New XM3k: $7500.00

Absolutely, positively well put, AF.

For me, it is this ridiculous rhetoric that adds the b1tch slap to this whore of a corporate conglomerate. Big oil not only is raking in money on this energy crisis like a fat kid at a cake festival, but they have the hubris to explain smugly how they are working diligently to help out the working guy.

They behave a lot like the Republican party. It's almost as if those two groups are somehow related...

Why is it that the big oil execs making excuses for their record raping profits remind me exactly of the cigarette company execs claiming smoking doesn't lead to lung cancer?

Probably because one of the oil coalitions hired the exact same thinktank company to create a 'doubt' campaign that the cigarette folks hired...all they need to do is buy time by creating public doubt.

I hope not, high gas prices are the only way, to get us off of the oil titty.

Philip

:jawdrop: Arctic Fox,

If a dumbocrat gets elected gas prices might go down maybe for a week or

two but only because they view communists as friendly.

Please note the BIG MYTH about BIG OIL in the US is a BIG LIE.

The largest american oil company is only 14th in size. This is because american

oil companies were not allowed to build new refineries or to drill offshore or

to drill where there are known reserves. So, thanks to a dumbocrat congress the american

sources of oil were not developed and rather than fight that loosing battle they sold

to the BIG FOREIGN OIL COMPANIES. Guess where those companies are located?

pchilds,

I'm happy that you can afford Gas at $4.00 a gallon.
You must be one of those limosine liberals I keep hearing about.
Unfortunately, most people who make less money than you do CAN'T afford $4.00/gal gas.

I know someone employed at $20/hr who can't afford $4.00/gal gas for a
60 mile round trip commute because the only car he has
must be 4WD so he can commute in snow and ice during the winter.

Please note: The end does not always justify the means.
Remember the Khmer Rouge? They murdered 2.5 million people!

Artificial constraints on drilling and refining which in turn causes unaffordable
fuel prices for many (especially heating oil in the north east) DEFINITELY is
a hardship for the poor and middle class.

Sorry Gary but you're obviously one of the many who continues to be mislead in thinking that oil is still the answer. Didn't you even hear the recent comments by oil tycoon T. Boone Pickins. He's right on this. We can't drill our way out of this situation.

Let me give you a couple of numbers here which are accurate by anyone's estimates. We use 21 million barrels of oil daily in this country. If we drilled in the locations for the most oil in this country...we'd only provide about 4% of the daily useage...for all uses. That wouldn't affect the price substantially...and that drilling wouldn't yield even that result for several years. So just forget it...it's a pipe dream. It's over. No more reasonable oil, gasoline, etc. Those days are gone. That's simply the truth...and accurate figures support that. Those that try to convince you different are mostly those who want to pick your pockets till the last barrel is filled!

Respectfully,
Gushar

Gary,

Good idea, let's not think about oil conservation so future generations can have some without paying a fortune for it. Or maybe you put all your eggs in the basket of science coming to the rescue with an instant solution? I actually can't find anything philosophically wrong with environmental pollution and degradation. If future generations don't want to live on the planet we leave them they are free to go kill themselves and adults can decide not to bring children into the world. Right Gary? Just how big is your sense of self-entitlement?

I'm preaching to the choir when I say our addiction to cheap oil has vast national security consequences. Tapping more of it to keep the prices down will not help us get off this addiction. The way to reduce national consumption is to raise the price. The important thing is that the price increases are gradual and predictable so that the decision makers will know what to expect in the future and adjust their business and investing plans to accommodate it. No additional refineries have been built because the oil companies are waiting for federal legislation to pass regarding pollution caps. Government can pass that legislation to help ease supply shocks we can be expected to see more and more of.

As for the guy who makes $20/hour and has to drive a 4WD vehicle, it's unfortunate for him that it was a social norm to expect cheap oil was permanent. It's another case in a long history of life having to adapt to survive in changing environments. Another change we can expect is medicare and medicaid entitlements being drastically cut back, or given to the most needy. Americans need to be told start saving now because it's not fair to them to be expecting something, and suddenly without enough notice, it is taken from them.

