--- Alberto Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The margin of the refinery drop too low, and > Capitalists > won't invest in things that don't have an > _immediate_ > high return.
You're kidding, right? Just to pick an example from my old industry, a pharmaceutical company will spend on average ~$800MM to develop a drug, and that development process (from molecule to market) averages ~10 years. This is not anyone's definition of an immediate high return. This is one of those myths that people want to believe, I think. > But it's not exactly true [*] that no new refinery > was build, > because those that exist are upgraded regularly to > 2x, > 4x, etc their initial capacity. > > Alberto Monteiro This is absolutely true, and something I said a few minutes ago in a talk with my Mom on this same topic. It is also true, though, that despite these improvements in capacity, US refining capacity was running flat-out even before Katrina, and this is not a good thing and something that really needed to be alleviated with some new construction. Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
