[noobermin]

I might be restricting it to government funding, so this might be true. Considering this in the context of the rest of my post, I'd think this kind of money is restricted to practical, applied fields, not quantum gravity. I do suppose once in a blue moon, a wealthy benefactor might want to support a grad student doing string theory. Still, the exceedingly small number of rich people willing to pay out for esoteric physics guarantees it will go to researchers working in those finger-enumerable universities as I said. For the larger pool of physicists across the country that mainly would be paid by NSF grants and the like? They lose out to the condensed matter physicists making leaps and bounds in material science.

On second reading of your post, you may be implying it isn't zero sum due to more money going to the applied physicists, leaving some for the stringy guys. It might be true, my impression is that it isn't enough[0], but I could be wrong.

[0] This is somewhat out of my ass, but it is tempered by colloquia at my university I've attended where this comes up from time to time.