Question:
What new ideas or technologies should we be investing in today?
Our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure. It is time for solutions.
Please read the speech below, and share your answers with me to this pressing question:
http://www.johnmccain.com/energysecurity/
What new technologies or new ideas should we be investing in today?
My Answer:
John -
Greenhouse gasses may or may not be the issue all the doomsayers insist, but even the most anti-green people out there would have to agree that it can't hurt anything to stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere.
It can't hurt, that is, unless in doing so you bankrupt the world’s consumers, starve them by burning their food for fuel, and regulate viable alternatives out of existence. Let it become economically viable and you will be amazed at how Green big business suddenly and truly becomes. Not “carbon credits” or “cap and trade” but the real, meaningful thing.
Drill. Now. Whether it takes two years or seven or ten or twenty doesn't really matter, we will still need that oil when it hits the market. If all goes well it won't be needed to power transportation, but we will still use computers and plastic bags, still wear clothes and eyeglasses, still drink bottled water and play sports and engage in a whole host of activities that require petroleum. Converting carbon into things instead of burning it for energy will still keep the bulk of it locked up and out of the atmosphere.
Having acknowledged that, get the heck out of the way of the American Capitalist. Don't bribe him; just let him do what he does best. Find newer and better ways to produce energy from wind, water, the sun, geothermal, nuclear and many other means that will be developed over time. It doesn't take tax money being fished out of my pocket to bring about innovation. Only the foolish sort of people who truly believe large corporations actually pay taxes instead of passing those costs along to the consumer will believe that your proposed $5,000 tax credit to the purchaser is anything other than a stage magician’s trick that will raise the sticker price of those new zero-emission cars by exactly $5,000. From your lips to big auto’s hips – and the consumer is supposed to feel good because he’s being “given” something. It takes government removing regulatory roadblocks and disincentives. It takes leadership with the courage to explain to the tree huggers that the barn swallow existed long before barns did, and the same bird would muddle along just fine if all barns were eliminated tomorrow. Some old things give way to new - that is life, and natural, and not always pleasant. Plants and animals managed to become extinct long before humankind showed up to help things along, and would continue to do so even if the mother ship came and collected each of us this afternoon.
What we need to invest in is the free market and ingenuity. Leave the thinkers and tinkerers alone to do their jobs, and they will come up with profitable ways to feed, clothe, shelter, and power this civilization that do not render the planet uninhabitable. When they do so, do not penalize them for success. Winning is a not a crime, it is a virtue. Winning is accomplished by those who are not too lazy to get off their backsides and accomplish something with the life they have been given. The Constitution points out the God given right to the pursuit of happiness. Nowhere are you guaranteed it will be brought to you while chomping Ding Dongs in front of the television set.
You want a new idea to invest in, John? Invest in respect - respect for oneself, respect for one's family, respect for one's community, and respect for the idea that no one should ever be allowed to do for you that which you are more than capable of doing yourself.
Nail that, and the rest would wind up taking care of itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment