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Budget

Planetary Budgets and Younger Scientists

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 31, 2012
Filed under , , ,

Editorial on NASA Planetary R&A Programs, Mark V. Sykes, Planetary Science Institute
“At a minimum, this year’s decline needs to be reversed to ensure that selection rates are improved to stop the imminent loss of the younger generation of planetary scientists as well as many seasoned researchers. The cost is frankly small and demands high priority. Multi-year budget planning is essential. We also face significant negative consequences from the effective collapse of the Discovery program combined with the termination of the Mars Scount program.”
NASA SMD Responds to Community Budget Priority Concerns, earlier post
Losing a Generation of Planetary Scientists, earlier post
Independent Look at NASA Planetary Science Budgets, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

10 responses to “Planetary Budgets and Younger Scientists”

  1. Helen Simpson says:
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    This is a revised editorial, just posted, which corrected the R&A funding level for 2011 that was called out in the original. Although it was originally stated that the planetary R&A budget decreased from FY11 to FY13, we now understand that the FY13 planetary R&A budget is higher than it was for FY11. So things aren’t quite as bad as they were made out to be.

    It’s still a 5% decrease from FY12, and even a small decrease like that is worth pointing out to the community. The planetary R&A pot is indeed a small amount of money that has important effects. But the imminent loss of younger scientists for FY13 should, it would now appear, be considered in light of the imminent gain of those scientists we must have witnessed last year. The trimming of the Discovery budget probably has more serious impact on seasoned researchers than this 5% cut to the R&A budget.

  2. dogstar29 says:
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    It is not a huge amount of money, but it has to come from somewhere. What do supporters of planetary science advocate? Cuts in other NASA programs? Cuts in other agencies? Higher taxes? Borrow even more money?

    • James Lundblad says:
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      There is a huge misunderstanding about where the money comes from. The government does not borrow money from anywhere and is the sole issuer of the currency. The “debt limit” is a totally artificial creation of congress and the US is to my knowledge the only country that has it. The only real constraint on government spending is how much inflation you are willing to tolerate, but at the moment there is so much slack in the economy with so many out of work, that we are not in danger of demand exceeding supply. Higher taxes and spending cuts are equivalent as far as the real economy are concerned, they are both drags on GDP.

      • Ralphy999 says:
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        I can assure you that the US Treasury does indeed borrow and holds public auctions for its financial paper. The Federal Reserve(The Fed), the US central bank, creates and destroys money by fiat. The Fed is the major purchaser of the Treasury debt. Most of the Treasury debt is held by the Fed and other government agencies. However, individuals and other countries can also bid and hold Treasury debt. But let me assure you that the debt is real and the government does borrow as authorized by Congress. Thus, inflation is not a function of US treasury debt, it is a function of the Fed and a result of a decision by the Fed to increase the amount of money in the system or not.

        • James Lundblad says:
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          Bill Mitchell explains why the current debate is based on false premises.

          http://hir.harvard.edu/debt

          • Ralphy999 says:
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            Wow, where to begin? I am at work now and cannot give an adequate reply at this time. .  I will do so tonight. I do not think the good professor has had a Money and Banking econ class at college. First thought “excess reserves”? What a concept! Stay tuned.

          • James Lundblad says:
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            ok, I just wanted to point out that there is this non-traditional view out there in MMT. I would also look at the work of Richard Koo (Nomura Research) who has analyzed the situation with Japan. I believe the government there is implementing large fiscal and monetary stimulus to fight deflation. We will see what the current fiscal tightening does here in 2013.

          • Ralphy999 says:
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            Reserves are required by the Fed for its member banks (Chase, Bank of America, etc.) due to the member banks lending activities. The Fed determines what level of reserves are needed for the type of risks the member banks are incuring for the loans they are making. Thus, we have the Fed money creator and destroyer tool number 1: reserve requirements. The greater the reserve requirements the less money is available in the economy. The lower the reserve requirements, the more money is available. 

            As the member banks make more loans they go to the Fed “window” and borrow money to keep their reserve requirements fulfilled or they can borrow funds from other banks to fulfill their mandated reserves. The interest on that borrowing by the member banks is set by the Fed. Thus, we have another mechanism to create or destroy money, tool number 2: the interest rate charged by the Fed at the window. The higher the interest rate, the less money is available to the economy; the lower the interest rate the more money is available.

            There are *no* “excess reserves”. They are called “operating profits”. Or as the Mafia would say, “juice”. A bank’s elixir of life. The joy of lending. The Alpha and the Omega. Forever and ever, Amen. Or if you want, The Happy Bank.

            The problem is, the demand from customers(quality) for loans are currently less than the money available. The Fed window interest rate is currently about zero. No customers. Alas, no loans are going out to the economy. So what does the Fed do?

            The Fed starts a program called QE3 which consists of buying all the fanny and freddie mortgages on the open market that they can get their hands on. That is one way to try and put money in the economy. The results so far? Meh. Nothing to write home about.

            So, we have illustrated the number one problem of coming out of a recession, trying to get quality people to start borrowing again. It ain’t easy.

            As to Japan: The Japanese are huge savers for one reason or another. They are so tight they squeak when they walk. There is just no demand there either. That is their own unique problem of an aging population.

            Sorry for going off topic and boring everyone to death.

          • James Lundblad says:
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            Richard Koo has a good analysis of why QE hasn’t been so effective. I think the MMT folks are arguing that institutions are behaving as if the federal goverment budget is the same as a household budget or what we had during the gold standard which is not the case. The federal government cannot involutarily default on it’s debt. There is an interesting critique here: http://www.levyinstitute.or

            I think if this were better understood we might have more growth, lower unemployment, and more funds for science and exploration.

      • Helen Simpson says:
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        I feel compelled to point out that deliberating a 5% cut in the planetary science R&A budget in the context of the national economy and Federal Reserve policy is somewhat comical. We’re talking about $8M, which is pretty much just a sneeze to NASA. It’s probably the smallest amount of money ever groused about in this forum. If we were talking about SLS, it might be relevant.

        It’s a good question about how this $8M can be found, but we’re talking about shavings on the floor. Perhaps a secondary instrument on a future planetary science mission, or maybe a few weeks of ops on that mission. But the answer to that question isn’t going to come from federal economics or the fiscal policy of the US Treasury.

        I am reminded of the bake sale and car wash that was held for planetary science a few months ago. That was, of course, also on a different fiscal scale. It was about principle, as opposed to answers. It was a joke.