There is a general problem with the strategy of hanging on to the industrial development successes of previous generations and never trying to develop a new industry ... different people weigh the bird in the hand versus the bird, or two, or twenty birds in the bush differently.

This is a more specific industry-specific problem. Peak Oil when it hits hard will slaughter the automobile industry, so irrespective of someone's attitude on the spectrum of "bird in a hand vs two in the bush" ... this is a bird in the hand that is not going to be there for us twenty years from now.

The question is how to create new industries, as previous generations did, and as we in the US stopped doing from the 1980's on.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.