8 thoughts on “America’s Industrial Infrastructure”
Maybe the CIA guys doing target selection for Ukraine could do vulnerability assessments of critical infrastructure at home.
People like Palmer Lucky might be our best bet for production as if with putting restrictions on stock buyback and dividends, the primes might not be able to change their culture.
Just the EPA, BATFE, Army Corps of Engineers, state and local ordnances and permitting, anti-war and environmental lawfare, would stop any ramp up of industrial production, starting with mining of raw materials to finishing products in factories. Even if the government just did away with all of that (and it won’t), we face s problem of our own making that can’t be overcome in anything like a wartime response: we’ve reduced our dispatchable electric power sources in the delusional “transition” to [not really] renewable energy sources to the point where we simply don’t have enough reliable grid power to increase our production of anything.
On top of that, the youngsters who would have to pull it all off are illiterate, innumerate, and have never built anything in their lives. But they do know how to whine…
Your last comment, about todays youngsters, reminds me of the numerous WWII ace fighter pilot bios I have read. Whether an American (Bud Anderson, Robert Johnson, Chuck Yeager etc) or British (Douglas Bader, Johnnie Johnson, Robert Sandford Tuck etc) or even German (Eric Hartmann, Adolf Galland, Gunther Rall etc.) there is a common thread in their youth (and I don’t think it was unique to them leading to their military success but instead I think it was just how life was in the 1930’s) they all led young pre-teen/teen lives of adventure (days longs camping, hunting trips without adult supervision, going to sea on merchantmen etc.) that would today result in their parents being brought up on abuse charges. Even my own youth in the late 60’s to mid 70’s spending all day away from home, walking country roads with a .22 rifle, building treehouses, damming creeks, coming home well after dark is totally foreign to kids today. Except for maybe those who truly do led an abused life, ironically.
True, but that still isn’t quite the same thing as riding horses miles up into the mountains with a couple of other 14 year olds and living on fish they catch and squirrels they shoot for a week. Without a cell phone or radio or even a flashlight.
The author seems to conflate optimized systems with fragile systems. The problem that is missed here is that just-in-time systems (and the like) ship and store a variety of goods, many which aren’t essential. So there is a lot of hidden slack in these systems.
On the point of “endurance” versus “resilience”, I think the real difference is between disaster preparedness and disaster recovery. Endurance is really about disaster recovery (one can extend from disasters to other sorts of shocks). Disaster preparedness is about doing stuff ahead of time that mitigates or even eliminates the effects of disaster.
For example, if your city floods and government ships you a bunch of sand bags to protect property and control existing flooding, that’s disaster recovery. They are acting after the disaster occurs. Prepositioning those sand bags ahead of time so that you can do that quickly is disaster preparedness. One needs both in order to be resilient to that flooding disaster.
It’s common to slight disaster preparedness. Nobody except the current chump in command will get blamed if the sand bags aren’t there.
Maybe the CIA guys doing target selection for Ukraine could do vulnerability assessments of critical infrastructure at home.
People like Palmer Lucky might be our best bet for production as if with putting restrictions on stock buyback and dividends, the primes might not be able to change their culture.
Just the EPA, BATFE, Army Corps of Engineers, state and local ordnances and permitting, anti-war and environmental lawfare, would stop any ramp up of industrial production, starting with mining of raw materials to finishing products in factories. Even if the government just did away with all of that (and it won’t), we face s problem of our own making that can’t be overcome in anything like a wartime response: we’ve reduced our dispatchable electric power sources in the delusional “transition” to [not really] renewable energy sources to the point where we simply don’t have enough reliable grid power to increase our production of anything.
On top of that, the youngsters who would have to pull it all off are illiterate, innumerate, and have never built anything in their lives. But they do know how to whine…
Trump could invoke the Defense Production Act. Would bypass the above.
Your last comment, about todays youngsters, reminds me of the numerous WWII ace fighter pilot bios I have read. Whether an American (Bud Anderson, Robert Johnson, Chuck Yeager etc) or British (Douglas Bader, Johnnie Johnson, Robert Sandford Tuck etc) or even German (Eric Hartmann, Adolf Galland, Gunther Rall etc.) there is a common thread in their youth (and I don’t think it was unique to them leading to their military success but instead I think it was just how life was in the 1930’s) they all led young pre-teen/teen lives of adventure (days longs camping, hunting trips without adult supervision, going to sea on merchantmen etc.) that would today result in their parents being brought up on abuse charges. Even my own youth in the late 60’s to mid 70’s spending all day away from home, walking country roads with a .22 rifle, building treehouses, damming creeks, coming home well after dark is totally foreign to kids today. Except for maybe those who truly do led an abused life, ironically.
Seen many a life story of troublemakers going on to have great military careers.
Make keggers great again
Yes, but we also have a lot of “maker” kids who do like to build things.
True, but that still isn’t quite the same thing as riding horses miles up into the mountains with a couple of other 14 year olds and living on fish they catch and squirrels they shoot for a week. Without a cell phone or radio or even a flashlight.
The author seems to conflate optimized systems with fragile systems. The problem that is missed here is that just-in-time systems (and the like) ship and store a variety of goods, many which aren’t essential. So there is a lot of hidden slack in these systems.
On the point of “endurance” versus “resilience”, I think the real difference is between disaster preparedness and disaster recovery. Endurance is really about disaster recovery (one can extend from disasters to other sorts of shocks). Disaster preparedness is about doing stuff ahead of time that mitigates or even eliminates the effects of disaster.
For example, if your city floods and government ships you a bunch of sand bags to protect property and control existing flooding, that’s disaster recovery. They are acting after the disaster occurs. Prepositioning those sand bags ahead of time so that you can do that quickly is disaster preparedness. One needs both in order to be resilient to that flooding disaster.
It’s common to slight disaster preparedness. Nobody except the current chump in command will get blamed if the sand bags aren’t there.