Jon Goff's Lunar Patent
On a recent edition of The Space Show , Jon Goff discussed a lunar analogy to the 10 year patent grant awarded to Columbus on trade with any of the lands he discovered. This follows on from the great work done by Mike Mealling at dispelling myths about Columbus' funding which, I believe, he was inspired to do after watching one of my videos . Unfortunately, I think Jon fails to convey his analogy in a convincing way. Being somewhat libertarian, Jon is a little too concerned with where the tax revenue comes from and too specific with who will receive the incentives. This may also simply be a result of the origin of the idea - the analogy to Columbus - and the attempt to describe it as such. Talking about who will be taxed to fund a government program is never popular. Even "let's tax the rich" is too specific not to leave a bad taste in the voter's mouth. Politicians have learnt that the subject is completely avoidable anyway. Talking about who will receive t...