Gary, if I understand correctly, you are offering four pieces of evidence to support your counterargument. Allow me to address them:
1) You say: Oil companies collectively (?) are only the 14th largest company in the country and therefore couldn't be posting record profits during the energy crisis. I say: how does size have anything to do with profits and/or ethics in business
2) You say: some mysterious group of all-powerful liberals in congress decided to halt the environmental train wreck of drilling for oil wherever the oil companies damn well pleased and now said oil companies have fallen victim to foreign oil companies, forever downtrodden and beaten. I say: American oil companies such as Exxon posted RECORD PROFITS last year making them the most profitable companies IN THE WORLD.
3) You say: I know this guy...etc. I say: I know tons of guys who claim that they need 4WD because of the winters. Last winter I passed several of them on the side of road each snow storm in my 2000 Saturn SL on my way to work while getting 37 mph.
4) You say: liberals are known as "dumocrats". I say: Oooh, that is a really fun, high-brow game to play that supports my arguments very well. I want to play too. Let's see...I am going to call conservatives Repooplicans...or maybe Republican'ts. I feel like my arguments are more sound, and better defended already. Thanks for the idea!

I think he meant 14th largest oil company in the world.

I never had a serious problem driving in the winter with car, except for the Miata, that's just bloody impossible to drive in the winter. But lets give him the benefit of the doubt. It's a safe to assume he and his friend live in one of America's less developed places where most of the roads are not salted nor paved. Public transportation on his land is when some of his friends jump in the back of his 4WD pickup.

What are we doing Vinnie and Gushar? I know it's important to talk with people who disagree with you, maybe they see something you don't. When they make a post exposing their level of thought to be on par with young child's, why do we even bother responding? It's been my experience it takes a lot more then poking some holes in their arguments to make them re-examine their ideology.

You points are all true and as I read your post, I had two thoughts running through my head:
1) Don't feed the trolls!
2) I must engage faulty logic in the hopes of exposing it, thus causing re-examination. Perhaps I could attempt to do this in a more benign and inclusive manner in the future. Then again, if someone is using faulty logic (or no logic) in the first place, what is the likelihood that they will use logic to decide to re-evaluate their faulty logic?

sparc5, point taken. Shall we lay this one to rest?

Cheers!

Now folks lets be fair.

Exxon is no longer an oil company it's an energy company - I noticed this today when reading the propaganda that they're posting in newspaper and news magazines. The ones with scientists talking about great things they're doing to find more "energy reserves" which are so much cleaner and nicer than those icky "oil reserves" that we might think they're really searching for. I wonder why Alaskan folks complained so much about that big energy spill when the energy tanker ran aground?

Oh yeah, and BP doesn't stand for British Petroleum anymore - it stands for Beyond Petroleum. They even re-branded the corporation to have a nice green and yellow sort of sunflower thing. Come on folks, a company with a nice sunflowerish logo can't be bad. They're trying to find life beyond petroleum. Good for them I say - give them some more tax dollars!

And Chevron was only looking out for us the consumer when the battery company they owned refused to license the Nickle Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery for large capacity installations in all electric vehicles. It's only safe to use when in a hybrid with a gas engine. Makes perfect sense. Those cowboys over at Toyota actually built a little SUV running on those puppies - I'm surprised they didn't all go up in smoke. Good thing Chevron's company sued Toyota for $30 million What, that's like a half day's profit for Exxon? Hardly worth the effort - but I suppose it sends a nice signal that Chevron won't allow folks such as Toyota to put risky products in the market.

So, I'm with Gary. We should support Exxon and BP with lots of big tax breaks, we should allow them to drill anywhere they want (preferably Gary's front living room?) and we should definitely not expect them to pay big fines when they cause an ecological disaster with a pesky little energy spill. That way their shareholders will get really, really rich and the poor schmucks driving 60 mile round trip for a $20/hr job can feel happy that all that wealth trickles down into the economy.

Right?

Oh yeah - and please buy lots of $7500 XM-3000's my country club membership comes due this month.

(Thanks AF - it's always fun to rant!)

Now that John has chimed in with his eloquent two cents (four pence?) it's safe to call this thread dead.

Now you two have me thinking of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch!!!

"This parrot is dead"

"No it's not, it's sleeping"

and on, and on, and on... ;-)

I mean the sub-thread is dead. A response to Vinnie's call to lay it to rest.

John's two cents = one pense, not four. Why does the edit post link vanish when I need to use it the most???

