The point of my long post was to explain that a government can never 
finance all the things she would want to do. At least at this moment in 
time ours can't. So yes it is all about money and no capitalism is not 
directly involved. Indirectly of course companies are lobbying but so do 
the labour organizations and the churches.
I have long passed the day when I though everything was black and white. 
One day you might do that as well.

On 24-9-2014 13:19, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 24-9-2014 2:08, Saul Luizaga wrote:
>>> Probably, but the bottom line is the same, money, and the fact that you
>>> were not given a position in a scientific environment that's not for
>>> profit and working for the issuer of Laws, your own Government, breaks
>>> them, it's even more disappointing, the only reason I see is to save
>>> money; why you could've been hired as a freelancer maybe  for better
>>> pay?
>>
>> The bottom line is money indeed. Tax money to be precise.
>> There is a limited amount the government can spend on health care,
>> education, and research (the three areas of my work).
>>
>> The labour laws about temporary contracts are to protect the employees.
>> That is good and useful for ordinary workers in factories and shop
>> assistants, but researchers are a bit different. As there are no special
>> rules for them, people needed to find loopholes to make sure that
>> research was possible at all. The problem with holes is that once one
>> finds one, it tends to be used also for the situations that the original
>> law was actually intended for (see also my sig). I think that in my case
>> the use of loopholes was indeed illegitimate, because for a part of my
>> time I was doing things that were structural and essential for a large
>> group of people.
>>
>> Coming back to your post, why could I not be hired, e.g. as a
>> freelancer. Well they could, the problem is money again. The money
>> should come from grants. Only those are in general to ask for money for
>> specific equipment and personal. So they should have included me (partly
>> and for many project) in the grant proposal. Which they didn't, even if
>> already for years I have been warning them that they should also include
>> technical and data analysis support in their grant. Why they did not do
>> it? because it would diminish the change of getting the grant at all too
>> much. Yet another situation where there is a mismatch in pace of change.
>> So that more or less rules out the freelancer (and they are in trouble
>> now).
>>
>> Why can I not get a fixed position at the place I was working? Indeed
>> the most logical and clean option. Problem is money again. That has to
>> be paid from the money the university gets from the government. That
>> budget has been shrinking over the last years, which means that all
>> universities are over budget, because most money was for salaries of
>> people with fixed positions and they could not be fired at the time of
>> the budget cuts. So if someone leaves, that means the university is less
>> over budget, and that person can not be replaced, and certainly no new
>> people can be hired. I was working on an externally financed project, I
>> would now be a 'new hire'.
>
> Thanks for you public service,as a citizen of the World. I understand
> your situation and it wasn't much different to the one I had in mind.
>
>> See, you can simply (well, not really simple) explain the situation
>> without having to refer to capitalism once. I therefore object to the
>> simplistic world view as you express it time and time again. And if we
>> hadn't had an interaction elsewhere I would not have bothered to answer.
>> Not because it is not a valid point, but from the wording it seems clear
>> that an intelligent debate with you is impossible.
>
> Now I'll explain to you how you're wrong: you referred to capitalism
> without you even noticing it: money and budget, hire, new hire, grant,
> etc. The mechanism is rather simple, the more "over-budget", that's what
> they say, universities are the less they have to hire permanent
> personnel, more temps and more money for the universities, of course
> they have to play the victim, is the best excuse ever, they appeal to
> human compassion and charity, emotional blackmail so you don't go
> investigating their accounting books, kinda of BS probably. It is simple
> unfortunately, capitalism underlays everything and so the 1% people
> owning 95% of it worldwide. That you don't or don't want to see this,
> it's your fault. If the work was for your Gov., it should have made sure
> you get enough of everything.
>
>> I give you that there is actually some clear capitalism involved, not as
>> overt as you imply, but still. Keep reading, there will be something at
>> the end.
>
> And here you contradict yourself, and I'm being not intelligent? and
> believe me, I care little what people think of me, like you they're more
> inclined to their own judgement of what I'm about or the ideas and
> spread or have and not what I'm and my ideas actually about, and this
> begs the question Is this because I have correct you on my previous and
> you didn't liked this? I think probably it is, doesn't it?
>
>> One of the reasons that the budget is shrinking is that the government
>> is taking money away from the universities and giving it to
>> organizations that hand out grants. It is converted into soft money and
>> redistributed as a way to influence the direction of science. That
>> direction is of course according to the latest hypes. Both
>> scientifically (meaning that there will be more money for people doing
>> the same thing as everybody else) and directed at research that is
>> applicable by the industry (is the horrible term 'valorisation' also
>> used in English?).
>
> Science should have a saying about what needs to be researched, not just
> the Gov. and directing science like that it's too inquisitive IMO and
> bad for the people, since money people that manipulate your Gov, has
> control of what is researched covering up all that is inconvenient for
> them, forcing selective research so the scientist will never have the
> big picture of the wrong doings of the Industry. And since the Industry
> is being subsidized by your Gov. do they get regulated by it giving good
> prices and services? I hope so, because it'd be only fair.
>
> The term I in English is valuation, I'm not from USA but from Bolivia,
> so the term is very similar to the Spanish 1:
> http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=valorizaci%C3%B3n
>
>> Some of the bigger industries have lobbied to redirect money in this
>> way, hoping they could outsource their R&D to the universities and have
>> the government pay for it. Sadly it did not work out so easy for them,
>> and only the foundations of the universities were damaged. But that is
>> the only way short sighted unethical capitalistic behaviour has had an
>> impact on why I am unemployed at the moment.
>
> That's 1 example of many I have read about
>
> So you write this long text to someone that you qualify as impossible to
> debate with? it's a bit contradictory, don't you think?
>


-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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