I believe that companies will do exactly as you say "move to more desirable locations". The owndao theory of economics says that says corporations, people, etc. will move from areas of lesser desirability (A) to areas of higher (B) at a rate proportional to the difference in desirability divided by the resistance to change (rate~(B-A)/R). Resistance to change would be things like reluctance of employees to move, costs of moving infrastructure, etc. (R) This will occur until an equilibrium is reached. Destinations that are currently desirable because of cheap labor, low taxes, subsidies will tend to become less desirable as the destination population becomes better educated/informed and insists on higher pay, or government services, and the government realizes that it has this group of businesses that look like a juicy tax income source. There are several easy to recognize examples of this such as Japan, then South Korea, then China...

As businesses try to reduce manufacturing costs through automation or outsourcing, jobs in the industrial sector that actually produce durable goods will begin to disappear. This causes people to move from industrial manufacturing to other available jobs which tend to be non-producing, service-oriented jobs.
People still want the durable products as well as services but find themselves in a lower income bracket. They, as consumers, buy the cheapest durables available which, at this time tend to come from the young, industrial-phase countries. This, of course causes a trend toward more and more wealth leaving the country and flowing to the young industrialists.
At the same time exports fall off as the companies (and countries) can no longer compete in their old cash cow of industry. They move labor and/or manufacturing out of the country to stay competitive. Now, young industrial countries (such as China is today) absorb the lost jobs and manufacturing. Soon the post industrial country has a negative trade balance, the taxable base begins to get smaller and businesses and governments switch to providing services.
As service providers there is a new opportunity to make money but now it is done with no tangible product. As such it cannot be saved or passed down, and it cannot be stockpiled. Not so good for the old-style industrialists who bought and sold companies that had tangible worth. Now products have become agreements, food services (not food), software, engineering, medicine... Unfortunately, no one can eat this, or sell it to someone that has no need for it. One good thing about this new on-demand economy is that inflation cannot reduce the value of something that is ephemeral.
All this time, the government and people are still having to buy tangibles with savings mainly built up in the latter industrial age and still recognized by other nations. With this constant deficit spending, soon this government will have little of worth to the rest of the world and the economy will collapse. This will put the country back into the cycle as a poor pre-industrial country in a world where the natural resources have either been used or are held captive by newly powerful nations.
Sounds gloomy but that's how I see it. Unless a new "product" is discovered by the country before the collapse. I think the ultimate resource in such a world would be technical knowledge and the ultimate products would come from that. I believe the main product could be energy.
One thing the industrial countries and all others in fact, must have is energy. It is the universal product. Perhaps cornering the market in fusion technology, or some other large-scale, abundant/renewable source. People will always want to move from toil to paradise (free time, unlimited resources, yeh! sounds like the Star Trek TNG future) so shouldn't we accept that as fact and prepare for what is to come?
Whether a government job is "at the expense of the rest of us" seems to me to be a minor issue given the job of preparing ourselves for the transition that will follow our post-industrial current state.
I'm curious what others think.

I was truly excited when Obama won the presidency. Unfortunately, it seems that every thing that he talked about before the election (and after, as well) has been implemented as "compromises" that border on travesty. I am disabled, unemployed, living off of my social security "investment" and was so looking forward to the one provider, no pay health care as is available in many capable countries but it looks like this is going to end up being mandatory health insurance, possibly without a government option. What the f***!? Fatalistically, I would say that closing the off-shore tax shelter scam will be a half-assed "compromise". If our elected representatives and leaders can't pull together on something humane like universal healthcare that saves money, lives, time, reduces complexity then they are laughing at removing tax opt-outs for the obscenely money loving companies. Sorry to rant. I just read the news.

Sorry. Generally I would never say such a thing but in this case I think that it's critical that they not be allowed to spread.

Threatening!? I say, nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!

Unfortunately, here in the U.S.A. nurses and doctors must play the dual role of physician and accountant due to the fact that the federal government cannot separate in its thinking taking care of people and profit. It is truly sad especially when our new president is trading away "one source, universal care" to special interest (insurance companies, drug manufacturers) "Blue Dog" Democrats.

I have used a Kensington Bluetooth and full size keyboard (the older sturdier model) with my iMac for 3 years without problems. I initially tried a Logitech wireless mouse but its broadcast range was unreliable past 1 foot from its USB dongle. I cannot sit at a desk and am typically 3-4 feet from the iMac and the Logitech could not make the distance while the Apple keyboard and Kensington (two button + scroll wheel with left-right tilt button action) work at least to 20 feet. I have never tested to the full Bluetooth range. Also, I have never noticed any lag time with either device except when the mouse disconnects after about 10 minutes of no use.

