University of Michigan head of research warns Congress against $60B cuts in research funding
University of Michigan's head of research Stephen Forrest is warning Congress against following through on a policy that would drastically reduce federally funded research.
The policy, known as sequestration, is set to go into effect on March 1 and cut federal research funding by $12 billion in 2013 and nearly $60 billion through 2017, according to an estimate by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
If it goes into effect, sequestration would affect far more than research. Sequestration - a series of automatic U.S. spending cuts - is designed to reduce the mounting federal deficit by cutting defense and domestic discretionary spending by $1.2 trillion.
As part of a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, Congress pushed sequestration's start date to March 1. It was originally set to begin January, along with the fiscal cliff. Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are now locked into a debate about whether to avoid sequestration and how.
U-M is heavily dependent on federal research funding. The federal government awarded U-M $825 million in research funds in fiscal 2011-12, amounting to nearly 67 percent of the school's overall $1.24 billion research budget that year. NIH alone contributed $571 million and the NSF contributed $72 million.
Stephen Forrest
File photo | AnnArbor.com
The cutbacks would make federal funding more difficult to receive.
For example, U-M predicts that success rates for U-M grant applications to the National Science Foundation would decrease from 22 percent to 16 percent and for the National Institutes of Health would decrease from 19 percent to 14 percent.
"If Congress cannot find a way to avoid sequestration, the resulting deep, across-the-board cuts in federal support for this innovative research would do permanent damage to our nation's ability to compete," Forrest said in a widely released video.
Forrest asserted that the U.S. will fall behind other countries investing in research. The fallout of the cuts, he said, would not only mean slower growth in research and innovation, but could also have a negative impact on our economy. In a Tuesday briefing, President Obama said sequestration has "already started to affect business decisions."
"We live in a global economy with a growing number of strong international competitors. If we pull back now from investing in our future, we will lose ground that will be difficult if not impossible to retain," Forrest said in the video. "It would be a mistake to try to save our way out of these difficult economic times."
President Barack Obama gestures as speaks about sequestration in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013.
AP photo
Lawmakers are currently in discussions about delaying sequestration again.
"These are decisions that will have real and lasting impacts on the strength of our recovery," Obama said during a Tuesday briefing, calling for a mix of spending cuts and tax reform to replace sequestration. "While it's critical for us to cut wasteful spending, we can't just cut our way to prosperity."
Rep. John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives and a Ohio Republican, has likened the sequester to "taking a meat ax to our government."
In an Oct. 2012 interview, Forrest said U-M was having difficulty preparing for the cuts.
"It would be quite devastating for the entire nation. It would probably send us into a depression if it really came about," Forrest said. "It's very difficult to plan for such deep and sort of broad cuts. It's a rather blunt knife to put to us."
Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at kelliewoodhouse@annarbor.com or 734-623-4602 and follow her on twitter.
Comments
Roger Kuhlman
Mon, Feb 11, 2013 : 10:12 p.m.
All the special interests are out there with their hands out for more and more federal money. No wonder our government has rung up an accumulated federal debt of $16.5 trillion and we have annual federal deficits exceeding $1 trillion. Does anyone think this excessive spending and borrowing of money can continue? What happens when our creditors come around demand payment?
LXIX
Sat, Feb 9, 2013 : 10:10 p.m.
blue85: Finally intelligence. The individual value adjuster. Say I have a gold ring to sell. The ring has a base energy value. It also has common attribute value - shape size design weight karat etc.. I know some of its history which is information used to further adjust the value. There is an unknown history or value risk and my own personal information or desire affecting the selling offer. The buyer can start with the base energy value and common attribute value. If I give the honest history information then the buyer has to value the risk of the unknown information and their own personal information. Obviously the ring has set energy value and information adjustment. If the sale point is agreed then the differing information is considered "equivalent". A very useful concept. The more open information and truth the less need for schnazzy google-consumer "hunting and marketing". Research and education adds truthful common information to the trade market. Human intelligence modifying value begins with information. For a definition of information see its creator Claude Elwood Shannon. His bust is proudly on display somewhere around North Campus.
