As with everything else, it appears that the crux of the problem is economic.  However, there are numerous other elements to this, that it seems that the scientific aspect of this is almost too narrow of a view.

In the first place, we have a society that has become overly litigous, which is directly related to the fact that the current social view is that there must always be someone to blame for everything that happens.  As a result, we see corporations adopting this view when it comes to setting policies, and for making the difficult business decisions necessary to be successful.  There are few companies today that would willingly take some losses or risk, to establish themselves for a more secure future, since this would bring the howls of derision from investors and, no doubt, heads would roll.

Similarly we see government budgets and spending completely out of control with a never-ending stream of demands.  Despite the desire to trim back government, the reality is that it would be disastrous for the majority of companies that currently hold huge government contracts.

Add to this the need for funding (public or private) for scientific research and the results are no different.  Just as students/teachers are expected to quantify their progress, so is every corporate/government project expect to quantify (and justify) it's existence.

While there is certainly a need for accountability, the problem, is that the people holding the purse-strings are invariably those that understand the least of what needs to be done and tend to be risk-averse.

The biggest problem in all of this, is that everyone seems to be discovering that the economic model that we've patterned our society on doesn't actually exist.  In addition, it turns out that nobody actually knows how it's supposed to work and we've managed after numerous decades to build a society that we can't afford to maintain.  There is no job security and the labor markets are forcing competition with third-world providers.  It also appears that the only way anything can occur is if more and more money is taken from people that must work to fund the pet projects of those in government.

I agree that it is a serious problem, but in my view, it extends far beyond the funding issues of the scientific community.   It is also important to distinguish between risk-taking and simply being irresponsible.  Not every scientist is doing important work, and arguably many of them shouldn't be trusted in a 10th grade chemistry lab, let alone running their own projects.

However, in the end, it comes down to a major change being required in our society so that we determine the degree and extent of the wealth-distribution policies of our government, so that it isn't simply a one-way slide to enrich those that already hold too much influence.