7/26/2010 Parins: Alternative energy reveals same old cop-out I used to be a fan of the Picken’s Plan. Convert 18-wheelers to natural gas, which we have plenty of here in America. Set up massive wind farms across the Plains. And innovate like mad to find better alternative energy solutions. It was a good pragmatic plan to get us off the dime and roll us down the road a piece, instead of just throwing money at everything and anything and hoping it would pay off. Pickens is an oilman – and oilman who knows oil cannot last forever. But there is nothing anywhere close to being as cheap, plentiful and powerful in the here and now. So if we are going to leave this century still on top of the world economically, we must begin this century on the recognizable path to alternative energy. The problem with T. Boone’s plan is that he lost his nerve. The cozy billionaire has lost his taste for the risk-reward Capitalism that made America great. The recognizable path he took was up the marble steps of the nation’s Capitol. Instead of putting his money where his mouth is, buying Schneider National and converting those rigs at eighty grand a pop and setting up the natural gas infrastructure to run those trucks to their destinations – and pushing it to profitability – Pickens went straight to Congress to beg for subsidies. We have had that approach for far too long. DO you think Hank Rearden would have done that?! Or Francisco D’Anconnia?! Or John Galt?! Or Dagny Taggart?! Well, hell no! Capitalism is not about going to Cuffy Meigs or Wesley Mouch and begging the government’s Unification Board to grant you a profit or to allot you the raw materials to fill an approved order at an approved price paying an approved wage to workers paid according to their need. (Have you read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. If you haven’t, what have you read?) Holy Canoli, Batman! Is America coming to this? Is Atlas going to shrug for real?! T. Boone needs to refocus, find himself a partner, like Mr. Gates or Mr. Buffet – or both – and put their money where his mouth is. Because if it isn’t profitable and they lack the patience and perseverance to make it so, then they should not be doing it. We must end corporate welfare, for our own good. Because risk-reward capitalism is what made America and we must Must MUST get back to it!!! Ask Ron Johnson whenever you have a chance to be up close and personal; he makes a payroll, and a product to sell. Now that’s a novel idea. We did not get to be America with the likes of ObamaCare and TARP. WE must end Bailout Nation. Or WE can watch China rising in the east by 2100. Think about it. Think hard. Vote risk-reward. Vote American Capitalism. Richard Parins is the President of the Brown County Taxpayers Association.