Non-disclosure agreements: This supposes that a scientist is/was hired or under contract to someone, which usually happens AFTER he has attained some experience as a scientist. But we have lots and lots of scientists, all around the world, and in previous decades and centuries, that were not under any contract. And yet they also all held to a Round Earth. And I am sure that every one of them knew that the first one to prove the "true flatness" would get fame and fortune and the cute lab assistants. Do you really believe that ALL scientists, everywhere on earth, for the past four or more centuries, were crooked and were being paid off??
Not to be catty, but your grasp of economics is as simplistic as your attitude about scientists. Money is not made out of thin air. In the US, it is necessary that the Federal Reserve purchase Treasury bonds in order to issue an equivalent amount of currency.