Today it seems that "wars" can go on almost interminably because we do "declare" them as in the past. This allows the nation to continue almost unaffected for many years. These "wars" are often used when there is no realistic foreign policy to cover the initial conflict (makes the administration look foolish) and/or for political and financial favoritism.

Forever War seemed to be about a panicked society (the "unhumans" are raping "our" women and eating our babies) that transitioned into an eye for an eye, unending insanity that had its soldiers returning "home" when time had eliminated "home" as much as PTSD does to that "home" today.

After Obama won the the presidency in November I submitted a plan for transitioning the US automobile industry to electrics along with a very similar power module swapping plan to replace gas stations which would be implemented as a public works project to help out with employment. I also submitted it as part of the discussion here on Slashdot at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1095855&cid=26536657 I wonder when I'll get my profit sharing checks? :)

"One puzzle is that on the one hand, "carbon nanotubes are highly conductive", yet on the other hand need "three to five kilovolts" to contract. If the resistance were say one ohm, that would be 9 to 25 megawatts of power! A robot with 50 muscles might consume the entire output of a power plant, not to mention burn up instantly."

That assumes that there is no imaginary component involved. I think that the should have a non-zero self-inductance similar to a wire so high AC voltage would not conduct as readily at high frequencies. As a plus the current that does flow would be confined to the outer surfaces of the tubes due to the skin effect.

I believe that the fibers are repelling one another as I stated above. Other evidence that they pull while puffed out is that their relaxed state they appear to not repel one another as is shown when the long strands are pulled from the spool. Ever stacked a bunch of disk magnets? they tend to want to form a rod and are very difficult to pull apart lengthwise but bend easily. I suspect the stacked carbon rings behave similarly.

It appears to me that the fibers are repelled from one another by their electric fields just like some person with long hair touching a high-voltage, low current source like a Van de Graaf generator. Some equations that might be of interest are:

force x distance = work so yes, in order to perform work a muscle must be capable of applying a force over a distance. Either the force or the distance can be large as long as the sum of their product over the distance moved ends up large. The electric field force is also the strongest macroscopic force that we can easily control.

electrostatic force is given by Coulomb's Law force = k(q1 x q2)/(d^2) where q1 and q2 are point charges, k is a constant that varies as the stuff between the charges (air,vacuum,etc.) changes, and d is the distance between them. If both q1 and q2 are the same sign then the scalar force between them is repulsive

In the videos it appears as if the fibers are given the same charge so that they repel one another. When the charge is allowed to drain the fibers fall back together. It appears that there is a current limiting resistor in the circuit in at least one of the videos. This leads me to believe that the fibers conduct somewhat. It must be minimal otherwise the attractive force of the magnetic field generated by the current flow in each fiber would, according to Lorentz, attract one another. Since the fibers while similarly charged repel one another friction would be reduced greatly since the fibers must touch in order for frictional forces to come into play. The vector form of these equations is a bit more complex and get more so when you are talking about two line-sources of charge rather than point sources.

It's been awhile since I played with Maxwell's equations but I think that I got that all correct. I sometimes would rather figure it out than read the articles! ;)

Sounds like it's time for someone to come out with a Real Speculative Fiction channel. After quickly exhausting the catalogue of good sci fi it could create series like HBO does. There are so many great authors and stories they won't have trouble finding quality material. Surely there is enough money in geekdom to fund this.

We'll nuke 'em from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.

When I spoke about the "energy module" I meant one unit that could be swapped out in an Express Oil-type station where the customer would never have to touch anything. The car would drive in, an automated or manually controlled lift would remove the entire module carriage from the car and set it in temporary storage for a rapid recharge and use in the next auto to come along. A queue of several of these modules in various states of recharge would be required, the number depending upon the rate of customers and the recharge time. A customer would not have to wait more than 10 minutes to have their battery system swapped out. As for home charging, that would of course remain possible using whatever form of power is available be it solar, wind, whatever but the high energy transfer rate required for fast charge might be better supplied by a facility equipped for that safety-wise and power service-wise. Many families will have multiple vehicles so the peak load on a home may be prohibitive. I like your idea of parking garages and perhaps even parking space on the street being made charge-capable. A location with a concentration of vehicles would make an excellent recharge location as power utilities would have less trouble bringing service and protected connections to the public. I personally believe that these changes could take place easily over 2 years as a government work program, making the conversion to all-electric rather than fossil-fuel hybrids in a very short time as is required for climate change and also to leapfrog other auto manufacturers by also assisting manufacturers retool (simple based upon my experience) bringing export products back to the US that other nations will have to convert to eventually.