Agreed and well said. I remember a report in the past year that showed the more consolidated an industry, the greater the amount of profit driven inflation. I think that helps show your point that it’s monopolistic power that’s enabling these companies to do this and that is what needs to be addressed, not interest rates.
So I went back to the Wiki entry and I made a mistake - There was a footnote about a submersible built by Richard Fossett called the DeepSea Challenger that was first to use the carbon polymer design, which is what the Titan’s design was based on. Anyways, Fossett died before he could use his personal sub, Virgin Oceanic bought it and got it tested (because Richard Branson wanted to use it), but that testing determined that it could only be used once, so they never bothered to use it after that. So I guess the main lesson that Rush learned from all this is to not get the carbon polymer sub tested because that’ll just confirm it shouldn’t be used more than once.
If you read the Wikipedia entry on the Titan submersible, it mentions somewhere that the original designer only intended it as a one time use vehicle. That doesn’t inspire confidence.
The reports I heard said communication was lost when the sub was at a depth of 3300 meters, not feet. But yeah, carbon fiber seems like a bad choice and the thing was an implosion waiting to happen.
I knew he was an ass, but this takes it to an entirely new level. Almost every expert in the matter was telling Stockton Rush that the Titan would implode and he ignored them for over 6 years. Not only that, he actively sued a whistleblower and essentially threatened him with bankruptcy to prevent him from going public with the very legitimate safety concerns. And he also organized the dives and payments in such away as to avoid any kind of regulation or penalty whatsoever.