When John McCain does public policy, it's not a pretty sight. Children run and hide under the bed. Women play "Gloomy Sunday" on the old Victrola. Strong men look down and spit on the ground. John is tackling the growing scarcity of fossil fuels and global warming that could exterminate the human race. What's the answer? A prize for a better car battery.

Prizes can be good, as a substitute for patents and copyrights. In return for a prize, a discovery could be put in the public domain for use by all, as that Dean Baker person has explained. Not quite that much thought has gone into the McCain idea, however.

The rights to a revolutionary car battery would be worth quite a bit more than $300 million. It's not clear whether the prize is supposed to purchase rights to the invention. Methinks not. Too much like socialism. If it is supposed to be compensation, it has to be too low. If not, it's not enough to make enough of a difference.

We should be spending a lot more for R&D, not least in the energy field. One problem is finding people to do the R&D. (I'm sorry to sound like George Bush, lecturing simpletons.) We need more scientists, which means helping kids get into and through college to become scientists. With JMC's tax cuts on top of those from G. Bush, there won't be much money for that sort of thing. In fact, earmarks finance some R&D, along with junky stuff. The anti-pork fanatics tend not be distinguish between useful public spending and the other kind, I would say because they really are against all of it.

Private companies only have an incentive to spend for R&D whose profits they can realize. Basic discoveries that can't be privatized tend to be neglected. College is getting less affordable. The smartest kids who do go to college are disproportionately attracted to professions paying the biggest bucks -- in finance, medicine, and law. Anyone waiting for JMC and/or the market to address public needs will be waiting forever.

In my own case, I am working on Maria 2.0. You can see the picture of my prototype. You can be sure I will be keeping all the, uh, benefits for myself. So the incentives in this case are properly lined up.