A very astute series of observations, Art. You definitely understand the subtleties of economics and politics on a much deeper level than most people here...or anywhere, really. I don't really have anything to disagree with here, save one quibble; while it's true that the hysteria is mostly media driven, it's also true that mankind (overall) is much more vulnerable to solar disruption than at any other time in our history. There were some incredible solar storms in the past but they were pre-electronic, early in the dawning of the Industrial Revolution. Such storms would really be catastrophic today. And they will come, of that there can be no doubt. In astronomy, as in geology and meteorology, it can confidently be said that if it's happened before it will happen again. So setting hysterics aside we do have to work on "hardening" the grid much more effectively than we previously have. You probably recall a pretty major solar-storm-based outage that struck parts of the US and Canada some years back. That should serve as proof of concept and a wake-up call that our grid is vulnerable to "space weather."