You know John's one pence wasn't always worth two cents, just a couple years ago it was worth 1.7 cents. How's a Yankee supposed to compete anymore?

--Jeff

John H.

Excellent comment!

"Now you two have me thinking of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch!!!

"This parrot is dead"

"No it's not, it's sleeping""

I love that sketch. You have to laugh at it, but we all know the parrot really is dead, and that's what makes the skit so funny.

The skit also illustrates the problem we are having with our current culture war between the left and right. From my perspective, the role of the shop keeper is more often than not played by the left or a liberal press. I really wish it were possible to have debates based on facts rather than made up statistics as are commonly used in debates. Our society seems to think debates are based on fact but if you've ever participated in one you soon see half truths all over the place. As our society gets more and more dumbed down due to our failed education system we become more and more likely to get hoodwinked by politicians debating with half truths, outright lies and loads of emotional baggage with little or no basis in fact. Decisions based on tugs of the heart strings are rarely the right ones. All of this sets up our society for
hugely tragic wars, genocide, and more of the same already failed political solutions.

This sorta reminds me of the whole global warming thing. Yes, the glaciers ARE melting. No, measured temperatures really are COOLER for the last 11 years or so. Yes, mankind contributes vast amounts of pollution into the atmosphere. Nope, it really is only a fraction of a percent of all the green house gasses. Undersea volcanoes in the mid ocean rifts contibute more pollution every day than mankind does in a year. And so on and on it goes on endlessly - methane from cows, e-coli and salmonela from organic farming. Almost everything out there is a double edged sword. The problem is our society is loosing or has already lost the ability to
think rationally.

I want an electric car probably just as much as anyone else here. I don't like pollution. I want our country to be energy independent. But I'll be darned if we have to get there based on half truths, lies, distortions and senseless emotional arguments.

I think it all comes down to whether or not the end justifies the means.
I firmly believe the end does not justify the means.

Hi Gary - welcome back I'm glad you replied.

"Now you two have me thinking of Monty Python's dead parrot sketch!!!

"This parrot is dead"

"No it's not, it's sleeping""

I love that sketch. You have to laugh at it, but we all know the parrot really is dead, and that's what makes the skit so funny.

Yep, good point if the parrot really were sleeping then the audience would sleep too.

The skit also illustrates the problem we are having with our current culture war between the left and right. From my perspective, the role of the shop keeper is more often than not played by the left or a liberal press. I really wish it were possible to have debates based on facts rather than made up statistics as are commonly used in debates.

Woah there! This is where our perspectives obviously differ - and they differ a LOT. You see the "left" as normally the "villain" of the piece (the shopkeeper trying to sell a dead parrot). This appears to imply that you see the "right" as right - or at least more right than the left (so to speak!). How come? Aren't both sides as guilty as each other? Aren't the "left" simply responding with a "fight fire with fire" approach? Before you say that "no the left started it" consider the fact that every major corporation spends big bucks on public relations. Sure, the left may have "upped the ante" by responding in kind - but what exactly is Exxon's multi-million dollar ad campaign other than propaganda? It's not even attempting to sell a product - it's simply saying "hey, we're good people quit picking on us".

As our society gets more and more dumbed down due to our failed education system we become more and more likely to get hoodwinked by politicians debating with half truths, outright lies and loads of emotional baggage with little or no basis in fact. Decisions based on tugs of the heart strings are rarely the right ones. All of this sets up our society for hugely tragic wars, genocide, and more of the same already failed political solutions.

And now you go further off into "right field". Yes, I agree that politicians will hoodwink us - however, what about businesses? Do you really expect us to believe they are lily white? Do you think Exxon should sponsor science education and critical reasoning education? If they did they'd want a good return on investment - and to get that they'd likely want to push more of their propaganda (let's call it what it is).

I can whole-heartedly agree with you that declining education is a major issue and increases the rate of decline. I dare say we might have different views on how to address the issue.

This sorta reminds me of the whole global warming thing. Yes, the glaciers ARE melting. No, measured temperatures really are COOLER for the last 11 years or so. Yes, mankind contributes vast amounts of pollution into the atmosphere. Nope, it really is only a fraction of a percent of all the green house gasses. Undersea volcanoes in the mid ocean rifts contibute more pollution every day than mankind does in a year.

