Flying Taxis Just Another Depressing Reminder for Americans
The United States looks to be on a path that will leave them wallowing in waterways that are equal parts oil and water after recent moves to repeal Obama’s Stream Protection Rule and the confirmation of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. Across the globe, Dubai is moving in the opposite direction; the country is readying itself to release flying taxis by July of this year.
It’s part of a national plan to have 25 percent of Dubai’s total travel completed by “smart and driverless” technologies by 2030, according to a memo released by the government. And as impressive as that is, it’s also startling from the perspective of an American that sees progress abroad but stagnation at home.
The Republican party has reclaimed the White House for the first time in eight years, and while much was different about this election than any other before, you still had conservatives exalting a man that made his name as an entertainer — who is promising to supply as much oil as desired by Republicans in Middle America thirsting for more smoke-puffing power from their testosterone replacing, oversized, grocery-getting pickup trucks.
It’s not a far cry from the legacy of the conservative savior, Ronald Reagan. The former actor most notably rolled back the fuel efficiency requirements created by Jimmy Carter’s CAFE standards, but he also once said that “trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”
To Reagan’s credit, Trump has nearly thirty years worth of additional climate research at his disposal, yet he’s making the same terrible decisions.
With that, here is a rundown of a few cutting edge industries that can expect to take a hit from the Trump presidency:
Stem Cell Research
Obama made it a priority when he entered office in 2008 to repeal Bush’s restrictions on funding for stem cell research. A reinstatement of those restrictions from the Trump administration would not come as a surprise as he has surrounded himself with tireless pro-life advocates. Former Republican Representative Tom Price has been appointed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price voted multiple times as congressmen to restrict stem cell research, saying “Human embryos are the most vulnerable forms of life, yet the Obama administration is creating taxpayer-funded incentives for their destruction.”
It should be no secret by this point that Mike Pence is a prudish and arrogant pro-life blowhard, who attacked the women of Indiana without rest; he also voted no to expanding stem cell research in 2007.
Competition includes (descending order by industry size):
1) Singapore
2 )Italy
3) USA
4) Japan
5) Israel
6) Germany
*It should be noted that the Bush policy did not restrict state or private funding sources.
Renewable Energy
The oil and gas industry has penetrated the Trump administration at levels they couldn’t dream of. Trump himself is a climate change skeptic (to say the least), and his pick to head the EPA once sued the EPA. He’s being handed a healthy and vibrant industry by Obama, which successfully lowered national carbon emissions while the economy as a whole simultaneously expanded.
China recently said that they plan to invest $360 billion in the renewable energy industry through 2020, an effort the country’s National Energy Administration predicts will create 13 million jobs.
1) Sweden
2) Costa Rica
3) Nicaragua
4) Scotland
5) Germany
6) Uruguay
7) Denmark
8) China
9) Morocco
10) United States
Biotechnology
As the election neared, it appeared that Donald Trump would be the candidate Biotech companies would find an ally in. Hillary Clinton has long been a proponent of wider healthcare access, which includes lower drug prices. Trump, on the other hand, could deliver drastic tax incentives and less scrupulous oversight of drug prices to an industry with incomprehensible overhead.
The second guessing began in early January, though, when Trump said in a press conference that the industry was getting away with “murder”, speaking of sky rocketing drug prices that have stolen headlines since the Epipen controversy last year.
Trump’s now defunct executive order targeting immigration also had a negative impact on the biotech industry. According to the Washington Post, 52 percent of biotech researchers are foreign born. Industry executives wrote a collective letter to the president in early February expressing how dismayed they were by the policy and warning of the possible damage the order would inflict on their industry. Simply put, a tarnished U.S. global image threatens to damage the country’s appeal to foreign talent, which the industry relies on.
Global leaders in biotech (in descending order by R&D expenditures):
- United States
- France
- Switzerland
- South Korea
- Japan
- Germany
- Denmark
Sidebar
If this has you feeling at all pessimistic about America’s pursuit of the economy’s new frontiers, just watch this video of the Space X rocket descending from fucking SPACE Sunday and landing smack dab in the middle of a concrete slab with more grace than a Ray Allen jumper. Now that’s what I call America!
