Only sovereign bonds provide a big enough market.
"There is not enough market share in Manhattan," Mr. Acunzo said.
"They might, but winners like AOL will take enough market share that it won't matter".
However, individual homeowners do not represent a large enough market to develop retrofit technology at scale.
But lawmakers decided that if they created a big enough market, some bright spark would figure it out.
"There's not enough market to support the dealerships out there," said James E. Press, a Chrysler vice chairman.
Some have simply failed, others have come close but haven't quite found a big enough market to justify further investment.
"Nobody's going to have enough market share that a drug manufacturer is going to want to bargain much".
If the Treasury were willing to buy such bonds, goes the thinking, it would create enough market liquidity to persuade others to hold them.
"There's enough market traction and momentum from the consumer side and the business side to drive this forward," Ms. Khatibloo said.
The VLA project, however, ended in acrimony: Boeing said that it showed there was not a big enough market to justify development even of a joint product.
