The new generation of warriors in the developed countries sees a strong analogy between making war and making money. The latter has gained in fascination, being more rewarding and personally fulfilling:
Nowadays, CNBC has bureaus in London, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. `We caught on to a Gulf War that's going to last forever. An event like this [stock market tumble] happens and Ron Insana becomes Norman Schwarzkopf', declared CNBC's president, Bill Bolster, ....New Yorker, Talk of the Town, October 1997
No doubt the boys in red suspenders have destabilized a government or two in the process. But by their intolerance for officially sanctioned lies, they have helped, not hindered, the cause of democracy. Currency speculators? Call them freedom fighters.Andrew Coyne, Southam News, November 1997
As a cursory glance at any business section confirms, fascination with money goes along with fascination with the electronic media. The Canada Foundation for Innovation is an extremely important new federal program which funds physical infrastructure for research - equipment and installations and libraries:
The Canada Foundation for Innovation has earmarked up to $20M for a project to license the electronic delivery of scholarly periodicals to research university libraries across the country ...Some research libraries are still hopeful that a virtual research library, including books as well as learned journals will exist in Canada in the not-too-distant future.University Affairs, March 1999
Public interest in health research: the plan for a Canadian Institutes for Health Research has recently been launched with the federal budget, which also on an interim basis allocated an increase of $50 million per year for health research over the next three years to the granting councils and established programs:
An August 1998 poll conducted by Ekos Research found that the vast majority of Canadians attach great importance to health research. In fact, when asked about a variety of policy options, Canadians placed health research only slightly behind funding for medicare, and ahead of tax cuts and debt reduction, as their top choice for government action.First communiqué, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, November 1998
The people responding to the August 1998 survey no doubt were thinking, ``Maybe they'll find a cure for such and such a condition before it's too late for my mother, my brother, my child.'' In a more recent mission statement, the improvement of the health of Canadians is secondary to considerations of international competition and the synergy of health research and the economy:
...it is critical that Canada ensure global competitiveness for the funding of this innovative new enterprise ...Therefore, as a primary mission, the CIHR will facilitate investigator- initiated and discovery driven research that creates the new knowledge required to feed the innovation pipeline and improve the health of Canadians.
The CIHR Concept
http://www.cihr.org
A plaintive note, sounded by a plant geneticist who studies the speciation of desert flora:
At the announcement of provincial funding for UW research on Monday, UW president James Downey remarked that ``After a period of relative drought, it can be said that the desert of academic research is beginning to bloom again.''Biology professor John Semple finds some irony in that analogy since, he says, ``As a consequence of over concern for `industrial partners' research by federal and provincial governments, there is an ever decreasing amount of funding for the study of deserts and things that bloom.''
UW Daily Bulletin, March 17, 1999
And indeed, the ``strategic areas'' of the granting councils, of which two are the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) are extremely wide ranging but quite anthropocentric:
NSERC - Biotechnologies
- Energy Efficiency Technologies
- Environmental Technologies
- Information Technologies
- Manufacturing and Processing Technologies
- Materials Technologies
SSHRC -Challenges and Opportunities of a Knowledge-based Economy
- Society, Culture and the Health of Canadians
- Exploring Social Cohesion in a Globalizing Era
- Valuing Literacy in Canada