LXIX
Sat, Feb 9, 2013 : 8:59 p.m.
blue85: Energy and its change - sometimes by human activity - determines all economic value. While the Fed with paper dollars may think that it has dominion over the human economy the fact is that it does not. What money does is act as a manipulative bias over an otherwise natural supply and demand exchange trade point. Without being grounded to the real world of energy, that bias has no relative basis other than the gospel whim of a few high bankers trying to control human nature. As some are finding out, controlling energy resource supply has the same effect on heating and cooling growth. And education including intelligence boosting research is important to adding human value. Money should be a neutral, unbiased enumeration reflecting the supply and demand trade point. Nothing else. If the Fed wants to control the economy with money supply then it must be energy-based. Gold-back dollars are adequate. Erg or Watt hour dollars are more exact.
LXIX
Sat, Feb 9, 2013 : 8:28 p.m.
Blue85: Thankyou for your patient discourse. You are obviously intelligent and well read. Only economists accept economic theory as true gospel. It is incomplete. In fact it is not even science. Here is a science-based economic structure. Put the solar system all by itself out in the middle of nowhere. Since the beginning of its time everything that has happened within the box can be resolved to a matter of energy and its change. Life depends entirely upon that simple relationship. Everything life does including its economic interaction depends upon energy and its change. Without energy and without change of energy there is nothing of recognizable value. Resources are forms of energy. Change in resources are how goods and waste are generated. Entropy results in waste energy. Human production forces more energy resources to become waste sooner. Services including research use resources with brains powered by energy. This synthesis also generates energy waste. The entire economy of life in the solar system consists solely of energy-based products and services. Dwindling energy resources dictate the core value of everything. Energy is the only correct base for a true economy. Money. Gold is a standard form of energy. Intelligent "demand" is the adjusting value for base energy product and service trade.
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:42 p.m.
LXIX part 6: Here is a reading list for you: 1) any economic textbook written in the last 200 years discussing balance of payments, trade and comparative advantage; 2) any book by John Hull; 3) any accounting pronouncement from a big4 accounting firm; 4) the CFA curriculum; 5) the basic finance text by Bodie and Miller. If you read that collection of works you will realize that roughly 100% of all college educated professionals trained in finance, accounting, and financial mathematics would/will disagree with roughly 100% of your post. I challenge you to read any/all of the above and come back here and continue to maintain your initial assertions.
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:39 p.m.
LXIX part 5: "Unless China rises to the wage and human rights level of the U.S. - very unlikely - then as in the R&D problem above correcting the D means leaving China as our producer." Where is your regression model for this assertion? Goldman Sachs (hate em or not) says you are dead wrong and has bet the farm on that assertion. Call Goldman up and let them take the long and you can take the short on that view. Good luck to you. "While we can tax some of the profit by way of investors, that is a losing solution." Word salad with no perceptible connectivity to the rest of your argument. I have no idea what it means. Are you suggesting that domestic investors in China who each repatriated profits might be taxed and that that tax is smaller than work which, were it to be done onshore, would yield a higher return? If that is your argument you fail to understand roughly 200 years of economics. "Leaving is easy, but now we also need some more foreign resources to do our own D." Who is leaving what? What is being left by whom and what is the import? Where is the support for the idea that we need imported capital to do research? Where is it written foreign invested capital or foreign direct investment can't yield a profit? If foreign capital comes in and goes out at a stable exchange rate and that capital is taxed while it is on-shore, then under that rigid set of circumstances, our investment is zero, our return is positive in dollars, our return is infinite in rate of return space. So what is your point? "Our biggest competitor is now China. Handout Research is critical to sustainability so an excuse the public supports like "war" usu" Yes, China is, volumetrically among the top three: China, Eurozone, Japan. What is handout research? Where is your study showing that the research is not turned into either dollars or STEM training for our scientists. If we take either on-shore or off-shore handouts to train our people, a
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:29 p.m.
LXIX part 4: 10) "They are not real value. They are as said a private exchange." This is false on two dimensions, first, they all reduce to dollars and if you don't like dollars you can use dollars to buy gold to hide under your bed with your flat earth manual and photos of Jesus riding dinosaurs. They are not solely a private exchange: Trillions of dollars of these products trade on very public exchanges and are subject to daily mark to market valuations. 11) Unfortunately that exchange creates the imaginary bank value that dictates the world economy. Very bad news and Obama is trying to whittle them down - quietly." We'll agree to disagree over the use of the word "real" but your final point is categorically false: there is no effort to reduce global volumes. There is an effort to put them on exchange and require collateral posting. But since that is dollars and other stuff you consider imaginary, that reform will have to stand until exchanges can figure out where to store the piglets and used Ipods that you think would form a "real" medium of exchange. 12) " In an overpopulated box of limited resources the United States has a great home advantage. China must acquire external resources from others to survive." This is more word salad, I simply don't know where to start because I don't know what it means. Given the US's desire to import and given that 15% of what we like/want/need comes from offshore, we are not in a closed box. You are simply wrong on that score.
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:23 p.m.
LXIX part 3: 9?) "The banks have no such one-for-one accountability - derivatives are invented "capital" derived from the club Fed's own imaginary money-based instruments (like mortgages). " Yes, it is true that mortgages, derivatives and dollars are all encapsulations of promises to pay. Gold, piglets and unicorns are subject to an appraisal process. That appraisal process is complicated by localization of demand. If supply and demand for unicorns in Kentucky leads to an excess of unicorns, what should be their price in Zurich or Mumbai? Who appraises them? Who ships them? Who stores and insures them? Real stuff is even messier than derivatives. With derivatives the value and the promise to pay and the payment all reduce to a yardstick that is universally agreed on on-shore and equilibrated by trade off-shore. 10) "Until recently the Fed didn't even know how to explain derivatives. " This is utterly and categorically and completely false. The Fed may have offered explanations that you and others didn't like, but they are well understood. There is a 30 year history of continuous time finance which contradicts your statement.
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:18 p.m.
LXIX part Deux: "5) "Cash is only a small percent of the Fed loan." This is somewhere between false and a distinction without a difference: the Fed distributed zero cash for free, what it did was offer securitized financing; to that extent you could say it was credit. But to the extent that substituted for cash, so what? What was the value on the other side? Was that value marked to market or not (mostly not)? You don't address those issues or offer a usable contrary framework. 6) "GDP today could be worth 1/2 of yesterdays. Not because its real value changed - just the imaginary capital describing its worth. This is a dangling elliptical construction. What event under "could" leads to this effect? What is the impact of on-shore versus off-shore inflation/deflation? What is the impact for an on-shore holder of dollars who doesn't import goods or services? 7) "Forget the Fed dollars. Real goods and services are the only value traded. Future goods and services may have interest (the risk of their unknown)." I have no idea what this means, and I challenge you to show it to any economist, accoutant, or student of Finance and have them grasp its meaning without considerable interpretation. Given my grounding in finance and accounting, this is word salad. 8) "8) If derivatives are sound then they must all have a "real" accountable value backing them." Every derivative has a mark to market value. One party's loss is another parties gain. Value is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transferred from party A to party B. The real value you refer is the core of the accounting principle that I state below. That "real" value is the fiat currency you describe. If you denominate that change relative to a change of numeraire (gold, piglets...) that simply complicates the conversion to a determinable value. If I am a banker and want to raise money in Europe and promise to pay in piglets, how much money will I
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 10:11 p.m.
LXIX: pretty impressive, almost everything in your post is either wrong, or doesn't comport with basic finance and accounting. For example: 1) "1, R&D is great - continuous R "giving" without sufficient D return results in debt." Not necessarily: for example, R&D spending assures in-migration of talent. Incremental adds to talent can either generate wealth or end up consuming fewer resources. Your comment is also not an accounting identity because both the government and the average corporation have multiple sources of income and R&D is never matched off as pure expense...under some circumstances it can even be capitilized. 2) "The US is in a growing debt right? More of the same R giving without addressing the D return is irresponsible." Yes, as a general rule of thumb, but you have yet to carry the thesis that R&D expense does not generate marginal wealth, so this is pure assertion, with a possible pure counter assertion, both assertions subject to proof. 3) "Government debt is imaginary "fiat" capital loaned by the Fed. It is not based upon any "real" value thing like gold or energy therefore it floats per whim of the Fed and markets. Value inheres in a promise to pay. Gold has a few intrinsic uses, but has mostly theological value for flat earthers. It has a very finite supply, can be inflated or deflated at the whim of policy and offers no protection from policy. It is generally understand to exacerbate volatility. Currencies are a promise to deliver value. Accounting policy, almost globally, is anchored in the reduction of all other items to cash. The probability of you or any group dissecting that factor out of global accounting is less than nil. 4) "Gold changes because of dollar-based investor whim." Yes, just as does the dollar. What is your point?
outdoor6709
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 4:25 p.m.
