But first, welcome to "The Real Story."
Do you ever feel like we`re a runner, that this country is a marathon runner who started out really fast and now keeps getting passed by people that shouldn`t really be running at all?
You`re like, wait a minute. There goes China and India. I mean, I can`t even see the guy from Kenya anymore. Despite having the best technology, the best educational facilities, the best minds, the most wealth on the planet, we just cannot get out of our own way anymore.
You look at the oil and gas crisis, for example. We`re sitting here debating shortsighted plans like, well, should we give a temporary gas tax and reduce the price of gas over the summer? The rest of the world, meanwhile, is laughing at us as they run right by us with real solutions.
When in this country did we decide we were going to settle for second or third or 10th place. And I`ve got news for you, gang. This is a race that we`re going to finish and we`re not going to get a trophy just for participating.
I`m not an idiot. I know this is an election year. But the difference between me and the politicians is, I don`t think you`re an idiot, either.
You know, Hillary has got this idea now to make the oil companies pay the gas tax this summer. It will make gas more expensive.
It is like telling McDonald`s that they have to start paying the sales tax themselves, and then expecting that the Happy Meals are going to cost the same amount of money. They ain`t.
This June, I`m doing a nationwide live stage tour. It`s a comedy tour on politics this time around called Beck `08: Unelectable.
This is where I`m going to give the campaign speech that I think our candidates should, but they won`t, because they`re wussies. You know, it`s a campaign speech that involves the truth and common sense. It`s meant for comedy, but I`ve got news for you, it`s true.
On oil, it`s simple. Here it is.
It`s the only known substance on earth that can keep our economy functioning. And without it, we`re back into 1860. So, unless you want to ride horses and heat your house with a campfire, I don`t know, maybe we should start looking for a moon shot program to find more of it.
Meanwhile, the other countries aren`t waiting. Norway, Canada, chock full of tree huggers, and they both have allowed offshore drilling for years. China, Cuba, virtually drilling in our own backyard, right off the coast of Florida. Yet, 85 percent of our own coastal waters, along with ANWR, are completely off limits, because we might hurt the bucktooth beaver or a caribou or whatever the hell they`re complaining about now.
What is it going to take before you are finally pissed of enough to tell these environmentalists, you know what? Go make it with a tree all you want. I`m looking for oil. Tell these special interests groups enough is enough.
What`s it going to take, $4 a gallon gas? We`re there. Six-dollar-a- gallon gas? Ten-dollar-a-gallon gas? They say it`s coming.
We should be looking at how to reduce and sequester CO2. You bet.
We should look at how we can safely increase nuclear power plants. France can do it. We can`t?
We should make and look and explore ways to find -- ways to run our cars on air or water or less gas. All of those things should be done. But unless we start looking for more oil to bridge that technology gap, we`re going to be doing al those things by candlelight.
Ask yourself, America, who`s really running our government? Oh, it`s big oil. Really? Or is it the save the tree special interest groups?
Either way, the only one that should be in charge is you.
Byron King is an analyst and editor of Outstanding Investments.
Byron, I want to pick it up where we left off yesterday. You`re at an offshore tech conference in Houston which, surprisingly and completely unrelated, their economy in Houston is doing fine. We`re the laughing stock for the rest of the world because -- not because of our technology, but because of our policies, right?
BYRON KING, OUTSTANDING INVESTMENTS: That is true, Glenn. That`s exactly right.
Our technology to explore and to develop the offshore and the deep waters in the world is second to none. But policy-wise, the U.S. is a laughing stock within the world.
At the technical level, the rest of the world respects us. At the policy level, they don`t understand why we shoot ourselves in the foot every day.
The only place you can really drill in the United States offshore is offshore of Texas, Louisiana and a little bit of Alabama. And then there`s some old production in California, but there`s nothing new. We haven`t had anything in 35 years.
BECK: Yes.
Byron, we put Russia out of business back in the `80s. Then we taught them and the rest of the world how to get rich through capitalism.
Meanwhile, we`ve got this high and mighty attitude. Their oil people, they become president over in Russia. Our oil people, we drag their butts in front of Congress. Shell, if I`m not mistaken -- please tell me this story -- Shell actually built an oil facility up off the coast of Alaska, and yet they were delayed for a year because environmentalists started suing them.
KING: Well, that`s what happened just this past winter. The winter in Alaska is the drilling season, because that`s when you can haul your equipment over the ice.
It`s frozen. There is no environmental damage whatsoever. You`re hauling your stuff over ice, and in the spring it melts. So, you drill in the wintertime.
Well, Shell was all staged to drill north of the North Slope in Beaufort Sea, and they got sued in federal court and the Ninth Circuit shut them down. So basically you`ve lost a drilling season, and a lot of money and a lot of preparation, a lot of everything.
BECK: Yes.
KING: You have to plan this stuff years ahead of time. The logistics is incredible to do the work that you need to do to drill offshore.
BECK: See, here is the thing I don`t understand. Look, Norway -- how many tree-hugging caribou lovers are in Norway? And yet, they are drilling offshore like crazy, using our technology.
KING: There are more people living in metropolitan Houston than there are in all of Norway. But the Norwegians have -- they have it both ways.
They hug the trees, they have a good environment, and they drill like crazy in the North Sea, and in the far north, in the Baring Sea. I mean, you should see some of the equipment, some of the technology that these three million Norwegians have developed. It is world class, world-beating technology.
It gets back to what you said earlier about how, you know, we`re running the race but everybody is passing us. If we don`t develop our own technology in the U.S., if we don`t let our own industry, you know, work on our own offshore, I mean, now we have got the Norwegians coming over here teaching us how to do it.
I`m glad they`re here. They`re nice people. And the girls are incredibly good looking. But look, hey, this is America, and we need to do it our way.
BECK: Byron, thank you so much.
How's that work? I must have missed the scientific paper that mentioned a new method of generating ammonium perchlorate hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene and aluminum without burning fossil fuels...