Mr. Blaikie, I think you're spot on. This avoidance of peaks and valleys was exactly the philosophy behind the shipbuilding project: a 30-year arc of time that would prevent shipbuilding initiatives that last for three or four years and then the entire trained workforce having nothing to do for a period of time and leaving the industry. I am a big fan of that long arc of time, that ability for an individual to see themselves pursuing not a job but a career, and a career that will last many years, as well as an industry being able to see a predictable future in which it can invest.
We find that if in the long arcs of time we build only 25 to 30 warships over 30 years, then we've failed, because that is a priming of the pump for other types of innovation and creativity.
When President Kennedy challenged the U.S. to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, the money spent on putting the man on the moon paled in comparison to the other spinoff innovations that occurred. My point is that economic growth happens exponentially when you have a long arc of time beyond the core project. We focus on housing as a national strategy. The spinoff from that will be exponential.