CRITICS PROPOSE IDEAS FOR RECOVERY

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increasing ...
"Actually, there is a sense of vitality
in industrial research and develop-
ment. Industry's R&D budgets have
been rising steadily since 1972, and last
year U.S. industry spent a record $24
billion of its own funds on R&D for new,
technologies for the 80s and beyond .. .
"THE PROBLEM today is not with
industrial support levels. The problem
is with the declining demand for what
R&D produces. The symptoms are
clear enough and most of you are
familiarwith them...
"One cause is a loss of spirit by the
public. There are proliferating fears of
risk-taking and unfamiliar technology.
These are reinforced by volatile gover-
nment regulation and by loss of con-
fidence in institutions of all kinds.
"When we are not fearful and uncer-
tain, we are contentious. It is a fact that
the United States has four times as
many lawyers per capita as West Ger-
many, and 20 times as many as Japan."
" FROM AN ARTICLE by Prof. Walter
Fackler, in "Issues & Ideas," a Univer-

ds revitalizing


sity of Chicago publication:
"No one can peer ahead at the 1980s
without seeing energy problems. What
can one say except that energy is a
disaster area ... witness what we have
done.
"For years we controlled the price
and underpriced natural gas, and thus
encouraged overuse and misuse of this
premium fuel while running down our
reserves. We even rebuffed the
Mexicans when we could have enlarged
our long-run supply at bargain prices.
"IN RESPONSE TO OPEC we con-
trolled domestic crude oil prices below
world levels and subsidized imports on
a large scale through an entitlements
program.
"We are now decontrolling domestic
oil prices gradually, rather than instan-
taneously, and adding an excess profits
tax on production of domestic oil.
Gradualism here is simply stupid
because it creates large and certain
financial incentives to delay produc-
tion.
"We have made the use of coal inex-

pensive and uncertain by environmen-
tal restrictions on its recovery and use.
I do not say this is a bad thing, but coal
suffers from uncertainty as to the
future'rules of the game.
"We have allowed 'Woodstock
economics' to cripple the development
of nuclear power. I realize there are
legitimate differences of opinion here,
but we have allowed ignorance and
hysteria to crowd out rational
resolution of the issues."
" FROM AN ADDRESS to the annual
meeting of Deloitte Haskins Sells, an
accounting firm, by Alan Greenspan
chairman of; Townsend-Greenspan &
Co., economic consultants, and former
chairman of the President's Council of
Economic Advisers:
"This year OPEC will be running
something in the area of a $100 billion
surplus, which means that. there's a
$100 billion deficit to be financed by
somebody...

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