Well now you're just playing the opposite side of the game party A says GW is gonna kill us all party B says GW doesn't even exist. So, if you really want to increase the quality of the debate then you must admit the truth is somewhere in between those two extremes.

On what basis do you get from "measured temperatures really are COOLER for the last 11 years or so" to a conclusion that GW isn't a problem? Yes, I know there are lots of temperature histories for certain locations that show cooling over the last 11 years. However, on average isn't it true that the global temperature is increasing (as reported by scientists from NASA and other institutions). That's what GLOBAL warming is all about - a worldwide effect, not a localized one.

The problem is our society is loosing or has already lost the ability to think rationally.

Not quite as simple as that. The folks who can still think rationally all have agendas. Some of those agendas are hidden.

I think it all comes down to whether or not the end justifies the means.
I firmly believe the end does not justify the means.

What exactly are the ends and means you're talking about? Your references to the Khmer Rouge and communism in your initial posts are way out there in terms of having anything to do with what was being discussed. That doesn't help your follow on argument for more reasoned debate with more facts and less tugging at heart strings... (I ain't gonna let you off for that little rant so easily! ;-) )

$7500.00! Chump change. Why has it taken you so long to realize you can charge so much more than you have been? Hell, can I be your secret investor before your raise the price? My stock broker called me from his yacht the other day. He tells me the oil companies couldn't find good investments so they are just returning their profits to investors in the form of dividends. With all the people making so much money off the oil price boom, I think you'll be able to double the price a few more times in order to get rid of that two year waiting list for one. I feel sorry for those poor suckers who aren't in on this game, they'll only see prices going up while wages stagnate. Well, I don't feel too sorry for them. If they cant's spot an opportunity this obvious they don't deserve to enjoy its fruits. Nothing wrong with making money right boys?

Facts about oil in the US? I have to say, who knows for sure? Peak oil keeps getting predicted since the start of oil drilling, new technologies get invented that get more oil out of old wells or separate it from various substrates. I think few if any people know how much longer the party can last.

Oil shales underneath Colorado and Utah, twice as large as the Canadian Alberta oil Sands and it dwarfs Saudi Arabias reserves by 8 times. Exploitable at $ 10 a barrel. Seems like North America will become the new Middle East. http://www.productive-sys.com/33/

The problem seems to be infrastructure, getting the oil out.

The source here: The magazine "The Oil Report" seems to be a strange animal..... with no internet site etc.

But I found the same info in the more trustworthy "Daily Reckoning":
www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/article/22062006.html

Source: Posted by noted economist: "Arno Mong Daastoel" 9SEP08

All we can be sure of is oil prices are going up at a disturbing rate over the last decade and it's hurting our oil thirsty economy. If it's from speculation, weak dollar, old fashioned greed, who can say with any confidence? We know China and India's increased consumption shouldn't have resulted in this much of a price spike, but it's not hard to imagine the West having to share an increasing slice of it's lunch with countries with new wealth.

So what can we do about it? In America, most people believe in capitalism because they have lived a good standard of living relative to other countries with other economic systems. For the time being, the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans believe in capitalism, the two parties are more similar then different. Now that we're facing bad financial times, likely to get worse, people are going to start challenging liberal markets more and more. All the fiscal and monetary efforts to control inflation have failed at keeping inflation under control. The main factors in this inflationary period are energy prices and food prices.

The Texas Railroad Commission had a mandate from the government to match oil supply to demand (while maintaining a security reserve for times of crisis) by regulating Texas oil wells to a percentage of their capacity. Texas oil production so dominated the industry that this worked to manage oil prices.

[i]Source: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/05/an_echo_from_a_.html

[/i]
Americans lost that ability to control energy prices. We know more and more, we are depending on foreign sources for our energy needs. Just about every nation imports their their oil from non-democratic, oppressive, corrupt places. It's not a coincidence that the places that have the oil have the worst governments. Privatizing the energy production doesn't help either. As we see now, the private companies are glad to charge what ever people will pay, and our democratically elected government is in no hurry to end that party. If there is one thing to be sure of, money brings out the worst in any government or corporation.

