So wow. T. Boone Pickens now has more in common with liberal Democrats? Say it ain't so. The guy who funded the whole Swift Boat Veterans deal to help keep Kerry out of the White House is now talking about our addiction to oil and our need to develop alternative energies? This guy is now saying he agrees with Al Gore on most things environmental? Wow. And I thought he was just a billionaire who only cared about making money. Oh wait, that's exactly what he is.
Nice TV ad he's got going on. Very scary. Too bad most of it isn't true. Hey T.Boone, less than 20% of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf. And, um, yeah we do use more oil than any other industrialized country, especially considering our population. But then again, our economy represents about 30% of the global economy. When people balk about a country of only 300 million using 25% of the world's oil, they forget this little fact about how much we produce and what a large percentage of the world economy we represent. T. Boone is also concerned about how much money we send overseas for oil purchases. What about all the money we send overseas with our enormous trade deficit? China isn't exactly a friend to the U.S. but we ship billions of dollars to them every year. Our trade deficit is much larger than the amount we spend on oil. Why not be concerned about that?
The amazing thing is how T. Boone is now trying to look like your billionaire grandpa who's had a change of heart and realized we must do something better for our future. He's so altruistic. Of course, he only came to this realization once all the easy billions in oil had been made. Now it's getting harder and he wants to get out. So, he's invested in wind farms. He's invested in natural gas processing and refining. And now he'd like the government to give big tax credits for wind energy and natural gas. He like to see us enact his plan to use wind to supply energy for homes and business, thus freeing up natural gas for use in transportation. And who would profit most heavily from this? Why, the person who owns the wind farms and natural gas production facilities, of course. And who is that? Well, coincidentally it happens to be T. Boone Pickens. Of course, he's not proposing this to make more money. He's proposing it because it's the right thing to do. He cares about the environment. And me. He cares about me, the little guy, who's getting hurt buy these terrible Middle Eastern oil barons. Sure. Uh huh.
This guy is so full of crap it isn't funny. His plan involves completely re-working the infrastructure of energy delivery in this country which will be far more expensive than the oil purchases he's so afraid of. Wind energy is also not feasible in many parts of the U.S. Granted, fossil fuels of all kinds, including natural gas, will eventually run out and we should continue to develop alternatives. But trying to scare Americans into doing something that simply makes T. Boone Pickens more billions is ridiculous. Unfortunately, the Democrats are so stupid that they are now embracing this guy as some kind of hero. He's their new favorite spokesman and is getting invited to all the cool kid parties. It once again confirms my suspicion that there is incredible stupidity on both sides of the political spectrum.
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Doc, I am glad to see this. T. Boone Pickens has more money than he knows what to do with. He also makes a ton of money without even trying by investing in companies and getting paid to be on the boards of some pretty hefty VC firms.
If Pickens and some of his past and present oil cronies want to be helpful, there are lots of other ways to do so. They could pool their vast resources and get creative. For example, they could start a philanthropic fund TODAY to make grants to help schools pay for field trips rather than cutting them out because of high gas prices. They could support school lunch programs which are also getting more expensive because of the costs of the raw materials that go into the programs. They could in fact pay for just about any damn thing they wanted to help people today get through this, particularly children, who are at the greatest risk of falling behind in every way because of the mess we're in.
But wait, what am I thinking? What a terrible business decision.
What I think is funny is that when people propose alternative energy sources like nuclear, fuel cells, etc., all you hear from Republicans is that these things won't provide help TODAY and that the public needs help now. Then they go out and propose that the solution is to allow offshore drilling, open up ANWAR, and convert our whole infrastructure to natural gas. None of those things will provide any tangible benefits to consumers for quite some time. Still, those are resources controlled by the current Republican power base so Republicans are all for them.
Why is it that I hear almost nothing about nuclear power during these discussions about our energy problems? France gets 70% of its electricity form nuclear and has never had a major accident. The technology exists today, not in some far off future.
To your point, there are things that multi-billionaires can do to help, if that was actually what they wanted to do.
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