From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Oct 29 2001 - 12:19:38 MST
John Clark wrote:
>
> I think the idea of civil defense, that is, protecting the civilian population, is a fine idea.
> The recent move by the USA to stockpile 300 million modern smallpox vaccines is a good
> start even if a bit late. Of course the old civil defense concept of building bomb shelters
> for everybody is crazy in a world where the enemy has 50 thousand or more H bombs.
No, John, it isn't. It's far cheaper and economically stimulating than a
missile defense system, for those facilities can be used for other
purposes, even as one's primary dwelling, though the establishment of
such large inventories of consumables would likely cause business cycles
to become exacerbated, as families would turn to their stockpiles in
downturns and thus reduce consumer spending at a time when it is needed
most.
One could posit that the whole 'just in time' inventory philosophy is
mostly responsible for the relative tempering of economic downturns in
recent decades. Consumers have always operated in such a manner in
respect to needed consumables. Few people today stockpile food and other
supplies like many who survived the Great Depression. Those that do
generally do so in a far more perishable condition (frozen foods) than
previously used (canned, dried, etc).
On a related note, last night I watched the broadcast of the movie
"Blast From the Past" (1997), about a family who spent the last 35 years
cooped up in their bomb shelter after a jet plane crashed on their house
during the Cuban missile crisis, and their son's attempts to get along
in the modern world as a 35 year old virgin living on 1950's points of
view and education in modern day Los Angeles. Pretty funny (nothing like
Monty Python there, but still good).
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