Everybody who says that the economy is recovering, and in fact may not be in that bad of shape is correct, I believe. I have seen two items of extreme interest in the last week:
1) An Article in Monday's Austin American Statesman in the TechMonday section about the various high technology projects that the Department of Defense is funding. They included a bionic suit for soldiers that augments strength and senses, and personal helicopter packs.
2) I can't remember exactly what it is, nor can I find the article I saw, but I saw a headline the other day about President Bush giving a private initiative to automobile companies to come up with alternative fuel vehicles.
It seems to me that in recent years, every really major innovation that comes about, does so because the government spurred private industry along with a goodly amount of research money. That is because the technology is quite expensive to develop, and right now there is no guaranteed market for it. Because there is no guaranteed market, or any market at all, there is no refueling infrastructure to speak of, nor is there much knowledge on maintenance and repair of these vehicles.
For those of you haven't really studied the economy, I have something for you. I don't know what the right word is, but this economy is a faith based system. That means that The belief of the people in the resiliancy and efficacy of the economy is required for it to be resiliant and effective. That is ALL that is holding the economy up - the faith of the people. To see what happens when everybody gets scared at the same time, review events circa 1929. Kinda scary when you think about it, but there is no better system, IMHO.