The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 63
Why It's Essential for Congress to Provide Financial
Stimulus to the U.S. Auto Industry
• The Fate of the Industrialized World Hangs In the Balance
• This Is Not Merely an Issue of Protecting a Segment of the Work Force;
it's an Issue of Societal Progress
Originally published November 26, 2008
Innovation has almost always been the stimulus to advance human civilization.
Sometimes the innovations were originally intended for military use and then
adapted for everyday life; sometimes they were specifically meant to improve
the human condition. But as far back as the controlled use of fire and the first
application of the wheel, to gunpowder, sails, moveable type, steam engines,
telegraph, radio, and the electric light bulb, innovations took our primitive species and turned us into relatively sophisticated creatures on the verge of serious
interplanetary exploration.
Along the way the innovations resulted in sky-rocketing economic bubbles, and
then the inevitable financial busts when the booms petered out or failed to meet
