HURRY UP SPRING

Back In Texas. I'm back in Texas and it looks like spring is coming on fast. Azaleas blooming, yard turning green, and temperatures over the next 7 days are expected to be in the 80's. It can't come too fast for me. The weather is getting brighter but the economic environment seems pretty gloomy. Problems with nuclear reactors in Japan appear to be on the verge of disaster, union/government relations in Wisconsin are at a historic low point, and gasoline is predicted to hit four bucks a gallon. I remember a song in the 1970's called Goodbye Easy Street. That had to do with the Arab oil embargo and the anticipated demise of cheap energy. It appears that the pessimism of that era was 40 years early. Could we be in that situation again?





Ask The Energy Department. It was in the Jimmy Carter Administration that we founded the department of energy. They did a lot of really valuable measures such as lowering the speed limit to 55 mph, instituting full-time daylight saving time, and issuing bulletins advising us to stop using hair dryers and power lawnmowers None of these appeared to work too well so now we have the EPA empowered to help out in order to keep us from adding too much carbon dioxide to the environment and raising the average temperature a fraction of a degree. Of course, we have those curly light bulbs that we have to call out the national guard if we drop and break. Those are due to be mandatory in a couple of years. Just when we were about to ramp up our nuclear power plants to reduce greenhouse gasses, we have this huge earthquake to remind us that, nature has ways of surprising us with new disasters that we have absolutely no way of anticipating.



Bottom Line. Don't depend on the government to solve your problems. They would if they could but they don't know how. I just drove back and forth to Colorado and spent as much for gas as an airplane ticket. In addition, I spent two hundred bucks on motels. At least, I didn't have to sit two hours in a space the size of a linen closet and I could come and go as I please. Add the $165 I spent for a speeding ticket in Decatur, Texas and you can see that it cost me twice as much to drive than it would have to fly. There are ways to hedge against rising energy costs. One of those is to invest in companies in the energy business. If energy prices go up the price of your energy stock increases to help cover the cost of your increased gasoline.





What The Government Could Do. Our government wants us to do things to stop our dependence on foreign oil. So do I. They want us to look at hydrogen as an alternative source of energy. So do I. They want us to look at vegetable oil as a source of replacement for diesel. So do I. They want us to get energy from the sun, wind, and the tides. So do I. So how do we differ? I want us to improve our production of conventional energy via improved technology for exploration and production. They don't. I believe we can become energy independent while we develop these alternative fuels. They don't. I believe their regulations inhibit the production of fossil fuels forcing us to give money to countries who hate us. They don't. Until we make energy independence a priority, whatever the source, we might as well dissolve the Department of Energy and use the money to reduce the federal deficit. That department has squandered huge sums of money and we are just as dependent on OPEC as we were 40 years ago.