[Hoot Gibson]

Since I waited too long to edit my prior post, I'll repost with what I want my edited post to be:

Thanks Hoot. Time will somewhat limit my posting in this forum. And when I do, some of them may surprise you. For example, while I'm not in support of the federal govt's investment in Solyndra and the other related companies, I'm very much supportive of the federal govt investing in alternative energy. I believe that the federal govt should be creating a Manhattan Project type federally ran and operated organization, hiring directly the best and brightest scientists, and pouring tons of federal dollars in alternative energy R and D.

My reasons for thinking that way: the sooner we stop sending billions overseas to buy oil (and often funding regimes covertly or overtly hostile to us) the more secure our national interests will be and the better it will be for our trade balance.

I also believe that if it can be reasonably concluded that we have the natural gas supply (and from what I know, I think it has), I think the federal govt should fund the construction of a natural gas distribution pipeline up and down the interstates to stimulate the conversion of semis (and eventually pedestrian vehicles) to natural gas. Charge the natural gas companies that will profit for their use of the distribution system, but go ahead and federally fund the installation/construction of the distribution system.

I do think that in tough economic times, the federal govt should have increased spending on projects that are well thought out and are long lasting (for example replacing the failing bridges throughout the US). Rather than simply hand out money in the form of prolonged unemployment benefits (where people get money for doing nothing) they should be doing some work for the money they receive from the govt. I'd prefer the work to be on something beneficial to the country, but doing anything for a paycheck (even if it's just picking up trash, painting school buildings, doing work in national parks, etc) beats giving a person money for doing nothing.

Perhaps this downturn in the economy snuck up on the federal govt and caught it unprepared to wisely invest in projects, which limited the shovel ready jobs available to be funded quickly to stimulate the economy. Then again, the military spends considerable time and money war planning for the unexpected and regulaly updates their plans. Why can't the federal govt have a standing commission war planning for projects that it will invest in when needed so that it is not so unprepared in the future? Prioritize the projects. Some will get funded in the normal course, but as they are completed and taken off the list, new ones come on. When the economy goes to hell, the federal govt is ready to go. The problem was not having qualified construction companies available to bid on and complete the projects; the problem was that the federal govt was not ready to quickly pull the trigger on enough impactful and meaningful projects to make enough of a difference.

This may sound like heresy, but I do admire some aspects of the centralized planning and thinking of the Chinese govt. They have well thought out, long range plans for improving their country. We fly by the seat of our pants and are reactive instead of proactive.

I am sure that we will agree in more areas than we disagree and I am not surprised to see you support more government meddling in our economy than I do. I have mixed feelings about converting vehicles from gasoline to natural gas because one likely unintended consequence would be to sharply drive up the price of natural gas for home heating.

The buses in this area - at least in the northern Virginia suburbs - are powered by natural gas. They are a huge improvement over the smelly, smoke belching diesel buses that one usually encounters in other areas of the country. If the federal government would drop its war against fossil fuels and develop policies to increase the utilization of our own carbon-based fuels, I would support the notion of allowing the conversion of long haul freight trucks (and trains) from diesel to natural gas.

Where we disagree and where I think that you are mistaken is your support of central planning as a means to improving energy utilization in this or in any other country.

Take China for example. China tried unsuccessfully to centrally manage its economy as did the former Soviet Union. Both failed miserably. China alternately loosened its control on personal freedom and slaughtered untold thousands of people for exercising that freedom. China only began to succeed economically when they decided to free certain areas of the country from the chains of central planning. The capitalism that was unleashed in parts of China has not been seen in this country since the early part of the 20th century. Aside from acknowledging that a centrally planned communist economy cannot compete with the free market and taking action to create one of the freest markets in the world, I do not see where central planning deserves any credit for lifting maybe tens of millions of Chinese people from a miserable existence in a dirty, impoverished nation with a population of more than a billion. The Chinese government needed cash to pay for modernizing its military and it turned to capitalism for funding.

India is another example where the government's decision to loosen its grip on business in some sectors has resulted in explosive economic growth. I have worked with software developers from India for more than 10 years but until a few months ago, I had assumed that India's growing dominance in IT and high-tech call centers was the result of a good educational system and low wage rates. A couple of months ago, one of my Indian coworkers explained the real reason that Indians dominate in software development.

My friend Ganesh is an American citizen from the Mumbai area. He explained that former Indian Prime Minister Rajeev Ghandi, who was a commercial airline pilot and graduate of Cambridge, took two actions soon after he took office that precipitated the economic boom in IT. First the government built several modern airports to make it easier to conduct international business. Second, he announced a five-year moratorium on taxes for any company engaged in certain high-tech businesses, including software development. Ganesh says that Indians are not inherently better programmers than people from other areas - he believes that eastern Europe is home to the top programmers in the world - he gives the Gandhi government full credit for getting out of the way and allowing its IT start-ups to attract foreign investment and thrive.

Finally, I take issue with the widely held view of Americans that the Manhattan Project succeeded mainly because of the federal government's determination. Hitler may have unknowingly made the greatest contribution to the project by purging many of the world's top theoretical physicists from German universities and scaring other top physicists from eastern Europe into fleeing to this country and it was a letter from Albert Einstein that warned FDR about German plans to develop a nuclear weapon. Eventually, the Manhattan Project would have resulted in a workable nuclear weapon, but without the contributions of the eastern Europeans, many more Americans would have died before the first nuke was deployed in combat.

In militarily sensitive areas, projects like the Manhattan Project make sense. When the nation's survival or the lives of thousands of Americans are at stake, then the cost of developing technology becomes irrelevant. However, the case that you suggested - the development of a natural gas powered fleet of trucks and filling stations along our interstates is not essential to our survival and the same goal could be reached through wise tax policy. For example, all sorts of tax incentives could be provided to independent truckers and companies that elected to switch to natural gas powered trucks.

Direct government development in this area would be both unnecessary and inefficient because the technology already exists for such a system. Companies that produce natural gas have been running their fleets of vehicles on natural gas for decades and converting diesel engines to use natural gas, from what I understand, is trivial. All that would be required to convert trucks to natural gas would be for state and federal governments to relieve truckers of considerable tax and regulatory burdens to provide them with a financial incentive. Also, placing a cap for punitive damages in the case of accidents involving natural-gas powered trucks would probably help speed development of the new transportation network.