Michael Giberson
Abe Othman at Constructive Economics has been reading Boone Pickens:
T. Boone Pickens, from his autobiography The Luckiest Guy in the World:
I believe the greatest opportunity lies in a free marketplace. There are powerful forces afoot trying to restrict that freedom in the interests of the vested and already wealthy.
T. Boone Pickens, in congressional testimony on a bill to prevent the slaughter of horses for food:
The whole thing, it’s a boondoggle on the American people…People that are for the slaughter should be forced to go down on that kill floor…The brutal slaughter of horses for consumption by wealthy diners in Europe and Japan cuts against our moral and cultural fiber — it’s just plain un-American.
Othman remarks, “Remember, if they can come after the horse slaughterers, they can come after the hedge funds.”
(Othman apparently remains under the the influence of Al Roth’s work on repugnance and markets – not that there is anything wrong with that.)
Americans are going to have to get used to the idea that we are not too refined to do dirty work, slaughter horses, drill for oil, run factories. We have tapped out our credit cards, we are broke. We need to get to work, yes even, the dirty disgusting parts, if we want to pay our bills and eat.
If I may disagree with my esteemed colleague the Fat Man: That set of quotes has nothing to do with the typical American’s distaste for engaging in dirty, hands-on work. Ask any of the guys who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and they’d have told you they like the hard work and the dirty work. Ask any of the people who make civilization possible by picking up the garbage and making sure the lights stay on, just to name two of many.
Might I clarify by editing just a bit of the illustrious Mr. Pickens’ first statement to make it more jive with the second…
“I believe the greatest opportunity lies in a free marketplace. There are powerful forces afoot trying to restrict that freedom in the interests of the vested and the already wealthy. (_note the shift_) And the people who do that should be forced to go down to the places where people struggle for their unemployment benefits and see the petty struggles they contend with that will lead to whether or not their children have medicine. Having a blasted powerful rich dude hanging out watching a working family die because they brought the wrong paper with them, that’s unamerican.