Silicon Graffiti: "Rendezvous With Scarcity"

Ronald Reagan began his political career as an FDR supporter. Beginning in the 1960s, he took to using FDR’s iconic "Rendezvous with Destiny" phrase in many of his most important speeches. But these days, it’s looking like the next few years—maybe even a big chunk of the next decade—could very well be a rendezvous with scarcity. As we note in the latest edition of our "Silicon Graffiti" video blog, it didn't start with the financial crisis of September of 2008. Flashback to:A division of General Electric spending millions of dollars of valuable television airtime to encourage consumers not to use light bulbs, one of GE's chief products. A future president telling potential voters they can't heat their homes and drive large cars to the degree they've become accustomed, and a former president saying, "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."Well, Mission Accomplished, old sport!Plus calls for the New, New Deal, back when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was well over 12,000 points, and Tom Brokaw begging the president for four dollar gas--consumers be damned! You and I have a rendezvous with scarcity—a destiny that for some is already here—and for the rest of us may be arriving all-too soon. Because a surprisingly wide swatch of the nation's elite apparently wants us to have just that. (Assuming your broadband isn't too scarce, click here for a couple of dozen previous editions of "Silicon Graffiti.")

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Entertainment

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• reagan
• roosevelt
• fdr
• rendezvous with destiny
• obama
• ge