Quote:
Originally Posted by Prometheus
Obama's green economy of the future is such a failure even the New York Times cannot ignore it:
|
Maybe some of this technology is being stifled to protect certain interests. There is some Green Tech that might actually be so good that it would be bad for the economy. For example, ultracapacitors. In the not too distant future we will have ultracapacitors that will give us an 80 km range on our vehicle. The need for oil would be reduced dramatically, eliminating a vast number of jobs in Alberta, the Middle East, etc. Ultracapacitors last practically forever (over 1 million cycles), so there wouldn't be a lot of repeat business. The vehicle itself would have no moving parts except for the wheels and breaks, so the auto parts and service industry would be greatly affected. So maybe Green Tech is being engineered to fail.
Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia on how corporations will manipulate markets.
The Great American streetcar scandal (also known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy and the National City Lines conspiracy) refers to allegations and convictions in relation to a program by General Motors (GM) and a number of other companies to purchase and dismantle streetcars (trams/trolleys) and electric trains in many cities across the United States and replace them with bus services; a program which has been blamed by some for the virtual elimination of effective public transport in nearly all American cities by the 1970s. The lack of hard information about what occurred has led to intrigue, uncertainty, inaccuracy and conspiracy theories. The story has been explored many times in print, film and other media, notably in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Taken for a Ride and The End of Suburbia.
During the period from 1936 to 1950, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines were involved in the conversion of over 100 electric surface-traction systems into bus systems in 45 cities including Baltimore, Newark, Los Angeles (mainly the "Yellow Cars"), New York City, Oakland and San Diego. In 1946, Edwin J. Quinby, a retired naval lieutenant commander alerted transportation officials across the country to what he called "a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilities—your Electric Railway System". GM and other companies were subsequently convicted in 1949 of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products via a complex network of linked holding companies including National City Lines and Pacific City Lines. They were also indicted, but acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies.
By the time of the 1973 oil crisis, controversial new testimony was presented to a United States Senate inquiry into the causes of the decline of transit car systems in the US. This alleged that there was a wider conspiracy—by GM in particular—to destroy effective public transport systems in order to increase sales of automobiles and that this was implemented with great effect to the detriment of many cities.
Only a few US cities have surviving effective rail-based urban transport systems based on tram, metro, or elevated train; notable survivors include New York City, Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. There is now general agreement that GM and other companies were indeed actively involved in a largely unpublicized program to purchase many streetcar systems and convert them to buses, which they often supplied. There is also acknowledgment that the Great Depression, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, labor unrest, market forces, rapidly increasing traffic congestion, taxation policies that favored private vehicle ownership, urban sprawl, and general enthusiasm for the automobile played a major or possibly more significant role. One author recently summed the situation up as follows: "Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction."