5/30The Buck Never Stops Passing

Written on May 30, 2010

Greetings-

Doha market is up 2% on Sunday, rest of the Gulf markets are not so hot… It is never too far from home… My son Gifford and I had a great talk while floating around in the pool this weekend. I float, he sinks, (you do the math on who is in shape). We were talking about The Matrix. How men of action need to study hard and when the time comes utilize all their wisdom and planning in… action. Great stuff before he heads off for college. Later in the evening, when it was time for him to be a man of action, my sweet wife Jodi asked Gifford if he was ready to get back to work on his final school project. He had his typical response, “Mom, I was born ready!”…to which Jodi quietly responded, “you were born… naked.” I had to chuckle.

I had a reaction watching Air Force One on approach to the Gulf of Mexico. I hate that the blame game somehow puts an oil drilling fiasco in President Obama’s lap. Not because he is not in charge of the safety of the US but because it again will make another politician try to appear as if they are “doing something.” I honestly do not think that “he who shall not be named” was any more responsible for 9/11 or hurricane Katrina than President Obama is for BP’s faulty blow off valve. Now invading Iraq or “Mission Accomplished” those are on him and his boys who shall not be named. This is a real disaster and getting worse by the hour. BP is doing everything they know and they need help. Oil guys map, study, poke and suck. And man do they suck. They need some other thinking outside of shafts and valves. I am reminded of a game we used to play at outdoor parties that I think would be a great tool to train politicians. You crack an egg and place it in a six foot length of ¾ inch surgical tubing. One person on each end then has to blow as hard as they can. He who does not blow hardest shortly finds themselves sucking down a raw egg. Admittedly, when our fearless leader said, “the buck stops with me” while he was standing on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico yesterday, I was moved momentarily then sickened. I remembered that although not original, Harry Truman popularized the saying “the buck stops here” and that ruined it for me. Clearly our Commander in Chief’s speech writer (obviously a smart guy) wanting the President to appear original (and thinking all of us are too dumb to remember), did not quote nor credit Harry Truman directly. In nature, you have to be very careful if you start poking around. Mosquitoes poke, they get swatted. Bears poke their noses into a hive and they get stung. If the earth’s crust gets poked you get a sky full of smoke and ash and a valley full of lava and mud or a Gulf full of oil. It is different for politicians. If you poke them, the least you will get is hot air; it may go on to a barrage of BS; perhaps even a full-fledged speech. But, rue the day when they want to make something a new policy. Because although oil men may suck because it is their job; politicians sometimes after blowing hard, just can’t suck enough when it comes to new policies to better our lives. How about flying down to the Gulf with a few transport planes each carrying a couple of hundred Army Corp of engineers and getting Exxon to deploy everything they have to the bottom of the Gulf floor, get Red Adair’s current equivalent on deck and feed the guy any guided torpedo you could stuff into a tube of a nuclear submarine and let NASA chime in on how to get the payload delivered safely. Good grief we can send an unmanned drone to a hillside of Afghanistan from the comfort of our living room and place a missile right in some guys living room. But, we cannot seal a 20 inch hole that BP drilled in the bottom of the seabed? That is just embarrassing! Where is Jack Bauer? You might have to forget that cheaper gasoline for that trip in your car or boat. Apparently it is not one 20 inch blow off valve that malfunctioned; it is the evil of all things that burn fossil fuels, which will need to be eradicated. Timing could not have been better. Oil prices just started to slide under $70 and the Feds are now ceasing numerous planned drilling projects in the US and starting to question all offshore leases...lovely. They have done a fabulous job with regulating housing and mortgage finance, the insurance industry and medicine. I can’t wait to see what the smart guys come up with to help us heat our homes and fuel our cars...I just can’t wait. I trust you enjoyed a little time with your loved ones this weekend. I sure did. All the best, Leon