Free Republic

McCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash., March 9, 2009 – For Air Force Tech. Sgt. Nicholas Thompson, there is no such thing as making a mistake. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Nicholas Thompson, with the 62nd Airlift Wing at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Wash., is one of a small group of airmen responsible for the safety, security and reliability of a part of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. U.S. Army photo by Benjamin Faske  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. He is one of a small group of Air Force men and women responsible for the safety, security and reliability...

The corporate raiders of the 1980s first worked out that you might be able to make more money downsizing, or even breaking up industry than building it up. It is a perverse result of the profit motive that private gain should grow out of public decay. But even the corporate raiders never dreamt of making deindustrialisation into an avowed policy goal which the rest of us would pay for. What some of the cannier Green Capitalists realised is that scarcity increases price, and manufacturing scarcity can increase returns. What could be more old hat, they said, than trying to make...