“It’s time to move the debate past the dogmatic view that carbon dioxide is evil and toward a world view that accepts the need for energy that is cheap, abundant and reliable.”
– Robert Bryce, “Five Truths About Climate Change,” Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2011.
“Every [energy] policy objective should be viewed through the lens of affordability.”
– John S. Watson, Chairman and CEO, Chevron Corporation
Remarks at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C., October 19, 2011.
Chevron CEO John Watson delivered a major address last month in Washington, D.C. that reorients energy sustainability from controversial neo-Malthusian notions toward consumer affordability and reliability. As such, it marks an end to the ‘apologetic’ era launched by BP’s John Browne in his 1997 Stanford University speech, which proclaimed that fossil fuels were problematic in relation to anthropogenic climate change.…
Continue Reading“The true meaning of Thanksgiving … is the triumph of Capitalism over the failure of Collectivism in all its forms. In light of America’s current political debates over health care and energy, involving 25 percent of our economy, the message of Thanksgiving is more timely than ever.” – Professor Richard Ebeling
In good economic times or bad, Thanksgiving is when Americans gather with their families and friends and enjoy the most special meal of the year. The event remembers those early Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the uncharted ocean from Europe to make a new start in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
What is less appreciated is that Thanksgiving also is a celebration of the birth of free enterprise in America.
The English Puritans, who left Great Britain and sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620, were not only escaping from religious persecution in their homeland.…
Continue ReadingCall it the iron law of political economy: Government goes to those who show up.
The good news is that limited-government groups are showing up. And they are not pro-industry (such as the natural gas industry) but pro-consumers, pro-taxpayers, and pro-marketplace. The bad news is that too many business leaders–and think T. Boone Pickens in this instance–are using their resources to politicize industry.
Elements of the gas industry want to use special government favor to increase demand and thus prices of their product. A quick summary of the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act was given by the Leftie group DeSmogBlog:
… Continue ReadingAs stated in an earlier article, “The bill is 24-pages long and rewards [natural gas vehicles] with tax [subsidies] to help ‘drive’ consumption. The bigger the vehicle, the more tax credits given.”