Vaporware is one of my all time favorite terms. Back in the old days when I was in the information technology world, we used it to refer to manufacturer's products that existed in word or paper, but not physically. 

For a long time I have listened to the intelligencia explain how America was transitioning to from a manufacturing/production economy, to a services economy, and now on to an information/financial economy. Going from the dirty environmentally unfriendly world of making things to the higher level, pristine, green world of knowing about things and having money. We have been told that any nation can make things, that indeed many if not most are better (cheaper, higher quality, etc.) at it than America. That America’s new economic horizon is the information we create, posses and know how to utilize. Information is king, that the possession of, and ability to make use of information, is our value and our future. This concept permeates many facets of our nation. The herds require buzz words & buzz thoughts to guide them as onward they march. The business world, with its vast legions of management, that knows nothing about the company’s products, march in endless legions of consultants to tell them what to do next. Hell even our military buys into it, the thought of push button, satellite guided, robotic warfare, keeping or troops out of harms way is virtually irresistible.

Back in the 80’s I worked for a large insurance company. They insured over 50 million Americans. They had massive data processing centers with multi-million dollar mainframe computer systems and hundreds and hundreds of washing machine sized disk drives. Today, a scant 20 years later, I have more raw computing power and disk storage capacity on my desktop than that company had. From an information perspective, I could move that entire company to any where in the world in a day merely by picking up my PC and boarding an airplane. Information has no natural home.

So I pose the question, will we be better off when we have ridded ourselves from the production of physical products, and have become a nation who produces no physical products, we just create and process information?

Well, you can’t eat thoughts, ideas won’t shelter you from the rain, and copyrights won’t make you warm or get you to work today. A lawsuit won’t stop a thief. Will we be better off?  When I was in college, oh so long ago, everyone was decrying our balance of trade deficit, in particular at the time with Japan. Our professor summed it up this way…an American buys a Japanese TV, we have the TV, they have an IOU, good only if we honor it.  Physical possession is nine tenths of the law, doesn’t that hold for our economy?

Somehow, somewhere, when times get rough, just as we will find we’ll need soldiers on the ground, we will find that we need to be able to make our own stuff. Look at World War II.  Europe  and the Far East where under the control of the Axis Powers (with notable exceptions like England). The United States tipped the War to the Allies  because it was self-contained economic juggernaut that supplied everything from tanks, to oil, to food. We out produced our enemies and thus the Allied Armies where able to be victorious.  If we found our selves in that position today, the World at war, Europe & Far East over-run and the hands of our enemies, would the outcome be the same? I think  not. Those who have not learned the lessons of history are bound to receive painful refresher courses. Apparently the Type Ones have learned a lot,  how about the rest of us?