John Clark wrote:
> Michael S. Lorrey <mike@datamann.com> Wrote:
>
> >this is what happened in the 30's. There was significant deflation, partly due
> >to a tighttened money supply,
>
> Yes.
>
> >and partly due to overproduction by farmers and manufacturers that only
> >knew one thing: producing.
>
> The idea that the poverty of the 30's was because people got too good at growing
> food that people could eat and too good at manufacturing products that people
> could use is just too silly to debate.
I don't know how much you've read about the period John, but there was serious overproduction,
and prices were far below profitable levels for many if not most farmers (i.e. production
exceeded demand). Food was not transported to market because it would have cost even more,
leading to even greater financial losses, it was left to rot, milk was drained from vats, etc...
>
> > [if we had cheap fusion power] All except for the millions of people who work in
> >the energy recovery, distribution, and generation industries. They'd all be out of work.
>
> No, they'd just be out of the oil business.
And how quickly do you think it would take for them to go into another line of work? And how do
you suggest they pay for the rebuilding of their entire industry base (esp. considering existing
debt levels and little or no income)???? Take a look at Russia right now. Its been 10 years
since their defense industry collapsed (about 50% of their entire economy) and the place is still
a shithole. Russia is a textbook example of what happens when a whole industry becomes obsolete
overnight.
>
> >Since their industries make up some thing like 25% of our economy, at least, then
> >you are talking about a major contraction,
>
> No, because now the nuclear fusion industry would make up 40% of a vastly
> larger economy.
You sure? I don't think so. I'm not talking centralized plants with grids like today, I'm talking
a Mr. Fusion in your basement. Any new industry is not going to be burdened, and will not want to
be burdened by unionized employees. They will automate as much of their manufacturing as
possible.
> >making a whole economy obsolete overnight, or almost overnight will cause
> >a) people to not invest in anything, because they can't be sure if it will be viable
> >or dead 6 months down the road,
>
> Yes, there is a chance every cent of your investment could be lost, but that never
> stopped anyone before so I don't see why it would do so now, because there is also
> a chance your investment could make you filthy rich. 10 years ago when somebody
> invested in a tiny company called CISCO I'm sure the thought crossed their mind that
> they might never see that money again, they took the chance anyway and today are
> very glad they did
Would you have invested in CISCO telephone wire routers if you knew that another technology was
12 months down the road that would give you 100x the capability for the exact same price? I don't
think so.
> >If you magically introduced one of these aircars for a price of about $20,000
> > today, with a production capacity of a million units a year, GM, Ford, Toyota, Daimler
> > Chrysler, et al would all be declaring bankruptcy in short order
>
> Good! A company stupid enough to be ignorant of advances in its own industry and
> ignores such a historic opportunity should go bankrupt; they're just too dumb to live.
I noticed you deleted my explaination for why they'd be screwed no matter how much they wanted to
and were capable of building an aircar.
>
> >and you'd have millions of unionized autoworkers out on the streets unemployed.
>
> Then who is making all those aircars?
Maybe Moller or somebody like him, with a billion dollar fully automated aircar factories that
employ less than 10% of the number of people for the same number of vehicles produced.
>
> > Are you starting to see what I am getting at?
>
> Nope.
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:51 MDT