[quote=Magician]

[quote=navet]

Most of big pharma discoveries came from (or the science originated from) NIH research. And it's been a boondogle for big pharma. Big pharma R&D has been a black hole of cash for at least a decade. You don't know s--t about the industry. The best and the brightest minds in medicine work at teaching hospitals, not big pharma. Most discoveries originate there. And teaching hospitals are either government run, or public or private university run. Salk and Sabin worked for universities or foundations. Your ignorant response proves the value of public support for the sciences.

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This is the biggest bunch of crap I've ever heard.  I worked for NIH.  As an undergrad, I corrected bad calculations, watched DNA and RNA assays done without any protocols, and even saw electrophoresis gels mixed wrong on a regular basis.  The people who get promoted to Director level positions conducted research that had absolutely no impact on anything.  People leaving acids out overnight.

I saw a guy on his 3rd postdoc let test subjects hemorrhage and still include them in the population.  I have also worked at GSK, where the protocols are stringent, the scientists are top notch researchers with multiple degrees from programs that are also top notch.  

The real research comes out of big pharma.  As someone who has actually spent time in the industry, I think I know a little more than you do.  But if it makes you feel better to think you do, go for it.

30 years with the biggest of big pharma. If you don't think R&D has been a black hole for more than a decade, then you don't know this industry.

NIH provided the scientific background for products such as ACE's, ARB's, CCB's, H2blockers, many antibiotics, cancer drugs.....just to name a few. Now somehow in that teabagger brain of yours you seem to think that I believe that government has done everything and there is no place for private industry. Let me be clear, I believe that government is a necessary participant in the economy. It protects the greater good. Private industry doesn't have the incentive to do so. To state that government is the enemy is both foolish and blind to the economic quagmire that we have been experiencing. To state that private industry is the solution, is short sighted. We need both. But things have become so out of balance with too-powerful multinationals that now is the time to reinvigorate federal oversight.

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" The idea that multiplying rules and statutes can protect consumers and investors is surely one of the great intellectual failures of the 20th century. Any static rule will be circumvented or manipulated to evade its application. Better than multiplying rules, financial accounting should be governed by the traditional principle that one has an affirmative duty to present the true condition fairly and accurately—not withstanding what any rule might otherwise allow. And financial institutions should have a duty of care to their customers. Lawyers tell me that would get us closer to the common law approach to fraud and bad dealing.

Public choice theory has identified the root causes of regulatory failure as the capture of regulators by the industry being regulated. Regulatory agencies begin to identify with the interests of the regulated rather than the public they are charged to protect. In a paper for the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Conference in 2008, economist Willem Buiter described "cognitive capture," by which regulators become incapable of thinking in terms other than that of the industry. On April 5 of this year, The Wall Street Journal chronicled the revolving door between industry and regulator in "Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next." O'Dricsoll, WSJ

With time, the name and meaning of this thread changes in my perception.  The idea that people would do the right thing, instead of " following regulations" - gets at the root of the thing.

Glenn Beck, in his idealism, is an idiot. It is  easy to see where we are headed at the moment - if you believe in the concept of personal responsibility and just doing the right thing.

Ironically, we now have the Gulf Crisis to throw all of that in relief. Doing the right thing will always come down to individuals taking personal responsibility and doing the right thing at the right moment.

A comment earlier said that less government was the reason our country became great. Really? Just when do you think our country became great? - Navet

Maybe it was not so much less government, as more incentive to take personal responsibility. In that sense, this is still a great country.

Happiness is your responsibility. And yes, I know that even though I am responsible for my own happiness, other people seem to be very much able to make me miserable. Well, the truth is that we are also responsible for our own misery. We can learn to recognize and control our own emotions. In the process of doing so we become happy. Adding compassion for all others gives our life purpose. We are alive. We are human. We are living in a great country. We have freedom. We have decent health. We have opportunity. We have enough to eat and a warm place to sleep. We probably are getting some nookie every now and then. Do you all realize that most of the people alive on this planet now and in all of history would gladly trade places with us? Count your blessings. - Navet.

I think this is  mainly what  Glenn Beck is really trying to say, from what I can see.