Think big ! - as in: how much is salvaging the US economy worth? One strategy worth mentioning is based on the fact that this is an election year, and oil may be $200 barrel by then BUT with this kind of earth-shaking transformative technology, whether it comes from Sprain, BLP, MPI, Arata or brand-X (X = whomever can prove it first) -- hey, that puts "anyone with the goods" in a fabulous bargaining position to exert massive political leverage never before seen in the American economy.
This quasi-Federalization of the developmental effort might be highly preferable to a slower free-enterprise Google-type of IPO -- especially, if the inventor values "reputation" (new messiah?) - as well as financial reward. What kind of political leverage is possible? Dunno, but it is worth considering all the options in light of what it might take to literally *save* the US economy - and if getting a product to market a few years earlier than free-enterprise system permits is possible, then value of those two years alone is worth ???? (my guesstimate at the end) If Warren Buffet is right (and his credentials and track record are better than anyone in Government, including Ben Bernanke - and on a par with Greenspan) we are headed towards deep recession and possibly another great depression, due to the trillions of dollars we are exporting to OPEC. I agree with that logic (even the great depression part of it) -- do you? Lets say under normal circumstances, it would require 100,000 man hours of engineering time to get a satisfactory prototype for home power and another 250,000 man hours to build the factories, and develop the mines, etc which are necessary. With an IPO that raised say $10 billion (which alone would drag things out an additional 6 months) you could count on the first product capable of powering a home coming to market in 4 years- at the very least. If that can be cut down to 2 years, with a massive project (even if half the man-hours are wasted in red-tape) then the value to the US economy of that time gained -- and the psychological effect on forcing a big drop in the price of oil, and far earlier is probably half a trillion to one trillion to the overall economy. I suspect that this alone - if enough economists agreed with it- would be worth loan guarantees of easily $100 billion, or ten times more than an IPO could possibly bring in - in order to put into motion a 24/7 effort to chop-off those two years. Think big. Damn the torpedoes- full speed ahead! Jones
