You're totally right. In fact that's one of the main reasons I gave up on an academic career. My collaborators who still rely on grants are miserable, and with good reason.
Dramatically increasing the amount of scientific research grant funding nationwide would be a natural response to this part of the demographic transition and to the idea of promoting college education, but instead we have an academic pyramid scheme that drives huge amounts of raw researcher labor off a cliff and into Starbucks.
