"Captain Capitalism" Aaron Clarey spends a lot of time bitching about how academics contribute nothing to GDP and are useless (the word he generally uses is "academians," because he's illiterate, but you get the point).
Now, we can think of all kinds of reasons why that isn't true which are, y'know, complex and stuff. All that great technology that comes out of the academy, all those business startups near colleges and universities, the real income advantage conferred by academic training, the fact that all those economics professors make the big bucks by consulting for real world businesses, et cetera, and recognize that Aaron is a moron. But the thing is, Aaron's prejudice against academics is actually prima facie stupid because, as anyone even modestly intelligent who's ever been near a university will tell you, universities are large, impersonal corporations which provide a service for money.
For example, Harvard University's 2005 budget was $2.8 billion. And that doesn't include a lot of large sums -- like R&D money from government or private sources awarded to and spent by researchers there, much of the budget at Harvard affiliated hospitals, and so on. Or associated expenses, like living expenses and spending by members of the university community for textbooks and the like.
What sort of half-assed economist doesn't count three billion dollars as a
contribution to GDP?
Just wonderin'.
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