The Industry choice

[Jeff Shannon]

Bulba! wrote:

> .... And note that it
> was definitely not in his personal interest, whoever that
> was, a person or group of persons, as he/they risked getting 
> fired for that.

This doesn't necessarily follow.  The decision-maker in question may 
have received a fat bonus for having found such a technically 
excellent manufacturing process, and then moved into a different 
position (or left the corporation altogether) before construction was 
complete and the power-cost issue was noticed.  That person may even 
have *known* about the power-cost issue, and forged ahead anyhow due 
to the likelihood of such a personal bonus, with the intention of no 
longer being in a bag-holding position once the problem became general 
knowledge.

Of course, this discussion highlights the biggest problem with 
economics, or with any of the other "social sciences" -- there's 
simply too many open variables to consider.  One can't control for all 
of them in experiments (what few experiments are practical in social 
sciences, anyhow), and they make any anecdotal evidence hazy enough to 
be suspect.

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International