Ok, if you owed $16.6 trillion would you really about cocaine addicted monkys? 1. Study of monkeys using cocaine: $71,623 Wake Forest University was granted money to "study the effects of self-administering cocaine on the glutamate system on monkeys."
blue85
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 9:54 p.m.
"Ok, if you owed $16.6 trillion would you really about cocaine addicted monkys?" Not if you were a monkey in that trial...nice work if you can get it. But be serious for a minute: 1) this country spends many billions of dollars funding narco-terrorism through its sub rosa exportation of dollars to buy this drug, don't you think it might make just a little bit of sense to study the mechanism of addiction and to look for inhibitors/blockers in order to either drive toward treatments or cures for addiction in order to keep those dollars on shore and out of the hands of terrorists and criminals?; 2) the study of addiction can be ported to addictions to food and alcohol. Don't you think that with a morbidly obese population in the millions that the logic from this study might be ported into the food-addiction domain?; 3) might we not assume that entitlement programs in the health domain might be trimmed if this study points toward the same direction as the other 2 points I've made? Bottom lines: 1) you posted a cheap shot and even a cursory stab at why this might be money well spent can be used to generate a few hypotheticals; 2) As are other posters, you are intensely focused on the expense part of the puzzle without appearing to offer any counterpoise in the form of possible revenue; 3) you can't make revenue with investing money that is an expense. You have to invest capital to generate the probability of compounding capital; 4) while I have no support for the approval process for this study being sound, you haven't offered even one reason why it might be unsound; 5) the amount you cite, at a deficit of $1trn of year (to provide scale, not the actual deficit) is roughly 2 seconds worth of spending...if the entire workforce rolls over and hits the snooze button for 5 minutes, that costs the country $114,000,000 of GDP.
outdoor6709
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 2:49 p.m.
I once read a story in Rueters, not exactly a right wing organization, that said that 72% of all puplicly funded research was ignored. It was either irrelevant, a duplication of other work and in many cases done to support the publish or perish culture in Universities. Must have cause an uproar in the education establishment, because the article can no longer be found.
outdoor6709
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 2 p.m.
If Mr Forrest brought $80 million to U of M from liscensing fes, why is that money not being usd to fund his research instead of increaing the federals gov $16.6 trillion debt to pay for the research?
Fordie
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 7:58 p.m.
Because the university spent $1.24 Billion on research. That $80 million number is 6% of that. It's a part of it, but the university is the second largest university research operation in the country (Johns Hopkins is #1). It takes more than licensing fees to support that much scientific, policy and social research.
Greg
Fri, Feb 8, 2013 : 12:37 p.m.
Fact is that the US is spending way more than it is taking in. You can not continue this or we will be faced with what Greece is going thru and people rioting because the promises they were made can not be funded. This president seems to want to just continue spending with minor cuts (band aids at best) and it has to make you wonder who balances his families checkbook as he does not seem to get the concept of living within a budget at all. We truely need leaders who are willing to piss off any group needed to get the budget back under control.
Westfringe
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:18 p.m.
All the conservatives are scrambling to defund everything that made this country great in the first place. Destroy the middle-class, give up our technology advantage, and pillage the environment. So very ignorant and short-sighted.
Unusual Suspect
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 11:23 p.m.
"All the conservatives are scrambling to defund everything that made this country great in the first place." You mean like training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job?
JBK
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:05 p.m.
Hmmm........You don't think this guy is worried about keeping his job do you? lol :) U-M is heavily dependent on federal research funding. The federal government awarded U-M $825 million in research funds in fiscal 2011-12, amounting to nearly 67 percent of the school's overall $1.24 billion research budget that year.
nekm1
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 8:54 p.m.
What is funny, is that it was the Presidents idea. This guy is teflon...
LXIX
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:19 p.m.