I don't see why there has to be this partisan divide. Republicans should want to see a sustainable secure energy supply because that's what's in the long term interest of businesses big and small. Many of them long for the price stability we had during the times of the Texas Railroad Commission. The Democrats want to see it because they don't want global warming, empowerment of terrible governments as well as having it dictating our foreign policy. Plenty of people on both sides of the isle think all of the above and more is important. Transforming our nation to renewable resources is inevitable. The longer we wait to begin this transformation in earnest, the more costly it will be to do it, thus a larger blow to the standard of living we've grown accustomed to.

You're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. Don't be a sheep. Economics (and various areas of policy in general) is a tremendously complicated field. I'm one who holds the opinion I wouldn't like the general public voting on how my brain surgery is to proceed any more then I'd like to see the public decide economic issues. I really can't get why even on economic issues there is a partisan divide. Economists disagree with each other all the time, but the debates are multifaceted, not often bipolar, and aren't confined to geographical regions, (University of Chicago economics not withstanding). Debates among economists sound nothing like the debates that are in the public. For example you'll never hear the politicians debate with each other over "wage stickiness" or the roll "neutrality of money" will play in their next round of fiscal stimulus, and I'll be dammed if I ever see a differential calculus equation in a public debate, but you'll see them all the time in economic literature.

What I'm getting at is you shouldn't listen to one person: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Barak Obama, or Oprah, they can't possibly be experts on the wide variety of topics they speak on. Instead listen to the specialists, read books, force yourself to understand opposing points of view and your ability to think critically will be vastly improved. You'll find yourself sometimes taking a stance contrary to those same people you learned much from and used to always agree with. Lastly, know your limits. One can't be an expert on everything. ;-)

Or something like that.

XM3k for only $7800!

The price went up due to... uh... well, it's really cloudy here

Gosh, isn't AF really lame? He's a terrible vendor don't buy from him - he's a bad man and he can't plan his production properly. Plus his XM3K's will give you cancer and I heard from someone (at the local bar) that he supports international terrorism. I suspect he's a communist as well - probably a sleeper agent from the Cold War days.

You should buy your XM3K from me. Mine are much better. And, because I want to ensure my stocks don't run out I've put my prices up to a mere $8000 for a deluxe XM3K*. That way you can be sure I'll be able to sell you one at that price. And it's STILL more "value oriented" than a Vectrix.

* The deluxe model has been carefully worked on by me and broken in for 500km. Some would call it used - I call it carefully prepared for one heck of a lucky person!

Who knew reverse price wars could be so much fun? Yeah, I know - we're both so immature!!!

First guy to offer financing move ahead ten squares. Fifteen if you snag one who just exited bankruptcy.

I could never understand how people can point to record profits or people making tons of money and say that is bad. Hitting it big is probably one reason we have all of what we have today. It could be a drug that takes bazillions to get to market or the invention of a battery that could make a EV practical. Who is going to want to take the risk of investing tons of time and money if the payoff is not there?

Take the oil industry, they have good years and bad years, why does no one mention the bad years. Who in their right mind is going to go drilling for oil in the middle of the ocean, in seven thousand feet deep water, through twenty thousand feet of seafloor not unless they can make very good money on it. It's risky, takes tons of money and sometimes companies fail.

Say you invest twenty years of your life and millions of dollars from investors to bring to market a battery that could make a EV practical. You finally did it, only to have the government step in and say you have to sell the battery at a certain price. You and your investors are mad as hell, the government is going to tell you how much profit you will be making. Would you or your investors take the risk knowing that up front?

Will people take risks with their time and money if they knew that they could not make record profits? Would you take risks with your money if you were not allowed to make a sizable profit?

Anyways why fight them, join them in their record profits. Take all of your retirement savings, every spare penny you have and invest in the oil market. You will guaranty that you will be rich when you come to retirement age, or will you?

Deron.

Deron,

That's a very rational and reasonable approach to take. However, two things that I think also bear considering:
(a) the propaganda that folks like Exxon publish paint their product in an artificially good light. Of course, they're going to do that - however, at what point does it become detrimental to society to allow them to do this? For example, the tobacco industry got hit pretty hard because their product is addictive and causes cancer. Even though several intelligent CEO's of those companies stood up in court and swore that the product didn't (can you say perjury?). So, at what point should legislation step in and say "quit with the propaganda - we know we need oil but we don't want to encourage more use"

(b) at what point is enough enough? One train of thought could reasonably say that the oil companies actually have gotten richer at the cost of US soldiers (and countless international citizens) lives. That just doesn't seem right. The war in Iraq might have not been started because of anything to do with oil (can't say I believe that) - but if you look at the spikes in oil costs there is certainly a correlation between the start of the war and the increase in oil price. So - at what point do you try and figure out a way to stop this destructive cycle? At what point do you look at redistributing the wealth generated by a war for the betterment of society?

