Much of the value of high tech industries lies in the minds of its
employees and the software, data, and knowledge that they generate. (for
example, most stock analysts say that half the value of Microsoft stock
is representative of Bill Gates' brain's value) Seeing an invasion even
a few hours away would enable Silicon Valley businesses to dump their
mainframes onto systems at remote locations, and provided that their
employees for the most part make it out with their brains intact, can
rebuild their company with only minimal losses, possibly as little as a
30-50% loss in value. The defensive advantage of less likely insurable
intangible assets like brains and bytes is that they tend to be highly
portable, while tangible capital assets like lithographic chipmaking
devices and networks are highly insurable and thus easily replaceable as
opposed to being not very portable. High tech industries can operate
defensively in a scorched earth retreat strategy.
While one chipmaking plant can cost upwards of $1 billion, keep in mind
that the big three car makers each spend that every year on developing
one new car model. While Intel and Mocrosoft are the big boys of high
tech, keep in mind that they are no where near as valuable as GM or
Ford.
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@tpk.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/Mikey's Animatronic Factory My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) ------------------------------------------------------------ #!/usr/local/bin/perl-0777---export-a-crypto-system-sig-RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}