I wasn’t disagreeing with the part of the Auto and Steel industry. I made the statement that we’re going backwards if that’s where we need to get our jobs from. It’s no longer necessary for our kids to go to college if the BEST jobs our there are the Auto industry and Steel industry.
I misunderstood, I agree with your point.
Your next Panasonic camera (digital, of course) will likely come from China, Thailand or Malaysia.
Actually, my next camera is probably going to be a nice 4x5 wooden field camera. I have digital cameras, but I prefer film.
I agree that asia has figured out how to “do globalization” more effectively than the U.S. The abundance of resources in the U.S. might actually be a hinderance to “post-industrial” development.
Agree the programs will have to be very significant, but the economic well-being of the whole country will soon dictate that very drastic programs are enacted.
The Canadian government has staked a great deal on (1) carbon sequestration, (2) alternate fuels from cellulose, (3) breakthrough energy efficiency (4) wind and solar power, and a few others. It subsiizes all these development efforts.
There is no truth to the rumor it subsidized the Blackberry, but the R&D was of course tax deductibel.
None of this is done because of fuel shortages, but to address climate change and have something to sell the rest of the world. Canada has no interest in nuclear weapons, but used its experience gained in the Manhatten project to develop its own kind of nuclear power (CANDU)as well as use radiation isotopes for medical application (world’s largest supplier) and food preservation.
Actually, my next camera is probably going to be a nice 4x5 wooden field camera. I have digital cameras, but I prefer film.
I read an article that film will be gone by 2015. I have a couple film camera’s…but I prefer my digital for what I shoot.
Did oil paint disappear when film was invented?
I suspect you will have to by film in art stores at some point, just like you have to buy specialty films, photographic paper, and chemicals now. But I believe film will be around long after I’m gone. It will probably get expensive.
Kodak has phased out all their consumer film manufacturing except for China, which is now the world’s largest maker of the stuff. Fuji will be in the businessfor some time to come as well. Comsumer photo film is now a 3rd world business. Polaroid has stopped making instant cameras, but film will still be availble from third parties. Walmart still carries the film/battery cartridges.
Kodak and othes have kept their X-Ray and other industrial film divisions, since these are highly profitable.
I would rather see gasoline prices increase by $0.50/year for 10 years than increase by $1.50 in one year and drop by $0.50 the next year
Hmmm. Didn’t Tom and Ray have a “modest proposal” a year or so ago that was exactly that? Only, instead of the extra cost going into the pockets of oil producers and companies, it goes to providing services to us.
Oil prices do need to rise at a fast enough pace that we take demand reduction seriously, but not so fast that we can’t adjust to it without massive dislocations. I think the worst of all worlds is the occasional price spike (which causes great pain), followed by a long period of stability (where we get used to high prices and quit trying to conserve).
Ilford makes very high quality photo supplies, they were probably the best all along anyway:
http://www.ilfordphoto.com/home.asp
I don’t know who does color stuff these days, but I never use color film anyway. I agree that the consumer grade stuff will probably disappear.
An excellent book on the sunject of Industrial Strategy is Michael Porter’s “The Competitiveness of Nations”, sort of a seqaul to Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”. Porter, a prof at MIT, describes the premise that each country has some natural talent and specific natural resources to become leader in their niche fields.
For instance, Sweden has water power, forests and iron ore. This, with a lot of great inventors (Nobel,de Laval, Ericsson, etc.) allowed it to become a leader in pulp and paper manufacturing and also producing the equipment for it. It also became a world leader in high quality steels, and metallurgical processes. Sweden branched out in other manufacturing, with high quality always setting the tune. With only 8 million people you can’t become a mass production world supplier.
Sweden’s social political system also allowed it to become a leader in automotive safety,and environmentally friendly products.
Other countries examples of specialization are:
Finland: forest products and forest products engineering, arctic Ice Breakers (they even built the Russian ice breakers), large diesel engines for marine and power generation, cross country skis, Nokia phones (the only “odd product”)
Netherlands (Holland); a long time world trading and colonizing nation. Banking (Dutch bankers financed both sides during the Amercian Revolution), Insurance, shipbuilding, agricultural products(flowers, cheese, meat producs, etc.) and agricultural engineering, hydraulic engineering (1/3 of country below sea level), oil exploration and production (Shell)
Japan; no resources, but very disciplined and precision focused work force. Imports all materials and energy. Electronics, high quality hardware and appliance, tools, shipbuilding, quality food addtives (Ajinomoto), recycling paper, steel, etc., cars, small tractors, motor cycles, power plants, etc.
Canada; abundant resources of ALL kinds. Small population, close to US. Can basically live off producing and upgrading resources, but because of British heritage, became manufacturer and banker/insurance country as well.
Current strengths are Pulp & Paper engineerign & construction, mining engineering, power plant and hydraulic enginering, oil, gas & chemical plant engineeirng, nuclear power plants eng.& construction. Consumer products include snowwmobiles, cars (2.8 million /year), high tech products such as Blackberry, telephone switching systems.
Aerospace grew out of long distances and communication needs with the Alouette satellite being one of first communcation satellites in the seventies. NASA uses many Canadian components in the shuttle program.
Industrial pruducts mostly in aerospace, railway equipment, oil & gas production and processing equipment. All these actvities allow Canada to import low tech and consumer electronics, sporting goods, tropical fruits and vegetables, etc. and still run a substantial trade surplus, while exporting oil, gas, uranium, nickel, lead, zinc, cars (1000,000/year), airplanes, trailway equipment, oil and gas equipment and engieerign services. Canadian compnies are constantly shifting production up the tech. ladder and devolving low tech activities overseas.
