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General Category >> Politics, Religion (Tall Table) >> What the simple pencil and gasoline have in common
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Message started by WebsterMark on 11/02/22 at 05:07:04

Title: What the simple pencil and gasoline have in common
Post by WebsterMark on 11/02/22 at 05:07:04

I saw this article and it references one of my favorite and most educational essays ever; I Pencil.

By Daniel Turner
October 31, 2022

Years ago, one of my high school teachers showed us the great essay by Leonard Read called “I, Pencil.” We used pencils in those pre-Internet days, and my “young mind full of mush” (hat tip to Rush Limbaugh) was inspired by the essay’s message: the common pencil, in its components, is extraordinarily complex and the result of the free cooperation of unquantifiable interested parties.

No one person makes a pencil. A pencil is made by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, and yet it is sold for pennies. The government did not commission the pencil. No legislation of Congress authorized it. The pencil is a marvel of free market capitalism.

My three decades of reflection on this essay came to mind while reading Joseph Toomey’s exhaustive and brilliant analysis of the Biden administration’s energy agenda. “Energy Inflation Was by Design” lays out clearly the state of America’s most critical industry before and after Biden’s inauguration. It dispels the myths around the political rhetoric of “going green” or “getting rid of fossil fuels.”

In the spirit of “I, Pencil,” I similarly marvel at the fossil fuel industry. Gas is as ordinary as a pencil. We fill up our tanks every day, or jump in a rideshare, hop on a plane, jet ski around a lake, without taking any notice of the miracle of this fuel. Gas is the result of the labor of innumerable individual contributions, from geologists to tanker drivers; it begins miles underground and ends at the local filling station, yet it is cheaper than bottled water.

Pencils and gas are both marvels of free market capitalism, as are countless petrochemical products, from plastics and rubber to laundry detergent and cosmetics. The only non-market force capable of disrupting this well-oiled machine is government.

That’s exactly what Joe Biden did.

Title: Re: What the simple pencil and gasoline have in co
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 11/02/22 at 06:48:19

I saw the video. I,Pencil. Never gave a pencil a second thought before. It's really a neat story. Very involved series of steps and nobody has all the stuff to do all of it. And, nope, as much of an ordeal as it is, no government ordering it, no government planning it, required.
Just, get outta the Way,

Ahh,Joe,,the sand in everyone's grease.