Print this Page |
Digg It |
del.icio.us
King For a Day: All the MONEY, All the POWER, All the Headaches - We Ask YOU To Solve Our Problems
Dinner with friends on Friday night spurred the question I am going to pose to you today, and I think it fits well with other topics we have discussed and argued about here on AutoSpies.com. In case you haven’t noticed, we as a country are in a little bit of an economic slowdown (I’ll even grant you a recession if you insist) and the price of everything is going higher and higher it seems almost daily.
Of course one of the most noticeable items is the price of a gallon of gas. Even when adjusted for inflation, the cost of gas is higher than it ever has been with the exception of the early 1900’s when the automobile was in its infancy. Whether you like the fact or not, oil is the lifeblood of our economy. It makes the world turn, it makes our economy turn and without it we would catapult ourselves back into a depression that would make the 1930’s look mild by comparison.
And therein lies the question. Everyone and their mother seems to think they have a solution to the problem, but the truth is there really isn’t a great solution out there. T. Boone Pickens has been running commercials touting wind energy coupled with an increase in natural gas usage. Others in Congress have been pushing for off shore drilling. ANWAR has been a battleground for years as different politicians have looked to increase domestic production while decreasing our dependency on nations who for the most part hate us.
Now let’s be really clear here, this is not a discussion on politics, this is a forum for the discussion of ideas. If you were President of the United States, what steps or proposals would you take to solve the current energy crisis and to prevent a future energy crisis from occurring?
As we sat around and ate dinner on Friday night, the topic of gas mileage came up. Seated at the table was a friend of mine who although technically retired, still dabbles in his trade as a chemical engineer. He is one of the best at what he does, so he still travels frequently as part of his “consulting” role he plays. He drives a Mercedes E350 averaging 20-MPG. Another friend seated at the table who was wildly successful in business traded his Mercedes S-Class for a Honda Civic. Bragging about the 32-MPG he averages he declares that fuel-efficient cars are the future. I am the lone man out seeing as the M3 I currently drive has a hard time breaking into the 17-MPG arena, and as such I spend a lot more time at the gas station fueling up.
So here is the question, If you were King for a Day (or a week, month or multiple years) what steps would you take to solve the current energy crisis?
Notice I made you King as opposed to President. A King rules supreme, the President has to go through Congress and the Senate; as such I am giving you a fast track ticket to solutions versus current political posturing and rhetoric.
The thing to remember is just like they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you can’t fix the problem overnight. Mandating everyone switch to small cars or hybrids or public transportation is fine, but remember there is a cost that must be absorbed by someone, and in doing a mandate like that don’t forget all those who still owe on current cars or who simply can’t afford something new.
So give it some thought (it won’t hurt, I promise) and throw some ideas out here. I am not saying the readers at AutoSpies.com will solve worlds problems, but a good discussion with some good ideas can go a long way to helping see the problem from others perspectives. And who knows, there just may be someone with some authority reading who can help make a change.
If YOU were King for a day, what steps would you take to sole the current energy crisis?