Donald Trump is telling friends that he is running for president. Do you suppose that could be true?
I like Trump in many ways. Some people watch his show and assume he is simply a grouch tycoon who likes to fire people. But I used to watch his show, and found it very interesting to see how a billionaire thinks. A lot of his advice is very practical and level headed.
Some years ago, I remember he posted a full page ad in the New York Times in about 1991 questioning America's foreign policy objectives in the Middle East. Why are Americans fighting and dying to prop up foreign regimes that don't like us and don't care about us? Those same questions remain today, and I don't have a good answer for them. What exactly are we trying to win in Iraq? What do we get if we win?
Trump is no lover of OPEC and importing costly oil as a legacy of debt for our chldren. "“The first thing I would do [as President] is get my toughest, smartest person and have them…try and divide OPEC....If you have a store and I have a store and we set prices, we go to jail. OPEC is setting the price of oil and destroying many countries because of it…We had $150 a barrel oil [last summer] and it got us into a very big problem. Now oil, that should be $20 a barrel, is at $70 a barrel, and this country can’t afford it.... “OPEC has to be destroyed in an economic sense…It really is an illegal situation…I know people involved with OPEC. They laugh at the stupidity of our country. They laugh at the stupidity of our politicians.”
This is something I also feel very strongly about. America has learned to embrace $3 per gallon gasoline, and any attempt to produce more fuel that would lower the price is met with intense resistance. Many Democrats, for example, embrace the notion that new, green technology is sure to be invented and brought to the marketplace, so we can go ahead and dismantle fossil fuel production right now, without waiting for the alternatives to be commercialized. Here in West Virginia, coal mining (ok, not the same as oil drilling, but what we should be doing is mining coal and coverting it to clean crude oil) is down by about 50% from 2008 levels, thanks to successful environmental lawsuits to stop permitting activities. The logicial consequence of producing less energy is lower economic output. I believe that the US is headed for more debt, and lower production and manufacturing. We do need some help from common sense politicians (Republicans or other) to restore drilling and mining to their proper place, and to insitute new producion activivities from liquefaction of biomass, natural gas and coal. America needs more oil, but for some reason that message can not get through to our thick headed politicians. In the past, our elected leaders have touted hydrogen utlization (forgetting to telll us the source of this hydrogen), corn ethanol, wind power and photovoltaics. All of these energy sources are bogus in that they are not cheap enough to allow American Industry to compete on the world marketplace (though they sound great on 30 second commercials on TV).
Economic growth is not an evil objective. We need someone, perhaps Trump, to help us to grow our economy and to produce more clean energy.
Another billionaire candidate, Ross Perot, couldn't make up his mind whether to run for President or not, back in 1992. But he at one time led both George H. Bush , and Bill Clinton in the polls. So it's not totally absurd to think that Trump might run and win.
By the way, if you are wondering who his Vice Presidential candidate might be, check out this video:
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