The U.S. can only give away so much money before it is "broke". By any reasonable capital standard, the U.S. is broke. The National Debt is ugly but only spare change when compared to the outstanding $60T liability in empty banker derivatives. Debt driven growth is fine but reality requires a fair payback at some point. Production balance. In a dwindling resource world that return becomes more estranged. Like the creepy hangman, the government is slowly building the stage for a more sustainable economy - after the remaining aloof are notified of course. A back to basics "patriotic" Cold War (China this time) is the easiest and most likely course of action. With so many brilliant people in house, the UofM will most certainly survive (fingers crossed).
LXIX
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 11:45 p.m.
1, R&D is great - continuous R "giving" without sufficient D return results in debt. The US is in a growing debt right? More of the same R giving without addressing the D return is irresponsible. 2. Government debt is imaginary "fiat" capital loaned by the Fed. It is not based upon any "real" value thing like gold or energy therefore it floats per whim of the Fed and markets. Gold changes because of dollar-based investor whim. Cash is only a small percent of the Fed loan. GDP today could be worth 1/2 of yesterdays. Not because its real value changed - just the imaginary capital describing its worth. Forget the Fed dollars. Real goods and services are the only value traded. Future goods and services may have interest (the risk of their unknown). 3. If derivatives are sound then they must all have a "real" accountable value backing them. The banks have no such one-for-one accountability - derivatives are invented "capital" derived from the club Fed's own imaginary money-based instruments (like mortgages). Until recently the Fed didn't even know how to explain derivatives. They are not real value. They are as said a private exchange. Unfortunately that exchange creates the imaginary bank value that dictates the world economy. Very bad news and Obama is trying to whittle them down - quietly. 4. In an overpopulated box of limited resources the United States has a great home advantage. China must acquire external resources from others to survive. Unless China rises to the wage and human rights level of the U.S. - very unlikely - then as in the R&D problem above correcting the D means leaving China as our producer. While we can tax some of the profit by way of investors, that is a losing solution. Leaving is easy, but now we also need some more foreign resources to do our own D. Our biggest competitor is now China. Handout Research is critical to sustainability so an excuse the public supports like "war" usu
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:45 p.m.
"The U.S. can only give away so much money before it is "broke". Research is not a give away, it is an investment that earns a return. "By any reasonable capital standard, the U.S. is broke." Out of all of the debt issued, the vast majority is owed by the government to US citizens and entities. You haven't used the word "capital" in a meaningful or economically correct sense: Issued debt is a liability that is matched with an asset called cash. That cash is invested via the budget. Some of those investments earn returns. Can you tell us precisely how you measure those returns and whether or not they are positive or negative? "The National Debt is ugly but only spare change when compared to the outstanding $60T liability in empty banker derivatives." This statement is meaningless: 1) a forward contract is struck at zero value, so a multi-billion dollar notional amount actually can settle at zero; 2) contracts that don't settle at zero are one person's asset and another person's liability...such instruments don't either create or destroy value, they just shift the pockets that the wealth sits in. "Debt driven growth is fine but reality requires a fair payback at some point. Production balance. In a dwindling resource world that return becomes more estranged." I can't really determine how this translates into a meaningful point that can be rebutted. "Like the creepy hangman, the government is slowly building the stage for a more sustainable economy - after the remaining aloof are notified of course." This is pretty cryptic stuff. What does it mean in an economic sense? A back to basics "patriotic" Cold War (China this time) is the easiest and most likely course of action. With so many brilliant people in house, the UofM will most certainly survive (fingers crossed).
aggatt
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:23 p.m.
or, you know, all the "brilliant" people will leave and go somewhere that actually has funding (another country, or another field such as pharma or biotech)
aggatt
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:07 p.m.
ITT: uneducated idiots who think they've got it all figured out.
A Voice of Reason
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:52 p.m.
With all the technology transfer that the University is doing it should be able to fund its own research. Maybe the professors should not be the owners of the drugs they develop!
Dcam
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:58 p.m.
"Do you have a revenue model that shows how stripping inventors of their economic potential will lead to more inventions or inventions of greater value to the U?" - blue85 "That this work has been appreciated is evidenced by the increasing number of fellowships for original research maintained by many private corporations, and by the suggestion and tentative establishment in 1920 of a general Department of Industrial Research maintained through co-operation by the manufacturers of the State with the Faculty of the Engineering College. It is specially stipulated that the results of whatever investigations are made under these auspices are to be made public for the benefit of the people of the State, irrespective of the source of income." - University of Michigan, per Board of Regents. According to the Board of Regents and agreed to by UM faculty and researchers, It seems the citizens of the State of Michigan should be the beneficiaries of their investment. In private industry, whoever puts up the money and supplies the facilities for research owns the results.
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:38 p.m.
"With all the technology transfer that the University is doing it should be able to fund its own research. Maybe the professors should not be the owners of the drugs they develop!" UM spends $300,000,000 in the research part of the academic enterprise. Licensing has produced OK returns, but not enough to be self-sustaining. Do you have a revenue model that shows how stripping inventors of their economic potential will lead to more inventions or inventions of greater value to the U? As I note in another comment, why do most posters ignore the CORE FUNCTION of the university: teaching and propagating intellectual property in a way that will lead to a trained cadre of teachers, some of whom will make money and some of whom will teach others who teach others. Teaching is the core function of the school. Teaching creates value that will echo into infinity, or at any rate, human infinity. Where is it written that all research needs to be either applied or to produce a direct return on investment? What about the indirect returns, both in the US and globally?
jcj
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:36 p.m.
Last year Mr Forrest made $365,348.45. Enough said!
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:31 p.m.
No, that is not enough said: 1) you have stated the expense, but what is the revenue?; 2) Forrest has personally done work that has resulted in licensing fees and I don't doubt that there are other scientists at UM under his span who have brought in over $80,000,000 in fees and royalties in the last 10 years; 3) What would his salary be in "alternative use" or in the next best negotiated alternative in either academia or the private sphere?; 4) Is there a human resource out there who could produce more or produce the same and be paid less?; 5) How much of his compensation came from Federal money, and how much from state money or from private money/endowments/foundations? In other words, there are a lot of intelligent questions that you might have asked, but you didn't ask any of them. There are a lot of facts that might have had a bearing on this discussion, but you have only adduced one data point that adds almost nothing to the discussion. If you can show revenue less than expense, or that he is overpaid in some calculable sense, or that he isn't training people, you have the beginnings of a complaint. What most of the threads on this board have totally ignored is that the UM research enterprise, beyond employing thousands of people is also TEACHING the next generation of STEM researchers the thousands of skills they will need to keep America competitive and relevant. If you don't teach incremental skills you won't make incremental moves forward. If you don't move forward, you are ceding the future to someone else and this will be reflected, with increasing speed, into your standard of living. Look at Wikipedia and look at UM's contributions to science. If you are using Google, that is indirectly (via UM grad Larry Page) supporting a company with a $100Bn+ market cap. The genesis of that market cap was partially born at Michigan. That company has generated millions for UM endowment, and if both Larry and Sergei had gone to UM, it might have been billions.
LXIX
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:22 p.m.
With the Fed cuts, our withdrawal the Middle East and military cuts, State cuts, donation decline, new corporate stinginess, big pharma outsourcing more of their R&D, and student lending maxed out, maybe the UM and DDA should speed up their density development plans downtown.
cibachrome
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:57 p.m.
Can't see the forest for the trees, Forest? R&D is best done by companies that make use of it. All the UofM contributions are going overseas for use by governments and companies who do not or could care any less for US patent rights and claims. I have direct experience with this problem. Forest's claims are just self serving. Maybe he should take a pay cut or have his job eliminated by the R&D results that show managers are too far behind in the R&D timeline. Actually, his job could be done by a neural network running on a cloud bot farm.
alan
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 8:44 p.m.
Unfortunately, companies do not fund fundamental research. No finance department will ever sign off on a project unless it has a reasonable demonstrable positive NPV. They are in business to increase value, not gamble on research. There is a misconception that companies that participate in fundamental research do so with their own money but it is not true. They compete for the exact same federal dollars that universities do. Bell labs, for example, was responsible for a lot of fundamental research which led to amazing discoveries for about 60 years but they did that research primarily with federal funding, mainly from the DOD. Look at the financial statements of virtually any company that you think does fundamental research and you will find federal grants as a significant source of revenue for research. Drug companies get money from NIH, engineering and technology firms from NSF and DOD.
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:19 p.m.
