Guest
07-23-2008, 04:47 AM
I'm not sure whether this is "political discussion" or not. But here goes anyway...
Do you think ol' Boone Pickens might have a point in his TV ads?
Let's see, $700 billion a year going to the Middle East for oil. Another $100 billion or so being spent each year on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (a large chunk of which is aid given to those countries).
Now the announcement that our government might have to spend $100 billion to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. By the way, have you thought about that number? If an "average" mortgage loan is say, $150,000, that means the underlying collateral on 667,000 loans is worth nothing and our government will in essence pay off the loans. Just to put that in scale--in 2000 Chicago had 1,062,000 households. So Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae made enough worthless loans to have housed two-thirds of the entire population of Chicago. That's kind of unbelievable, isn't it?
But back to Boone. Check out his explanation of a plan <http://www.pickensplan.com/> Might one expect that ol' Boone owns some energy companies involved in something other than oil--like wind generation equipment? Probably so. But that doesn't make his argument wrong. The bottom line is that the U.S. currently has a national debt of $9.523 trillion dollars. (That's 31,282 for every U.S. citizen.) If Pickens' projections are correct and our national debt holds steady at its current level, we will increase that amount by another $7 triilion dollars by sending the money to the Middle East to pay for the oil we consume. As Pickens says in his TV ads, this is the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.
You don't have to accept Pickens' plan to generate a lot of power with wind farms. But I think it's fair to accept his thesis that we need political leadership and will to recognize and act on the serious fiscal problems resulting from our reliance on foreign oil. There has been no action on an energy policy/plan whatsoever for at least the last four Presidential terms, maybe longer. As Pickens says, this is the number one problem facing the country by far. It's easy to conclude, as he has, that unless this transfer of wealth is stemmed, there's no point even thinking about trying to solve the problems of healthcare, education, social security, etc. because the U.S. economy simply won't be able to generate enough money to pay for needed improvements.
Last time I looked, neither of the candidates for President have much of a plan to address this issue. And the candidates for the Senate and House? Forget it.
Maybe we need to begin thinking about it.
Do you think ol' Boone Pickens might have a point in his TV ads?
Let's see, $700 billion a year going to the Middle East for oil. Another $100 billion or so being spent each year on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (a large chunk of which is aid given to those countries).
Now the announcement that our government might have to spend $100 billion to bail out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. By the way, have you thought about that number? If an "average" mortgage loan is say, $150,000, that means the underlying collateral on 667,000 loans is worth nothing and our government will in essence pay off the loans. Just to put that in scale--in 2000 Chicago had 1,062,000 households. So Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae made enough worthless loans to have housed two-thirds of the entire population of Chicago. That's kind of unbelievable, isn't it?
But back to Boone. Check out his explanation of a plan <http://www.pickensplan.com/> Might one expect that ol' Boone owns some energy companies involved in something other than oil--like wind generation equipment? Probably so. But that doesn't make his argument wrong. The bottom line is that the U.S. currently has a national debt of $9.523 trillion dollars. (That's 31,282 for every U.S. citizen.) If Pickens' projections are correct and our national debt holds steady at its current level, we will increase that amount by another $7 triilion dollars by sending the money to the Middle East to pay for the oil we consume. As Pickens says in his TV ads, this is the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.
You don't have to accept Pickens' plan to generate a lot of power with wind farms. But I think it's fair to accept his thesis that we need political leadership and will to recognize and act on the serious fiscal problems resulting from our reliance on foreign oil. There has been no action on an energy policy/plan whatsoever for at least the last four Presidential terms, maybe longer. As Pickens says, this is the number one problem facing the country by far. It's easy to conclude, as he has, that unless this transfer of wealth is stemmed, there's no point even thinking about trying to solve the problems of healthcare, education, social security, etc. because the U.S. economy simply won't be able to generate enough money to pay for needed improvements.
Last time I looked, neither of the candidates for President have much of a plan to address this issue. And the candidates for the Senate and House? Forget it.
Maybe we need to begin thinking about it.