Gadfly, you're right of course that that particular oil crash was only about five or six years long....which seems like a lot longer if you're in it, I can assure you. Changed my legal specialty from oil and gas law to commercial bankruptcy.


I've been hearing about the decline of heavy manufacuring in the US since I was a small boy in the early 60s.....

Predicting the end game would require a crystal ball.....I mean, who would have predicted 25 years ago the extent to which the internet would come to dominate both commercial and private life?

Some similarly unexpectedly important innovation may shuffle the whole economic deck. The emerging markets of China and India are properly seen as opportunities....hundreds of millions of new consumers....find something they need (or you can convince them they need ;)) and sell it to them.

I don't think the entrepreneurial spirit is dead in the US....we're still smart, creative, competitive people who need not fear global competition. I wish we would show more initiative in litigating against protectionist countries under the WTO, but tariffs won't turn back the clock to the time after the War when we were the only intact industrial collosus in the west.....that was a happy historical accident.

Proudly representing oil companies, defense contractors, and firearms manufacturers since 1980. Because merchants of death need lawyers, too.