Originally Posted by dippin

There is no comparison unless we actually, well, do the comparison. R&D spending in the US was mostly done by federal government, and only went below 50% after the 80s, but it is still around 40%, give or take a couple of percentage points

Government spending on R & D does not compete with private spending on R & D. In fact, most research find them to be complimentary, with increases in govt. R & D spending leading to increases in private R & D spending and no evidence of crowding out. Which is intuitive even, given that such investment is done at different stages of research.

With regards to returns, of course the difference would be bigger. Which is why we need public funding in the first place. Basic research, vaccines, treatment for certain diseases and so on generally require a significant investment with high risk, but needs to be done anyways. Virtually every household item, electronic item, or medical treatment only exists today because of massive spending on R&D by the government, usually investing in non profitable things like the space race, military innovations, and so on.

Originally Posted by roachboy

ace--do you know *anything* about the history of silicon valley?