Good to hear from you Keith, REH
-----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 6:38 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Ray Harrell Subject: Re: [Futurework] Some sane talk, especially the structure thing. At 20:55 01/04/2013, you wrote: >http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/opinion/on-the-economy-think-long-ter >m.html?hp&_r=0 >REH Prof Sachs may be good in the diagnostic part of his article but falls down when describing three government policies as the way forward for America, though I'll give him half a mark for one of them -- job training. As to the other two -- infrastructure and low-carbon energy -- he really needs to consult more. Yes, he's quite right in saying that Germany is still doing well and that it's due to their high expertise (and high percentage of apprenticeships) in engineering. In this way Germany is able to export the more sophisticated machine tools and producer goods to China. But German politicians must be aware that China will be copying the more advanced products before too long. It's a moot point whether Germany will always be able to keep ahead in order to have something to export. A similar situation applies to America, too, the difference being that it already exports too little to pay for its consumer goods imports. When we come to infrastructure and low-carbon energy, they're both desirable but we already have one of them! (Sachs can't be reading the morning papers!) It is shale gas. This is mostly methane. With four hydrogen atoms to every carbon atom this is as low carbon a fossil fuel as it's possible to be. He's also got something badly wrong in saying that shale gas fields don't last for more than 20/30 years or so. In conventional natural gas fields, gas may dissipate for many miles before being pumped up. In shale gas fields, however,all the gas is intimately trapped in rock and unless released by fracking it can't move. An individual well will only last for about 20/30 years and can only release gas from a restricted star-shaped cluster of pipes. The gas fields themselves will last centuries, according to some estimates. Maintenance of infrastucture is important but this, like many other 'muscular' part of the economy has become labour-extensive in recent years. It wouldn't do more than nibble at the numbers of the unemployed, particularly of the young, and the long-term unemployed. Keith _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
