Is so-called government assistance a kiss of death？

「接吻」とかけて「政府補助金」ととく、
　そのこころは
「口を出す時、唾つけた所では強い抱き込み。」

　ツイート見てなぞかけ。いつも興味深い記事をありがとうございます。ご意見ごもっともと思います。農業の衰退など数々の政治が関与した事業の失敗から、何も学んでいないことにあ然。 https://t.co/un92K9x4y1

— 安楽庵えのでん＠「なぞかけ傑作選３００」発売中！ (@anrakuan_enoden) February 21, 2023

 

the kiss of death

informal something that spoils or ruins a plan, activity etc

 

Milton Friedman:  That’s right.  Let me say one more thing about government spending.  As I say, total government spending is now of the order of over 40% of the national income.   To put it in a dramatic way, everybody works from January 1st to early June to pay the expense of the government.  Now, there would be nothing wrong with that if we were getting our money’s worth. That’s a crucial point.  Are we getting our money’s worth?  And there is really nobody – very few people in this country, who think we are getting our money’s worth.  And it doesn’t matter what you look at.   Are we getting our money’s worth for the welfare expenditures?  The objective is splendid.  Everybody wants to help the poor and wants to reduce poverty.  But since the Great Society programs have been introduced, they have been counterproductive.  The number of poor has been going up, not down; we’ve constructed a system in which we encourage people to get on welfare.  I don’t blame those people, don’t misunderstand me.  It’s not their fault.  They are just responding to the incentives we’re giving them.  It’s our fault for constructing such a very bad system.

So go down the line and ask yourself:  which government spending – are we getting any benefit from spending $18,000 per year per person employed in agriculture?  Government spending on agriculture is greater than the total net income from agriculture.  It’s mostly being wasted.  The only parts of agricultural that are healthy are those that don’t have government assistance.  In general, and this is a very important point, so-called government assistance is a kiss of death.  Agriculture, since 1934, has been a kiss of death.  Automobiles, it’s been a kiss of death.  Steel, it’s been a kiss of death.  You go down the line.  You try to find a single example in which a government program has done what its well-meaning sponsors wanted it to do.  I’m not questioning the objectives of the programs, but it’s not an accident that one after another has counterproductive events.

政府の補助金が無駄金になった場合も多いのだろうが、例えば、 

Lessons from History

The federal government has made significant contributions to the research base for computing technology. As detailed in Chapter 3, federal support has accounted for a substantial fraction of the total funding for computing research in the United States and the vast majority of all university research funds in the field. 

 コンピューターの発展なんかは政府の支援が大いに貢献したといわれるし、インターネット、その他

The internet and Jeeps are among 15 commercial products invented by the military

Evan Comen and Grant Suneson24/7

In fact, some of the most widely used commercial products today were originally developed for the purpose of defending the country, or were a byproduct of military research.

タンポン、サングラス、ジープ、DDT、瞬間接着剤、合成ゴム、冷凍ジュース、電子レンジ、GPS、インターネット、エピペンとは、アナフィラキシーを発症した人に対する緊急注射用キット　VRメガネ

などなど、企業が軍事用に発明したものが、後に商用に活用、発展されることも多い。

　ここらへん経済通の人たちの理論や意見を整理してお聞きしたいところだな。