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Stiglitz predicts Obama win, but did he get the Wright Brothers right?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

Breitbart: Joseph Stiglitz, who won the 2001 Nobel prize for economics and who advised President Clinton, said on September 30 that the United States faces a long recession and predicted that Democrat Barack Obama will win November's presidential elections.

Stiglitz opposed the $700 billion bailout: ?We?re turning risk investment funds into the hands of taxpayers?, he added pointing out that since no private investor wants to take responsibility for ?risk investments, we?re simply wall papering them on to the taxpayer, this is monstrous?.

Stiglitz is not known for getting it right in the patent area: [Stiglitz] went on to discuss intellectual property rights, stating that if you don't get the laws governing IP rights correct, you get all the disadvantages of restricting knowledge, without any of the incentives that you were trying to get by having IP property. For example, the Wright brothers got a patent on airplane after Kitty Hawk, but so did Curtiss, and no private company making planes could afford to pay both parties the patent fees, so it wasn't until World War I when the government set in and said that this was too important for you to hold up development that the aircraft industry got its real start.

Full post as published by IPBiz on September 30, 2008 (boomark / email).