Pat, About your comment: As you sound quite confident that a trillion dollars is not 'credible', might I assume that you have calculated a better figure. I would appreciate it if you shared it with us as well as your method of calculation. it should have been pretty clear that I'm not actually putting a new updated figure on it, but I certainly stand behind the reasons I mentioned for why estimates in $1 trillion range are not reasonable. One thing we have to keep in mind is that in a market economy, if there's some big payback waiting from making obvious investments, managers are generally pretty good about making them. Again, the conversion of the US auto industry to metric part specifications is a good example. For companies that haven't converted (e.g., aerospace) I'm willing to guess there's a sound economic reason in their cases.
The $1 trillion estimate assumes that there's an average 7% return waiting for American businesses because of some simple investment that they just never thought of. Most of these businesses are in the service sector, and have work products that scarcely involve measurement. That promised economic bump would represent about ten times what US economic growth was in the last year. That's just not a reasonable supposition, so we certainly don't need a precise new figure to say with confidence that the $1 trillion figure is wrong. By the way, to risk stating the obvious, we all have the same goals here. Mostly on the Facebook group, I'm the first guy to shoot down the simpletons who say that it would cost too much to convert. And in doing so, I usually cite in part the payback from new efficiencies our economy would gain (as well as the relatively small size of conversion costs within the context of the US economy). But if we're going to convince others, and be an educational resource on this issue for the public, I think we need to make sure we're careful with our facts. -Victor
