I don't give a rat's ass about Edison or say Ford's personal political or religious or whatever belief they ascribe, I deal in reality.
You want my personal belief why we are in decline, as a nation, two things.
The ascent of religious environmentalism and the evolution of conservatism to some sort of group stupidity.
Our energy problems have been staring us in the face for over 40 years.
It is just like the transition of wood to coal and coal to oil, we are in another transitional period, as we switch to another form of stored energy.
We have been using stored solar in the form of fossil fuels, and we will probably continue to use them till they run dry.
But we have a chance to shape our own destiny, and we are doing nothing really by comparison to prepare for the future, while we are looking back and dreaming of past glory like idiots, Germany, Japan and Spain each, now generate more solar energy than we do.
Considering what huge energy hogs we are, not to mention those are much smaller compact countries. ref:
http://1bog.org/blog/top-10-countries-using-solar-power/
We need companies developing this stuff in this market sector, other govts support this and without it we are (US priv business) not on a level playing field.
We are losing badly in many industrial areas because of it.
All your free capitalist talk is sheer utter nonsense, it is a modern world it is not 1800, countries compete against countries and their govt. subsidizes what is not profitable research because private won't do if there is no short term profit in it.
While big oil makes ever larger profits based on the successful application of their business model on the world, the USA is being bled to death defending that model, with our gold, and the blood of of our soldiers.
I love my country and I want it to endure into the next millennium.
The only way out of our pit is to generate our own energy.
This brings me to the second problem, religious environmentalism.
This in itself is just as stupid as those that refuse science and the rational method of thought.
No matter how infinitesimal the species it must be preserved, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST.
What has happened is the environmental laws are being controlled by another group of fanatics that defy logical thought.
This is compounded by institutional changes in their funding.
They get to keep part if not all the fine money to fund their own salaries.
Whoever changed the EPA into that mode with what they thought was a brilliant gov cost cutting idea, turned them into mini capitalist machines that have to earn their own budget (and bonus).
It just proves that you reward some greed, and even govt workers get efficient.
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