 |
| I'll take that 2 billion dollars if you're not using it. Photo credit: ugo.com |
Salmon has an interesting idea regarding helping clear the housing market:
My idea: outsourced mortgage servicing. Create a mortgage servicer from scratch, where everybody who calls in is given a single point of contact — a unique individual who owns their problems and is charged with finding solutions to any problem, including refinancing and loan modification. There’s got to be a way of building up enough trust with both banks and homeowners, over the course of a year, to build a $2 billion business somehow.Personally, I'd use that 2 billion dollars a couple of ways:
- The Pharma Chemist Full Employment Act: 1 billion dollars to hire unemployed pharma chemists to work on antibiotics research and other unmet medical needs. I think I could make that money last over 5 years or so.
- 500 million for long-term oriented material science research, with an eye towards hiring un/underemployed scientists.
- 500 million for retraining scientists for other fields of work (non-science.)
Of course, this would introduce massive distortions into the scientific labor market. Doubtless, it's not worth it and we're better off with rogue traders doing their thing.
Readers, what would you do with 2 billion dollars? (Also, Salmon tries it a different way -- if you could hire 40,000 people at $50k a year, what would you have them do? Not postdocs, CJ sez.)
How about post-postdocs? Two years of $50,000 salaries to retrain 20,000 out-of-work and dissatisfied scientists at some of the nation's top labs. Let experienced researchers pick which areas they'd like to work for the next 15 years, and I think they'd do a better job of picking growth areas than the clueless NIH/NSF machine...or me for that matter.
ReplyDelete"The Pharma Chemist Full Employment Act: 1 billion dollars to hire unemployed pharma chemists to work on antibiotics research and other unmet medical needs. I think I could make that money last over 5 years or so."
ReplyDeleteAnd after 5 years, you are still another 5 or so from making a real impact?
One thing - how frickin' sad and frustrating is it that one of these big banks can misplace $2B under their digital couch cushions with so little effect on the bank. Yes, there are a lot better uses for that money.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of using the money to fund science. Personally I'd use the money to seed a green energy Manhattan-type project.
A10:08a: Good question. I assume that with that kind of funding, you could really make a dent. Or not.
ReplyDeleteWould it take $1B to generate one or two classes of new antibiotics? Possibly. Would it be worth it? Just might maybe...
Torcetrapib was $900M total in R&D prior to failing at late stage development (catalyzing the 2007 Pfizer layoffs and subsequent acquistion of Wyeth). Seems you should be able to produce at least 1 antibiotic with a billion.
ReplyDeleteHow about internships for BS/MS chemists or engineers who have been laid off and want new experience? That 'must currently be enrolled in school' is always a sticky catch-22.
ReplyDeleteI think what is ironic about this $2B idea is that the whole idea of funding the NIH/NSF was to ensure America's scientific needs were met.
ReplyDeleteMaybe $2B will just add fuel to the problem?
Look at Solyndra ($535M in debt and counting), Evergreen solar got ($486M in debt) and now Steve Chu has approved a $344M loan for Solar City. The first two companies already went bankrupt. If I dug further, we'd easily have $2B in shaky investments into solar energy.
Luckily this $2B idea is just for fun, but you know what, there are real life examples of it not working out...
@UI - You're on the right track, but push it further forward: use half the money to re-employ chemists at a medium-sized "Google-esque" research institute (1,000 jobs at $90K / year over 10 years, so we leave a little $$ for raises and inflation, but the higher salary means we have more freedom about where to locate our new building).
ReplyDeleteAfter that, use, say, $100 million to build the new campus and equip the buildings. You're left with $900 million, right? Set up an endowment with $500 million (to keep your new institute going), and set aside another $100 million for overhead, non-science hiring, taxes, etc.
With the remaining $300 million, you establish prizes, like the X Prize, where a specific amount (say, $10 million) is awarded to teams who show you advancement X within Y time. This will not only direct attention towards problems you wish solved, but will hopefully spur competition among the scientists involved.