"Can't see the forest for the trees, Forest? R&D is best done by companies that make use of it." Where is the support for the thesis that pure research is the same as applied research, or that pure research never ports into applied, or that UM does not move pure into applied? Feel free to adduce a citation. "All the UofM contributions are going overseas for use by governments and companies who do not or could care any less for US patent rights and claims. I have direct experience with this problem." You may have experience in this domain, but you must support the assertion. Further, the word "all" is usually a "fail" on the SAT. UM produces spinouts; those spinouts either reside in MI, or migrate to CA or MA but remain on shore. In the Michigan almanac: a large portion of the PH.Ds trained at UM stay on shore, some continue to reside in Michigan. "Forest's claims are just self serving. Maybe he should take a pay cut or have his job eliminated by the R&D results that show managers are too far behind in the R&D timeline." Pure research always precedes application, the above is a vacuous tautology. As noted above, Forrewst has a lot of options and his motivations are probably complex. I'm sure he wants his job, but in his hierarchy of needs that is probably a third or fourth order consideration. "Actually, his job could be done by a neural network running on a cloud bot farm." This is the sentence sounds cool, but of a sort that is generally devoid of content/reality when applied. A neural network has to be given a training set, a neural net may or may not find a global optimum, a neural net for a task like this already exists: it is called the human brain. There are thousands of researchers and fellows at UM. Given that there is no neural net to even solve advanced vision problems (there is UM research on this point) creation of net to replicate the thousands of workers is a non-starter. You potshot h
John of Saline
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:43 p.m.
Fix the broken entitlements system and we'll have the cash to do research like this, as we should. But every time a fix is proposed, no matter how minor, one party starts running ads showing old ladies in wheelchairs being thrown over cliffs.
alan
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:35 p.m.
Do you know what an entitlement is John?
John of Saline
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:54 p.m.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnE83A1Z4U Enjoy.
beardown
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:29 p.m.
I havent seen an old lady go off a cliff since Thelma and Louise. Let us know if you see those commercials and where to find them.
justcurious
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:38 p.m.
The cash cow is ailing and in danger of dying huh?
Unusual Suspect
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:24 p.m.
Stephen, the party you keep donating to has not produced a budget in years. Perhaps it's time to stop supporting them. You're not getting any return on your investment.
GoNavy
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:22 p.m.
Sacred cows everywhere. Cut the entire federal budget 2%.
GoNavy
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:50 p.m.
blue85- I have a tremendous sense of values/morals/ethics. I also have a keen sense of political reality. When we've accomplished at least cutting everything by a small amount, I'll entrust our leaders - newly minted with backbones - the leeway to make more specific cuts and other spending decisions.
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 7:04 p.m.
If you have no sense of values/morals/ethics, then an arbitrary measure probably seems like a very intelligent solution. If every national priority has the same value to the entire population, than this would be an intelligent solution. If values differ, if priorities differ, if returns on investment differ, this is the converse of an intelligent solution. If you are intellectually or emotionally lazy, then not thinking and making a 1-dimensional decision, this is the way to go. If you have no priorities and no vision for the future, this is the way to go. If you don't want to intelligently discuss a complex solution with a variety of outcomes which may result in a variety of different paths for the future, you offer excellent advice. I, for my part, want legislators who actually think about future outcomes and the relative inputs to get there and who will actually strive to govern amidst the complexity, not to cop out and do the gutless thing, the thing that is tantamount to making no decisions.
Superior Twp voter
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:18 p.m.
This is the result of Democrats having no budget for years (with no budget proposed for the future), Obama's repeated stimulus/Q.E. and redistribution of wealth, Obama's tax and spend policies, Obama's war on capitalism and our constitution, and Democrats stealing from future generations.
JBK
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 5:15 p.m.
Perhaps Mr Forrest is just looking out for his "backside". If the Federal revenue stream is pulled back, then perhaps this self serving person will be out of a job!
JBK
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:36 p.m.
Blue - How noble! Bottom line is that any business (and I use that word lightly) that is DEPENDENT on FEDERAL dollars to survive is walking on thin ice. Liberals have a funny way of always stating "Federal dollars" when in reality it is "taxpayer dolloars". Call a spade a spade. If this guy was the next coming of Jesus, he would be working at some top Pharma comany making 3 times what he is. Bottom line is that if the gravy train ends, so does his job and probably a dozen or so others.
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:59 p.m.
