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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (301227)	8/24/2006 10:47:06 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1579112

"the government is a very inefficient spender of our money." Agreed. There is probably a 70% overhead on all federal spending. Less government spending implies lower long term taxes. "Sometimes an industry can't really get started unless massive scale is brought to bear." Yes, and when the government seeds the industry and then gets out of the way it is effective use of government. When they meddle and fiddle, Rome burns. "Space exploration really put us decades ahead of everyone else and boosted our economy to where it is today. I agree with you that the government didn't allow for privatization quickly enough, but we see it starting to happen now with all those space tourist companies coming online." The space industry gave us a technological advantage. It also provided huge incentive for foreign industrial espionage. I guess that would be one of those spin off industrial benefits we hear about? <g> The market for humans in space is now a novelty market, it should mature as greater industrial benefits are realized from microgravity manufacturing. Will man inhabit off planet? I hope so. "There are plenty of examples where government initiative kicked off industries that created massive wealth. I believe energy independence can be another such industry, but we are already losing the race to the Japanese." And the Chinese. I agree. We are for the moment the richest country in the world. We can afford many things that no other country can. Why not take our position and create alternate energy source systems? We can benefit mankind greatly by reducing our reliance on scarce resource extraction. If we happen to get a little richer in the process, that would be ok too. "Should we all just sit back and hope that private industry can overcome all the barriers to entry on its own? It might happen, but I guarantee you it will take twice as long and our national security will become increasingly imperiled as these Islamo-fascists continue to get paid out of our wallets. I'd rather we do something now and impoverish the Islamo-fascists, build a new industry to bring wealth into this country, and do something good for the environment, all in one fell swoop. Think about it. 15 years from today we could be energy independent. What a great legacy for our children." Nice rant! Fifteen years might be overly optimistic, but we should start moving now. Ancient Chinese proverb: When is best time to plant a tree? Seven years ago, next best time is right now. When is the best time to develop and improve alternate energy sources? Let’s go with the next best time.