Thumbs up (mostly) for T. Boone Pickens' energy plan

Since we could not find a vehicle registered for T. Boone Pickens, the oil man on television, see what vehicle his wife drives

http://webofdeception.com/#pickensauto

Motorists could enjoy an almost instant savings at the gas pump if President Bush were to issue a pledge to do everything possible to restore the value of the dollar in his remaining months in office. We motorists now pay a dollar conversion premium every time we fill our tanks. Economists offer various estimates of this premium, depending upon which variables they factor in. I don't know which one is correct, however, let us select 30% just for this purpose. If the dollar is restored to full value,I submit that the price of a gallon of gas would fall to about $3.00 per gallon. It would still be high by former standards but lower than currently at the pump.

The Bush administration advocated a policy based on cheap mony. This encouraged borrowers to secure new loans which they had no means to repay. They bought flashy cars, took expensive vacations, and lived like kings...although they were paupers. The stock market soared, employment increased, and low taxes guaranteed adequate spending money. If the pyramid had only held up for just one more year, President Bush would have been home free and his successor would have inherited the entire problem. Unfortunately, the pyramid crashed, as pyramids always do, leaving borrowers high and dry, while financial institutions begged taxpayers for bailouts.

I wish that reporters, pundits, and writers would ask Obama and McCain what steps they would take to restore the value of the dollar. We have become such a debtor nation that when our foreign bankers pull the strings, we have no other choice but to comply. All of us will have to do our part, no matter what is asked of us, because "There ain't no free lunch."

And remember, those "sores on the butt of mankind" are what kept Rush WideLoad out of the Army. Show some gratitude and respect.

The "sore on the butt of mankind" crawls out of the home, rides the "short bus" (licking windows all the way) to the library's computers, and types his typical drivel.....

No, you brainless boob, Pickens is noteworthy because he's living proof that even a loony-right oilman sees that wind power makes sense and is willing to put his own money into it. This leaves only a few half-educated moonbats, such as yourself, for instance, still insisting that global warming and alternatives to a fossil-fuel economy are all a big fraud perpetrated by World Socialism and Al Gore.

Damme! I'd love to hear your response, but we're all still suffering from your having put me in Coventry.

Good points, Ross. T.B. Pickens built his fortune and reputation as a corporate raider with hostile takeover attempts, akin to the greenmailer Gordon Gekko portrayed by Michael Douglas in "Wall Street". He was hated by a lot of people on the left and the right, but now that he's floating a plan that superficially seems to be a 'green' plan, he's a darling.

Well, I sure wish people would use history to inform them more often - the following is an excerpt from this 1996 CNN link:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/07/22/214703/index.htm

"And then there was his beloved Mesa, which Boone had built into the largest independent natural gas producer in the country but which, by the early 1990s, was drowning in more than $1 billion in debt that he had run up making overly generous payments to shareholders. It was the debt that finished him off. Boone had bet--it was the worst bet of his life--that the price of natural gas would go up and bail him out. Instead, Mesa itself became the target of a parricidal raiding party organized by his onetime protege, David Batchelder."

Hmmmm ... so here we learn that T.B. has made big bets on the price of natural gas going up, and here he is with a plan which will benefit natural gas producers, which of course is produced exactly like oil is (that is, by drilling, and where natural gas is found, so is oil). Some cynical realists might point out that T.B. is simply using the 'green' aspects as window dressing to benefit him personally, as some think Al Gore is doing with the global warming alarmism.

Someone gets it - the link below is to an excellent article by Steven Milloy about what ole T.B. is up to this time, but I've included some very interesting excerpts below for those allergic to Fox News ... my point is the same as Ross's and learn to read between the lines ...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,390821,00.html

"On his Web site and in TV commercials, Pickens tries to frighten Americans about being "addicted to foreign oil."

"In 1970, we imported 24 percent of our oil. Today, it's nearly 70 percent and growing," he intones.

Aside from the fact that the Department of Energy (DOE) puts the import figure at a more moderate 58 percent, Pickens gives the impression that imported oil is scary because it all comes from the unstable Mideast.

His TV commercials feature images of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and he likens the annual $700 billion cost of foreign oil to "four times the annual cost of the Iraq war."

But hold the phone. Only 16 percent of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf — barely up from 13.6 percent in 1973, according to the DOE. Imports from OPEC countries are actually down — from 47.8 percent in 1973 to 44.5 percent in 2007.

Contrary to Pickens' assertion that oil imports are growing, the DOE expects oil imports to decrease by 10 percent by 2030.

Pickens tries to shame Americans because, "America uses a lot of oil ... That's 25 percent of the world's oil demand, used by just 4 percent of the world population."

Some might think these figures make us sound greedy and wasteful.

But what Pickens omitted to mention is that the size of the U.S. economy in 2007 was about $13.8 trillion and the size of the global economy was $54.3 trillion.

This means that the U.S. economy represents about 25.4 percent of the global economy. So what's the problem if a nation that produces 25 percent of the world's goods and services needs 25 percent of the world's oil output?

Would he prefer that we shrink our economy by 84 percent to match our share of world population?"

From: http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2436849&title=EDITORIAL_Altruist_T.html

"Those familiar with T. Boone Pickens' history will not be surprised to learn that no one is better positioned to benefit from the Pickens Plan than Pickens. His Mesa Power happens to be building the largest wind farm in the world in the Texas panhandle, with as many as 2,000 turbines. It will produce the equivalent of four large coal-fired plants and double the entire wind energy output in the country. He will soon own the majority of the wind power market."

"And Pickens already controls the natural gas vehicle fueling market. He owns Clean Energy, a company that owns and operates natural gas fueling stations stretching from Mexico to Canada."

Now, this stuff doesn't bother me because I am a capitalist but how about you on the left who are always complaining about how big corporations are ruining the country.

As I've said many times; development of alternatives will only come as a result of profit potential.

Shall we trade “big oil” for Pickens and his companies?

I guess all is forgiven concerning Pickens and his involvement in the “swift boat veterans” that helped derail John Kerry four years ago, also.

Ross Balano Midwest Voices 2008