"Then you oddly poopooed my examples (while showing a characteristic lack of insight)."

How about instead of me poopooing this it was instead the circumstance that I wasn't previously aware that England had at anytime clear cut all the lumber fit for ship building. But instead, I was under the impression that they had laws preventing this from happenning.
And I would add that I wouldn't be surprised if today the Queen still owns vast tracts of land which were orginally maintained for this purpose.

BUT let's assume that it is true that England had clear cut all the timber fit for ship building. If this was a foolish course of action, what in your opinion would have been the wise course of action?

For me, it would be foolish because they wouldn't have the wood they need to build the ships they required for future national security and/or commerical needs. But if the lumber needed wasn't wasted making coffee tables or wood for the stove, but instead used for ships that were actually needed, then the foolishness would apply to not being previously aware that in the future you would run out of this wood, and not taking actions that would ensure you could continue build [or least have] ships you need in the future.

But I realize I could be completely off whatever point you were trying to make. It's possible that you are against Britian having a empire because wood that would have burned nicely in the stove or made swell coffee tables were wasted on building ships. Or woodpeckers could have used them or cutting them down caused too much soil erosion.

But I guess what puzzles me the most is that I never knew that England lost a war or it's empire crashed because it lacked wood.