"so fierce that the phrase buggy-whip maker became a business simile for loser"

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I've been thinking about this quote regularly since I first read it in 2015:


"In 1915, as the American economy boomed, the huge supply chain that supported horse-drawn transport—harnesses and horseshoes, wagons and buggies makers (13,000 of them), farriers and blacksmiths, hay balers and feedmills—looked like a robust and vital segment for deploying capital. 1920 was the year of “Peak Horse” in the U.S.. By 1940 it was gone. This was not “low-cost”, incremental progress. It was an economic disruption so fierce that the phrase “buggy-whip maker” became a business simile for loser."


And I thought of it again the other day when I read the headline:


The day oil was worth less than $0 — and nobody wanted it


And then, a few days later, this headline:


Big Banks Pull Financing, Prepare To Seize Assets From Collapsing Oil and Gas Industry


If environmentalists, meaning (I believe or at least hope) the majority of us, find as many ways as possible to seize the moment, I don't see why this couldn't be the beginning of the end for the fossil fuel industry.




[The first quote is from Carl Pope's 2015 article Get Ready for Ugly as "Free Markets" Begin to Deal With Climate Crisis.]



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