Well, I am such a researcher, and so what I say to you applies just as much to myself: Sucks to be you. The privilege of working on what interests us in a low-pressure academic environment is not a god-given right; it depends on convincing those who pay for it - ultimately, the whole of the public - that we are a good investment. In the end we cannot make any honest argument for that except "Do you want to know how the universe ticks, or not?" Well, maybe they don't. Or maybe their understanding-the-universe dollars could, right now, be spent in better places. If so, sucks to be us. We'll have to go earn six-figure wages selling algebra to financiers. Woe, woe, woe is us.