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To: t2 who wrote (81792)	9/14/2001 8:27:28 PM
From: Ira Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Individuals and organizations always take the short term economic view unless forced to do otherwise. The reason is simple: They do not pay the full price for the decisions they are making. In the old days of cheap energy, why was it cheap? Simple. The companies that provided energy dug a hole and out it came. (I'm being a bit flippant) The amount they charged for their product was dependent on the exploration, production and distribution costs and a reasonable profit. While they cared about "reserves", the primary objective is to make the most money on net capital employed. Get more to the pump was the goal. During this time, many houses in the USA were not even insulated, even in relatively cold climates. Why? It wasn't cost effective for the individual or the construction company. Why would a contractor spend $1000 to insulate a house if no customer considered that differentiation important? Why would a customer pay for something that had a payback period of more than 20 years at the then current cost of energy? Neither of the "people" involved in the above considered the real cost of what they were doing: Utilizing a finite resource, a highly complex molecule with many uses for mankind and using it only for the energy that can be released from it's chemistry. The real cost is that future generations will have to develop technologies and use energy to produce synthetic versions of molecules we have destroyed in the past. The World Trade Center and Pentagon are examples of the same issue. The airlines and airports make security choices based on the perceived cost of not providing it. They are forced to do security by the FAA, but it is an additional cost to their business and the benefits are not apparent to THEIR BOTTOM LINE. The real cost of poor security only becomes apparent when there is a failure and that failure effects others more than the entity that made the decisions leading to the failure. And of course it gets worse. If any airline and airport decided unilaterally to absolutely cover the security issue, they would go out of business because consumers, not looking at the "big picture", wouldn't have been willing to pay the higher ticket prices required to support this "correct" decision and would fly with "just walk in" airline down the road. The "energy crisis" of 1973 galvanized the nation into a period of efficiency in energy use. The "Attack on America" of 2001 will galvanize the nation into a period of aggressive improvements in security. The cost was high.... Ira

To: t2 who wrote (81792)	9/14/2001 9:48:30 PM
From: John	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

OT -- supporting big oil companies like he has in the past is not the right policy I agree, but this has never been about what is ethically right. It is about money. The new sources of energy on the horizon, including fuel cells, hot fusion, and eventually (hopefully) cold fusion, will serve to significantly erode the profits of the energy companies, which of course have BIG political clout. I believe new energy will slowly emerge in a way that is similar to how Intel, for example, releases product upgrades; Painstakingly slow. They could leap ahead now, to a far faster processor, but why do they want to do that? If they go from a 2.0 GHZ processor to, say, a 5.0 GHZ processor, they will have missed the profits they could have made by releasing 2.33 GHZ, 2.5 GHZ, 2.67 GHZ, 3.0 GHZ, et cetera processors along the way. It is a pretty transparent operation. They squeeze as much water from every sponge as they can, before getting a bigger sponge to dip back into the water. Think "MONEY," and like LG says, "think like a criminal," and you will have the right idea. Incidentally, a lot of smart minds out there in many countries are disclosing evidence of cold fusion which achieves over-unity, but somehow, a working product never seems to make it to the patent office. Now, either they are scam artists, or something else is at work here. Cold fusion has a deep, cult following. Pons and Fleischman aren't being laughed at as loudly as they once were. John