Since I began this thread 88 days ago on December 3, 2013, there have been 480 Views according to the website record. Remarkably, during the same time frame, there have been more than 6,000 Views at my previous thread: "Proposal: NASA Academy of the Physical Sciences." At last count, that thread now has 146,508 Views. (see #176327 above)

SERIOUS BUSINESS: The common sense to the dollars and cents of my proposed "One Percent Ownership of Patents and Copyrights" is this: the idea is too good to be ignored for long, meaning: if that revenue source is not "used to fund the free public education guaranteed to citizens by law" as I have recommended, it will be certainly used to fund something else. It is utter foolishness to think "Public Education" will necessarily get that revenue source just because "The United States shall have one percent (1%) ownership of each and every copyright and patent issued and registered by the United States government" was my idea first and my only motivation was to fund "free public education." The fact is: I first proposed my funding idea more than two years ago now, and so far no one in "Public Education" has cared enough to support my idea in any way, shape, or form — not even in the least bit. Consequently, the funding idea is now up for grabs and any part of the U.S. government could easily step in and make it their own.

How much money is at stake is something only the Government Accounting Office (GAO) could figure out with any accuracy. In post #176490 above, I gathered what industry information I could in a quick sweep and stated:

Do the math: Already almost $1.3 trillion x 1% = $13 billion
In 2007-08, there were 132,656 elementary and secondary schools in the United States (K-12 in total), 98,916 that were public schools and 33,740 that were private schools.
Source: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_005.asp
Rough math: $13 billion / 100,000 public schools = $130,000 per school per year for STEM education only … and we are still counting! Just consider annual mobile phone sales; and home appliance and TV sales; and automobile and truck sales; and heavy equipment sales; and military defense contract sales; and patented seed sales; and medical devices sales; and medical diagnostic equipment and surgery supply sales; and recreational vehicle, equipment, and gun sales; and … Consider that the 2010 revenues at Boeing Co. totaled $64.3 billion, and probably ever dollar of that was directly related to sales of patented products. Source: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.asp?ticker=BA:US
Certainly, the per school per year funding for STEM education only will approximate at least $260,000, which will pay for five teacher salaries averaging $52,000 per year.

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Since writing that, I have thought of an easier way to ballpark the staggering truth of all this, which is to consider the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and U.S. imports.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
QUOTE: "The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the United States was worth 15684.80 billion US dollars in 2012. ... The gross domestic product (GDP) is equal to the total expenditures for all final goods and services produced within the country in a stipulated period of time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
QUOTE: GDP: $16.8 trillion (2013); GDP growth: 1.9% (2013)
GDP by sector: agriculture: 1.2%, industry: 19%,
services: 80% (2011 est.)
Imports: $2.30 trillion (2013)
Import goods: Consumer goods (except automotive), 23%; capital goods (except computing), 19%; industrial supplies (except crude oil), 18%; crude oil, 14%; automotive vehicles and components, 13%; computers and accessories, 5.4%; food, feed, and beverages, 4.8%; other, 3%.

The question is: How intricately and how deeply is intellectual property (patents and copyrights) at play in the various aspects of the U.S. economy? Certainly, some aspects of "services" in GDP involve intellectual property, but "how much?" is a question I cannot answer.

For purposes here, I will conservatively estimate that 25% of the U.S. GDP involves patents and copyrights in some way, and that 78% of U.S. imports involves patents and copyrights in some way.

U.S. GDP: $16.8 trillion x 25% = $4.2 trillion
U.S. Imports: $2.3 trillion x 78% = $1.794 trillion

$4.2 trillion + $1.794 trillion = $5.994 trillion

$5.994 trillion x 1% = $59.94 billion

My calculations in post #176490 above were based on $13 billion being made available to fund free public education, but perhaps almost five times that amount might be what is truly at stake. Imagine!

What dent could that make? Consider: http://febp.newamerica.net/background-analysis/school-finance
QUOTE: "America spends over $500 billion a year on public elementary and secondary education in the United States. On average, school districts spend $10,314 for each individual student, although per pupil expenditures vary greatly among states, school districts and individual schools. Spending also differs among school districts in the same state and among schools within the same district.

All three levels of government – federal, state, and local - contribute to education funding. States typically provide a little less than half of all elementary and secondary education funding. Local governments generally contribute about 44 percent of the total, and the federal government contributes about 13 percent of all direct expenditures. ...

The federal government spends more than $40 billion annually on primary and secondary education programs. Much of the funding is discretionary, meaning it is set annually by Congress through the appropriations process. Funds flow mainly through the Department of Education although other federal agencies administer some funding for education related activities."

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Well, it looks like the federal government could increase its funding for free public education from $40 billion annually to $100 billion annually without blinking an eye if it ratified my proposed amendment into law.

Steven A. Sylwester