World Wide Competition

[James Robert Crow <jr1crow@mindspring.com>]

I am afraid I have to agree with Roger.  I see no evidence that we as human
being have the intelligence to save ourselves.  The Middle East and Kosovo
are both good examples.

In the US we are experiencing market forces this winter in the form of
higher natural gas prices combined with a colder winter.  My son said that
his December gas bill is 2.5 times higher than it has ever been before, and
one of the board members of our Deming study group said that his had gone
from $70 per month to $395 for the same month.

Look for the US economy to slow.  This is a lot of money that is going
toward heating homes that would have been spent on other things.  I have
just bought a new house.  The home I moved out of I build 18 years ago and
it was a passive solar design with a southern exposure, 6 inch walls and
R30 insulation overhead.  It was a very efficien house in both summer and
winter.  The house I have just moved into is larger with no solar
provisions, if anything the design works against energy efficiency.  Even
though I have the heat turned down to the point that we are cold all the
time I can still feel the money being consumed rapidly.  We have only been
here a week, but already I know that this house will not be nearly as
energy efficient as we one we moved out of.


RC