Your assertion that consumption has increased is compatible with Alexander's article if the quality of the product being consumed has decreased, e.g. people go to the doctor 20x more, but their health is worse than before. Or they go to school for 5 years extra on average, but are worse prepared for a job. In this scenario people are consuming more of an inferior product, and overall getting less utility/dollar spent.
50 years ago you paid $100 to a doctor and $80 of those dollars went towards giving you medical care, whereas now only $10 of those dollars go to giving you medical care. Back then only $20 went to 'overhead', but nowadays $90 goes to 'overhead'. By overhead I mean anything that is not directly germane to giving you care: administrative, taxes, insurance, lawyers, paperwork, even the $15 you spent on driving/parking to get to the hospital. The extra money is thus being destroyed by inefficiencies in the system.
SBIR/STTR funding is non-dilutive but it is far from free. To apply, you:
(1) Spend 1+ month on writing the grant, doing all the paperwork, getting letters of support, etc.
(2) Wait up to a year to see if you got the money. The hit rate is often 15% (on average you need to apply 6 times to get 1).
(3) Get ~$150K if you're lucky for phase 1, and this money is only for research. You cannot use it on lawyers or keep it in a bank. You also have to spend the money in 8 months. And write a report on your progress.
(4) Then apply for Phase II, which can be up to $1M. Even if everything goes right, it will take at the least 2 years since you start applying to get a phase II application.
It's great money if you have all the time in the world and really like writing grants. Or if you have no other choice. But you will pay for it with your time. Also, you will be at a huge disadvantage unless you have a PhD and university contacts. Writing successful grants is a difficult skill that takes a lot of practice, and you will be competing with people that ONLY write grants.
50 years ago you paid $100 to a doctor and $80 of those dollars went towards giving you medical care, whereas now only $10 of those dollars go to giving you medical care. Back then only $20 went to 'overhead', but nowadays $90 goes to 'overhead'. By overhead I mean anything that is not directly germane to giving you care: administrative, taxes, insurance, lawyers, paperwork, even the $15 you spent on driving/parking to get to the hospital. The extra money is thus being destroyed by inefficiencies in the system.
I made these numbers up to illustrate my point.