Joe:
1. " that interatomic distances are 1 to 2 Angstrem, not 5 A."
The lattice parameter in most materials (Interatomic distance in solids like Si) is well approximated by 5 A. I do not know where you get 1A to 2A. In any event, the point is that work is currently going on at 1000 A, and take you number of "several hundred atomic spacings" the current work is getting pretty close to the theoretical limit with current technology. This not exactly a disputable fact.
2. " IBM is not working on interatomic hopping, as such thing does not exist in nature."
Someone must have given Josephson a Nobel prize for something that does not exists in nature, it is called "Tunneling", and IBM has been trying since the late 80' to master the control of single electron tunneling in silicon (an "almost dissipational less mechanism). I do not know the status of this work, it was quite "hush hush" then, and is probably "hush hush" now.
This is a fact.
3. "The world could not reduce defence expenduteres by $1,000B as that was sum total of all such expenduteres, and since now they are not exactly zero, the change was less than total. US reduced defence expenduteres by some 20%."
You must use normal government accounting practices, namely take the existing growth rate of the Def. Dept. in the 10 years prior to 1988 and see where the Def. Expenditure would have been today. The total world GP is about 20 Trillion of which, give or take, 10% to 15% used to be spent on defense, now it is half that much, not only it has not grown, it has, as you said declined by 20% in the US and actually much more than that in the former soviet block. This will yiedld a reduction which might be in excess of the number I cited.
These are "relatively" accurate facts.
4. "It is definetly not a fact that reducing defence expenduteres must, no matter what, from general considerations, improve "general wealth".
The economy consists of sinks and sources (hopefully in balance), if some expenditure did not go to blow somethin to "Kingdom Come", where did it go? Into other, possibly more productive endeavors, that is in my simplistic view, increasing the "general wealth".
5. " Motion of China is NOT a fact,", if it is not, how come China already holds close to $80 B in US treasuries?
"and that whatever Marx wrote is correct is NOT a fact."
Not all that he wrote is "correct, but a lot was quite insightful, whether or not I agree with his "solutions". In any event, I doubt we can say that whatever any economics "thinker" wrote is "correct", from Smith, to Keynes, to Galbraith and to Freedman.
6. " Former SU GDP is way less than it was ten years ago, the country is falling apart.", Hey Joe, here is something we agre on, almost, the term I would use (and it is not more or less "correct or a fact" thatn what you used) would be "has fallen" apart, but the concentration of the former soviet assets (capital) into the hand of a few "aparatchniks" (in essence highway robbers, robbing the Russian population, just as we had recently our own "real estate robbers" getting from the RTC a bunch of Real Estate at under $.5 to the dollar).
Finally, as for the peaking of some industries, they are replaced with the Compaqs, Mercks, Amgens, Intels, Micrososts, Ciscos, Yahoos and many others. You are lamenting the decline of hard labor industries (such as steel and automotive) in the same way that in the thirties people were lamenting the demise of our small farmer with 10 cows, two dozen chickens, a few hogs and a few acres, and half of our population was laboring 14 hours on the farm. Brawn is no longer king, brains are. Today only 2% to 3% of our population are farmers and we export more food stuff than we ever did. And believe me as an experienced "turnip truck driver" that has labored in the field and has piled up high more than one cow dung heap, brains are better.
Zeev |
