Is T. Boone Pickens really a communist/Marxist? Of course not, but that is the problem, and why conservatives are facing exile in the wilderness. The reaction to solving every problem today is reflexively the CENTRAL PLANNING soulution--NOT making the free market and decentralized decision making we that is the foundation of this country work better. Central planning is the Communist (with a capital "C")/socialist approach to "solving" problems--in the face of experience that it does not work (including recent experience in the inability of the Federal Government to act efficiently in ANY area).
It is amazing how the left cries out about freedom in the most inconsequential areas (monitoring o finternational terrorist communicatios), while pursuing COERCION (taking away freedom) in the most important areas of our life. This includes the freedom to drive the vehicle we want and to use the light bulb we want.
This brings us to T. Boone Pickens, central planner and all around arrogant human being (as ALL central planners have to be, to assert that THEY know enough to TELL us what to do).
T. Boone Pickens wants to MANDATE that we "solve" our depednence on foreign oil by COERCING people to generate energy in the exact way that T. Boone Pickens thinks it should be generated. One of the reasons I am not religious is that I don't concede that GOD should be able to tell me what to believe, and what to do. T. Boone Pickens is not God. He is just, like all central planners, a "God" wannabe.
You heard it here first, and I heard T. Boone Pickens confirm it yesterday on Sean Hannity's radio program. In fact, I listened to that segment of the ratido program just to confirm my impression of good old T. Boone. As usual, I was vindicated by what he said.
Pickens wants the Federal Government to MANDATE that ALL vehicle "fleets" in this country buy ONLY "natural gas" powered vehicles. That would include the Federal, and all other, governments, but would also include all private "fleets" This shows you that T. Boone is like all central planners. He is not only about coercion, but about DECEPTION. The idea is to leave you the illusion that you, as an individual, have choices, while doing your best to take away those choices by degrees. The man is a menace. I have nothing but CONTEMPT for him.
You doubt me on DECEPTION? You FOOL you!!! Good old T. Boone is deliberately PANDERING to the other, leftist central planners out there by saying that we "can't drill our way out of this problem" (fuel prices). That is the leftist mantra, and gold od T. Boone knows it. He is cynically trying to USE the same slogan (meaningless, since every barrel of oil we drill domestically is one LESS barrel we have to import from elsewhere, whether we "can drill our way" out of the (whole) problem or not. T. Boone Pickens has no real idea whether we can "drill our way" out of the problem. He simply wants to COERCE us into doing what he thinks should be done (which, incidentally, would make him a lot of money).
This is entirely cynical and contemptible, because Pickens wil say he is for "drilling"--for trying everything--while trying to MANDATE that we do it his way. That is deceptive as Hell, and cynically manipulatitive as Hell. Did I tell you that I have nothing but conempt for good old T. Boone?
Does T. Booone Pickens believe in free market theory? Of course not. The OTHER aprt of his "plan" is MASSIVE subsidy of wind and solar power. He wants "production tax credits", and other government aid, to FORCE the use of solar and wind power by the GOVERNMENT paying for it--wheen those "alternative energy" sources cannot stand on their own.
Lefitst Democrats are fond of calling cuts in TAX RATES as government "expenditures"--a LIE. That terminology assumes that ALL money belongs to the government, and that the government merely lets you keeep some of it to give you an illusion of freedom. Yes, I understand that, to leftists, this is not a lie, because that is what they really BELIEVE. Objectively, however, our country was founded on freedom, and the idea that your money and property is yours, and not the government's. It is NOT an "expenditure" to let people keep more of their own money.
However, things like "production tax credits", and other subsidies for alternative energy, generally ARE expenditures. They are, in effect, direct PAYMENTS of government money to distort the free market. Thus, as my brother (the co-owner of a trucking company) has noted--passed on previously in this blog--people have made money by IMPORTING diesel into this country, adding "biodiesel" for purposes of making money out of the subsidy, and then EXPORTINGthe SAME diesel.
If the government sets up a situation where people can make money only BECAUSE of the government expenditures, that is a distortion of the free market. Now, you can justify one time accelerated deductions, or even credits ("expenditures") to enable people to make capital expenditures necessary to get economically desireable activities off of the ground. However, if you have to KEEP massively subsidizing to keep the "alternatives" competitive, then they are NOT really competitive. You are engaging in a central planning distortion of the free market. That is what good old T. Boone wants to do. He is really TELLING you that is what he wants to do. This shows how far we have sunk: where "businessmen" and "investors" are willing to come out and TELL you they don't believe in the free market.
Lucky, isn't it, that T. Boone Pickens does not have a snowball's chance in Hell of selling his "plan" (although he can cause damage in the WAY he is trying to sell it). Do you think that environmentalists are really going to want to MANDATE one fossil fuel in place of another to run cars. They want ELECTRIC cars, or other types of vehicles that do not run on fossil fuels at all And the free market SHOULD be able to sort out which "alternatives" to prsent day vehicles are economic, and which are not. The whole, correct, theory of free markets is that they make those decisions without the CETRAL PLANNING of fallible human beings, who FORCE their deicisions on us in a way that we can't even correct disasters until they are already terrible ("Lysenkoism"). T. Boone Pickens (and too many of our "capitalists) does NOT believe in Adam Smith's "invisible hand". Rather, he believes that He is God, and capable of making infallible decisions.
Maybe electric cars ARE the future. Maybe hydrogen cars are the future. We KNOW nuclear power could be the future, if the government (and environmentalists) did not make it impossible. MAYBE oil shale will allow us to continue to devleop the future without forcing uneconomic (expensive) energy sources on us. Maybe oil shale is still uneconomic. We, and good old T. Boone, do not KNOW unless we allow these various "solutioins" to compete in the free market on a somewhat level playing field. If we try to FORCE on "solution" or the other, we may well choose the WRONG one.
Contrary to asserrtions by good old T. Boone, and others, the "technoloty" is NOT there for these "alternatives" UNTIL thaey are efficient enough to be COMPETITIVE, without making the "profit" come solely from GOVERNMENT expenditures.
I have already told you, in this blog, how to bring down gasoline prices. T. Boone, and the left, are BOTH not interested in that so much as they are in FROCING their own agenda on us all.
The one are I agree with good old T. Boone on is that the Federal Government, and other governments, should put their money where their mouth is. If the Federal Government believes that people should buy electric cars, then the Federal Government should be purchasing electric cars for ITS us (rather than FORCING central planning "solutions" on the rest of us),. I have said that the Federal Government should IMMEDIATELY announce that it is IMMEIDIATELY reducing its gasoline use by 20%--whatever it takes to do it, INCLUDING WALKING. The Federal Government should act by EXAMPLE, and NOT by force trying to impose central planning "solutions" on us all.
Yes, it is lucky that T. Boone's plan is going nowhere (although I am afraid that we are going to create a boondoggle in wind and solar, where people "invest" money where the only economic reality of the investment is to make a profit out of Federal expenditures).
The free market actually works. We should try it sometime.
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