38Talk:
A Forum for Discussions among Voyagers and Others related to the 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan
From: UNK
Date: 2016 Jan 10, 06:34 +0000
Thanx Frank, I did read it and it's good.... The old saying that the stone age didn't end just cuz they ran out of stones, somehow is reversed here as perhaps the approaching scarcity of whales did hasten the advent of kerosene and its bastard child gasoline,
but they say we don't have to wait til we run out of oil for the oil age to end....and yet whenever solar and alternative energy gets competitive, "they" somehow seem to find a way to lower the price of fossil fuels, to what is now a third of the price so
few years ago. I suppose we are lucky they're not engineering fast growth right whales like the salmon we read about.... random thoughts, just back from the Moby Dick Marathon and I suppose my metaphorical wick is still quite well oiled.... It was so nice
to look out from the new Balcony on the seaside of the new addition to the NBWM and imagine what we looked like coming into New Bedford aboard the Morgan. Mary Bercaw Edwards and her brother from the crew were there today too. Pass this on down the list
for me please.
Sent: Saturday, January 9, 2016 4:34 PM
To: peterwhittemore@hotmail.com
Subject: [38Talk] Article on whaling economics
There's a nice article in The Economist this week on whaling economics. While this will be old-hat for many of us, it's the sort of article that's worth forwarding to your friends who don't see much significance in whaling history for the modern world. This article draws a direct line between the finance system of New Bedford whaling and modern Silicon Valley venture capitalism. Ya can't beat that!
Here's the link: www.economist.com/[...]-whaling-fin-tech.
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www.economist.com
FEW industries involve as much drama and risk as whaling did. The last voyage of the Essex, which inspired Herman Melville’s classic, “Moby Dick ...
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Frank Reed
Conanicut Island USA
PS: I haven't read The Economist in over a year. I have a love/hate relationship with its very long, well-written articles. Each issue demands to be read cover-to-cover but if I fall behind, O the Guilt! I came upon this article via an indirect route. Last
night over dinner at "J22" (a nice new restaurant here on the island), I was having a rambling conversation with another local that ranged from Putin to Pitcairn Island, and he started talking about the economics
of whaling. And here we are...