As I note above, Forrest has a few hundred patents and is, by the standard of industry, pretty underpaid. People usually take compensation cuts for a variety of reasons (e.g., stability/certainty) but some people actually want to serve the public. Some people actually want to teach. To some people, it is NOT all about money. If you, that is you JBK, think only/mostly about money, or if money is your highest priority and you are projecting your values onto Dr. Forrest, you are missing the obvious: 1) for intelligent/valuable people like Forrest, his choices are to retire or to go private and make real money; 2) threat of a job loss is probably less of a motivator than protecting his people and the institution. There are a lot of values at play here and your appraisal/guess/hypothesis is a grotesque simplification.
Veracity
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 4:45 p.m.
This is the result of misguided Republicans who are intransigent, selfish and, in many instances, ignorant.
A Voice of Reason
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:56 p.m.
I think we are going broke and it is more important to feed and house people than to find out the reason why Mary Ingalls in "Little House in the Prairie" went blind. Glad you are not running the country--sorry you are loosing my redistributed tax money for your science experiment that has not commercial value.
beardown
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:34 p.m.
It's both parties fault...and the voting public's fault since we keep re-electing them.
aggatt
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 4:38 p.m.
Knowing the commenters on this site, they're all going to say "yeah, I don't want my tax dollars funding those scientists," but keep in mind that these are the people studying birth defects, cancer, aging, genetic diseases, etc. They're the people who create drugs and meds that you've probably taken, and cancer treatments that one of your loved ones might have benefited from. The proposed cuts will kill the sciences, and are just one more thing that will put America behind countries in Europe and Asia where they actually value intellect.
beardown
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:19 p.m.
Read the rest of the comments. "sacred cows" "cash cows" and inferences that he gets his money only because of political donations. Those are the people he has to yell to get above. Logica and reason are not a winning formula in modern economic politics.
beardown
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 9:17 p.m.
Actually, blue85, I do understand everything that is on the back of a ketchup bottle as i have a couple chemistry classes under my belt and an advanced degree...but thanks for taking the easy route trying to paint me as intellectually vapid as you are.. Problem is, the majority of people are like you and do not understand. And, at least per the school, he makes $325k a year. And i would imagine that will be brought up when the GOP talks about his statement and they paint him as a bureaucrat protecting his funding so he can keep his job. His statement contains a good deal of information. But it needs more specifics. State specific advances, state specific goals. And a little dog and pony never hurt. We live in a world where the loudest is usually the most heard. So a statement like this will either be disregarded, no matter his excellent qualifications, or painted as a guy just protecting his own butt. I am 100% in support of continuing the funding for his research. I actually think he is underfunded. But this is simply not the right way to ask for more.
blue85
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:55 p.m.
"What we really need to stop doing is having the guy who is making a couple hundred k a year producing things that most people cannot understand or fathom telling us he needs more money. All this accomplishes is it makes him look greedy and makes the ignorant masses rebel against the good research they are actually doing that helps them" Take a look at a ketchup bottle and the list of ingredients. I bet, statistical guess, that you don't understand organic chemistry, but I bet you like ketchup and similar products. Do you understand ketchup? Probably not, but does it taste good? How does the person building or improving ketchup look greedy? Because (S)he wants to improve the world but doesn't have the capital? "Maybe next time have someone who was saved by the research done make the plea instead of a wealthy bureaucrat. Information alone is no longer enough to get the masses to follow along. You now need a dog and pony show." Forrest is not a wealthy bureaucrat, beyond leading the research effort, he is a guy with a few hundred patents. Some of those patents relate to things like the display on your computer. As to your last two sentences, you assume that the dog and pony show doesn't contain information? What is your point?
beardown
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 6:33 p.m.
What we really need to stop doing is having the guy who is making a couple hundred k a year producing things that most people cannot understand or fathom telling us he needs more money. All this accomplishes is it makes him look greedy and makes the ignorant masses rebel against the good research they are actually doing that helps them Maybe next time have someone who was saved by the research done make the plea instead of a wealthy bureaucrat. Information alone is no longer enough to get the masses to follow along. You now need a dog and pony show.
Dog Guy
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 4:04 p.m.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science protests proposed cuts in its welfare payments with good grammar and wearing clean suits and lab coats.
Veracity
Thu, Feb 7, 2013 : 4:42 p.m.
You do not get the message, do you? There is nothing amusing about the situation.