Yes, I agree with the capitalist system and offering great reward for those willing to take great risks. However, I'm not naive enough to believe that left unregulated that those with money & power won't abuse the system to make sure they retain as much wealth as possible. Are you?

Indeed the history of capitalism has shown the capitalists aren't content with an open and fair market with fair competition among businesses. Instead they've shown time and time again that they'll connive and finagle and break laws and do morally reprehensible things and pollute and more all in the pursuit of dollars.

Last year when I went to see Ron Paul speak (so I could figger out just how much of a crackpot he is) I picked up this DVD being handed out by people. It turned out to be a moralistic fairy tale from the John Birch Society. The story sounded great .. that if people follow Enlightened Self Interest then there's no need for laws because Enlightened Self Interest says that everybody elses well being is as important as my own well being, and that therefore by following Enlightened Self Interest I'll work to make sure other peoples well being is improved etc ...

Sheesh.. I wonder what part of the Enron con job of California they missed ...? Just to name one act of nonenlightened self enrichment. Enron was able to shaft California precisely because regulations had been loosened.

Enron was able to shaft California precisely because regulations had been loosened.

As an IT person who has to deal with yearly Sarbanes-Oxley audits (which came about as a (lame-ass) response to Enron) I feel qualified to say Enron shafted more than just California!

Enlightened Self Interest as you described it is actually true - my well being does depend on your well being. But yeah, as political dogma it is pretty lame!!!

The problem with huge profits are four fold:

If they are big enough they can have macro-conciquences for the economy. The oil company's "good years" has the effect of overall inflation for the whole world since the whole economy runs off this stuff. For people in the 2nd and 3rd world this can be devastating. Anyone remember the tortilla riots in Mexico city? If Pixar Studios has record profits, it doesn't necessarily have macroeconomic effects. I know the federal reserve doesn't include energy and food in it's inflation statistics, but everyone I know is a consumer of energy and eats food.

The next problem is enormous wealth has a way of corrupting our democratic institutions. I don't have a lobbyist in Washington advocating policies on my behalf. I don't give campaign contributions politicians take note of but not the same can be said for rich men.

The next problem is there is an effect called "Keeping up with the Joneses". CEOs look at other CEOs and compete with each other to see who can amass the greatest fortune. It used to be the CEO would make 20-30 times the wage of the lowest paid employee, but over the last 20 years that's changed to something around 500 times. Do they really give 500 times more utility to the company? I work for United Airlines, and I can tell you, our CEO has done a lot to hurt morale at the company. The bosses take bonuses and raises, while asking everyone else to accept cuts in wages and benefits. We don't like one bit knowing a chunk of our sacrifice is to pay his increased salary. Needless to say the monetary cost of poor morale to a company is significant. Theft is up, customer service ratings are down, the workers are even less likely to take voluntary cost saving measures they normally would have before. Pilots want to keep themselves cool in the wide body airplane for a three hour nap between flights. Why not run the entire plane's air conditioner instead of exiting the plane and finding the crew lounge? Customer service agent volunteering to stay longer then required to get the job done? Not likely when you're bitter towards the company. The poor customers get stuck in the middle.

This problem of macro-greed manifests itself presently in the housing boom and bust. No income, no credit history, no problem, here's a loan, just give us our lending fees. When that wall street bubble burst, it was like an earthquake that was felt around the world. People who had absolutely nothing to do with the housing bubble, saw their retirement portfolio give up all the gains it had acquired over the last year or two, and that bubble is still only half way deflated. The fingers all point to unbridled greed.

The last point I want to remake is that, if people don't see the benefits to capitalism first hand, we can loose it. With all my finger wagging at corporate greed, I'm way more frightened of a centrally planned economy.

And Derron, hitting it big isn't motivation people become teachers, doctors, public servants, and more noble jobs. Most of the medical research I know of is sponsored from NIH grants. Even that corporate sponsored research is performed by scientists, mostly in university labs, making middle class incomes, content that they are doing something good for society while making a middle of the road income.