From: "John Beamish" 

Sheesh ... it was intended as a general statement showing the necessity for
trade.  One can always find some specific examples where there are
substitutions (wind power for water power is but one example).


On Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:20:32 -0500, Phil Payne
 wrote:

> "John Beamish"  wrote in message
> news:op.tm8f89e0m6tn4t{at}dellblack.wlfdle.phub.net.cable.rogers.com...
>> That's actually the official economic philosophy of North Korea.  It's
>> called "juche" ("self-reliance") and has some
benefits but the drawbacks
>> significantly outweigh them.  Consider wheat and flour.  Wheat requires
>> nice level fields (to make harvesting easier) and flour requires (cut me
>> some slack here) uneven land so that you can get the power from water
>> running downhill to turn the millstones which will grind the grain into
>> flour.
>
> No slack available.  How did the Dutch feed themselves _and_ drain all
> that
> land?
>
>

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