The PickensPlan

You’ve got to hand it to the Americans — they think big. Thinking big is the first step to doing big things. There too they are no slouches. Both in terms of good and bad, they do think and do big things. The modern world you and I inhabit (and it is important to remember that not everybody lives in the modern world — a couple of billion of our contemporaries live in a world that is decidedly primitive) has been shaped by Americans to an extent that is hard to overstate. Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore the US.

Here’s yet another American doing his big thinking and big execution. He is T Boone Pickens. Here’s the guy talking about his plan:

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1632654798

He, and others like him, will of course make a truck load of money from such investments. But his profits will be only a small fraction of the huge amount of wealth that will be created. That is what private enterprise is all about. You take a share of the wealth you create. Private enterprise can be distinguished from other organized activities. Governments, for instance, don’t create any wealth. At best, they create the conditions which allow private enterprise to flourish; at worst, they hinder growth (example: India and other poor countries) and merely redistribute wealth by stealing from the rich and passing some of that to the poor.

I hope that Indian private sector movers and shakers will soon be thinking and doing at scales comparable to the Americans.

Pickens is heavily investing in wind energy. See the size of this massive wind turbine. Right click on the image and open the link in a new tab to see the scale of the blades.

Update: (Aug 1st) Here’s a report from the LA Times with some disclosures about Pickens’ plan. Thanks Rohit for the link.

Other stuff:

Here’s a widget that gives you a graph of crude oil prices — mouse over the various time periods at the bottom of the graph (1 month, 1 quarter, 1 year, etc) to change the time range.

http://www.oil-price.net/TABLE2/gen.php?lang=en
To get the oil price, please enable Javascript.

Here’s a NYTimes article by Tom Friedman which refers to Pickens and his plan.

Good luck, Mr Pickens.

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

3 thoughts on “The PickensPlan”

  2. Is this the same dude who was behind the Swift-Boat Veterans for “Truth” ads? I’d take anything coming from his mouth with a bucket of salt, or at a minimum, double-check his facts.

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  3. Atanu,
    I remember you saying something to the effect that the defense sector, primarily the American defense industry is one of the reasons for its economic strength as it directly or indirectly funds a significant chunk of its economy.

    How does one reconcile that statement with “Governments, for instance, don’t create any wealth?”

    (This is an honest question, not a rhetorical one.)

    Pickens is the slime of the Swiftboat saga… this guy will sell his mother to the butcher if it earns him $$$. I know these are my blinkers, but I just can’t get myself to trust a person with such a track record.

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