If you mean government takeover of petroleum production, that’s already been tried in Russia and a few other places. It didn’t work out as well as our current system. Increased regulations don’t sound good to most of us either. If you want to try that though, try it with hamburgers first. You can’t raise the price of burgers because of regulation X.
But on a similar subject…What is more efficient, or environmentally friendly, or cheap…electric cars that run on utility supplied electricity (Charged at night during off-peak hours), or gasoline powered cars?
If batteries could be made light and powerful enough (as well as cost-effective), electric cars would win hands down, since emissions can be much more easily controlled at a central source. Most car companies know this already, but it takes rapidly escalating gas prices and looming shortages to get them to spend billions on Research & Development to get the plug-in hybrid off the ground.
The government could help by using a stick and carrot approach to speeed up the R & D, but it is likely that those superbatteries will be developed in Asia first.
If you generate electricity by nuclear, hydro or other renewable source, you have almost no CO2 emissions if you went all electric.
Since there is a nasty limit on ENERGY DENSITY (kwhrs/cubic foot or pound)for batteries, we will have to be satisfied with plug-in hybrids initially.
I agree, the size and weight of batteries have been the limitation for decades. A pound of fuel (gasoline) contains something like 20,000 BTU of useable energy, and there are about 7-8 pounds in a gallon. Also, you can refuel your gasoline car in a couple of minutes, unlike recharging a battery. Until EVs can compete with this performance, they will not replace internal combustion vehicles for general use. I do expect to see more use of EVs in specialized applications.
Autos and steel employ all kinds of people; engineers, accountants, HR specialists, marketing, designers, managers. There are opportunities for college graduates as well as high school graduates. Why do you think that they only employ hourly workers?
Yes, they’re great for fork lift trucks, power tools, and my new rechargeable lightweight lawnmower which cuts for about 1.5 hours. When the grass is too long, I need to cut it in two stages, or buy anextra battery.
For those in the Northland,
Is there, or is there not, a large supply of oil in North and South Dakota that the
US oil industry is just sitting on?
Is this easy to get to / drill or not easy to drill? and WHO is slowing down the process ?
I keep thinking about buying a rechargeable lawnmower, it seems like a lot less hassle than dealing with gasoline, oil, and noise.
We bought a very light one, a Neuton, since my wife does not like heavy lawnmowers. One charge normally does the job. You can buy more powerful units from Black & Decker, Ryobi, and others. They have a 22 inch cut and much larger batteries. I still have my faithful Lawn Boy of 1986, one of the last good US made mowers with a magnesium deck and indestructable 2 cycle motor. Recommend buying 2 batteries, just like with power tools.
Mike in NH
Not sure how observant you are, given that you are misspelling Gulf consistently! Also, Texaco as bought by Chevron, which may have something to do with the lack of Texaco brand stations.
Yes, geologically speaking, there is still a lot of oil to be developed in that region, but it will not be cheap. However, compared to what the US imports, it can’t begin to close that gap, since other areas (Alaska, etc.) are slowing down in output at this time.
There is also a large amount of shale oil, tied up in rocks, in the West. This is extremely expensive to get out and will need a grat deal of water (which is not available locally) or generate incredible greenhouse gasses if an other process is used.
So all the cheap oil is basically developed; very deep oil in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore Alaska, and difficult deposits on land are all the new areas that remain for the US.
This would entail the socialization of the Petroleum industry here in the US and you will find that this runs counter to the capitalist system we rely upon here in the US to drive the engine of our economy. That said, many socialists would probably agree with you, however this action would have worldwide ramifications in the global economy, and probably cause the US stock market to go through something worse than $5 per gallon gasoline’s impact upon our economic system here in the US. Furthermore, if the US government nationalized the petroleum industry here in the US, the oil producers would probably move their production from the US to a nation that didn’t intrude upon their business in such a drastic manner.
We must keep in mind that companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron earn most of their profits OUTSIDE of the US and not on gasoline sold in the US. They also contribute millions and millions of dollars in taxes to the US government, and if you drive them from this country, so too will you drive out that tax revenue as well. Therefore, look for your taxes to increase dramatically to make up for this shortfall.
The recent low level of the US dollar is somewhat more to blame for rising energy prices than the “obscene profits” of the “big oil” companies. We must keep in mind the US and state governments earn about 65 cents, tax free, for every gallon of gasoline sold in the US, whereas US oil companies earn about 16 cents per gallon before taxes. Now, who is the real gasoline gouger here? We must not let political rhetoric from the Congress lead us down the false roads of a promised land like they have done for the last 30 years. We have seen it now, and it is a dead end.
A better solution is promote fuel economy, alternatives to petroleum based products, and for the immediate creation of government tax credits for any company, or individual, that brings to the market, alternatives to oil based products. We must keep in mind that automobiles are not the largest consumers of petroleum. We must consider diesel fueled trucks that deliver just about everything the US consumer uses, home heating oil, and petroleum fueled power plants that bring you electric into your homes and businesses. We require immediate and long term solutions for these consumers, perhaps even more so, than for automobiles and gasoline consumption.
The US Congress has had 30 years since the first oil shocks of the 1970’s to create working solutions to the high priced fuel oils in today’s market and they have chose to do little to solve these problems. It is time for Congress to admit their mistake and create a workable energy policy that allows for drilling in previously restricted areas, the creation and expansion of US refineries, and for the advocation through tax credits, the creation and widespread delivery of alternative fuels to repower and replace the US demand for oil based products in the US.