OrionWorks wrote:
I learned some time ago that when I go to the races it's a good betting strategy to wager that your opinions will make a place.
These are not my opinions. That's why I cited all those books. These are facts, teh opinions of experts, and observations such as the fact that GM sells no hybrid cars, even though their arch-rival Toyota has sold a million of them. That is an extraordinary fact, nearly unprecedented in the annals of commerce.
Historians often wonder how the early 19th century gap between industrialized England and the undeveloped U.S. came about. The two countries had the same language and traditions, but for a long time the U.S. lagged, and purchased technology from England. It seems puzzling. Yet that gap was not 20-years wide. Serious steam railroad construction began in the 1830s and 40s. (1829, Liverpool & Manchester RR.) In 1830 there were no railroads in the U.S., but the boom was beginning. The first rails and locomotives were imported from Britain. U.S. manufacturers such as Rogers began building locomotives, and quickly surpassed the British. By August 1860 Rogers had shipped 946 locomotives, and competing firms had shipped hundreds more. The U.S. had more railroad track then the rest of the world combined. What has happened with GM today is analogous to an imaginary situation in which, by 1850, 20 years into the railroad revolution, the U.S. had imported thousands of locomotives and not manufactured a single one.
- Jed
