small and the potential for private employment is near zero. But it is OH SO fashionable to have that department....So, what happens to people who spent 40K times 4 or more for these degrees? They end up as social workers, HR drones, waitresses, tour guides, etc.; Working FOR people who have high school diplomas and being paid the same, or less than if they had NO university degree at all. If their is an oversupply of gold, the price of gold falls. It is not because gold has less intrinsic value. Gold can be hammered to a few molecules thick, it doesn't corrode in saltwater, it is a decent conductor and other valuable properties (like SHINY). If there is a large supply, the price falls. That's what 'Welcome to the economy' means. The price has fallen on these degrees. In 50 years or so, all the current degree holders will be dead or retired, and then there will be some prospects for employment. There is an education bubble, and it will burst with spectacular results pretty soon.

Pretty sure the Amish do not guarantee an income, and they wear out a lot of horses. (A symptom of the no guaranteed income thing). And they are not doing a lot of exotic bio science, strangely. In fact, though not virulently anti-science, I am pretty sure there are no guaranteed molecular biology PhD slots open in any Amish community I can think of. This is anecdotal, and regional obviously (SW Michigan), but perhaps you know better.

Just an observation, the states are doing a very successful job of educating post graduates that no one will hire. If a university can educate a new crop of PhDs, say 15 in bio science by only hiring one or two of their own post graduates, the problem is not that there aren't enough positions. It will always be that there is more capacity to create these post-grads, than there is to absorb them. I wonder if the same problem exists with economics PhDs, or if the education is so effective that the students stop when they see the train coming in the tunnel, and switch to accounting or computer science. (Just being silly).