Innovation means stock market growth? So no innovation happens at any university for instance? Or private companies? And the stock of e.g. United Healthcare Group going up doesn't mean that any innovation happened whatsoever.
Why do so many people, especially on HN, confuse market cap or GDP growth for innovation? Surely, especially here, people can realise that innovation can come in different forms, and some do not move the needle of a stock market or won't show up in GDP graphs. Is CERN not innovative because it's not a public company whose stock is growing?
> Why do so many people, especially on HN, confuse market cap or GDP growth for innovation?
It's not confusion. It's rather an acknowledgement to the reality that to fund a generous welfare state, one needs taxes. To tax, you first need a dynamic private sector economy. Taxing public sector is like shifting money from the left pocket to the right pocket.
GDP or stock market caps are just a proxy for the size of the private economy. Europe has lagged on both. Maybe there is something else which would indicate that European private sector is growing fine and dandy. I am not aware of it. Are you?
CERN innovation is awesome but it will need to be translated into private sector economic activity in order for the society to benefit from it; either directly via products and services, or indirectly via taxation and welfare programs based on that.
The innovation that happens at university level in the EU is mostly a means to get a degree. Most university research leads to nothing but a piece of paper that no one will read. Certainly when someone picks a bachelor, masters or PhD, it's not done out of the wish to later start a company around it.
Why do so many people, especially on HN, confuse market cap or GDP growth for innovation? Surely, especially here, people can realise that innovation can come in different forms, and some do not move the needle of a stock market or won't show up in GDP graphs. Is CERN not innovative because it's not a public company whose stock is growing?