Glenn Beck Interviews Richard Duncan: And keeps an open mind!
Posted July 28, 2012
On Tuesday July 17th I was invited to appear on Glenn Beck’s show. This came about because of my CNBC Squawk Box Europe interview the day before. Honestly, I was not sure about what kind of reception I would be given by Glenn, but I wanted the chance to present his audience with a different perspective on the global economic crisis than they normally see, so I accepted. I was in London and he was in Texas. His team quickly arranged a studio for me so we could record a live interview. The Houses of Parliament can be seen in the background. I felt Glenn gave me a fair and respectful hearing. Judge for yourself. I thought it was a particularly good conversation. Here’s the link:
Sent to Samuel Brittan of Financial Times, commenting on his review of your book:
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Dear Mr. Brittan,
I am glad that some of you at FT are paying proper attention to the urgent key question:
“How could the world avoid sinking into a 1930’s-style depression in the next year or two?”
You ask how Duncan’s proposal for a US solar initiative could be better adapted to the needs of the EU, and of reality.
My reply: EU should put a clear unambiguous offer on the table, perhaps through new regulations on electric utilities, that any large-scale supplier of solar energy generated within the EU will be paid 15 cents per kwh, so long as it comes from solar farms in areas of reasonably reliable sun of size half a gigawatt or more, until or unless half the EU demand for electricity is met in this way. Also, it should quickly override those specific regulatory and financial barriers which would prevent companies like Siemens or GE or new entries from being able to respond to this offer, if they could meet the 15 cents level.
This is better than Duncan’s suggestion, because it does not risk expanding the waste of money we have often seen when governments make sweetheart deals with politically selected contractors. Many would argue that there is a huge risk that nothing at all will happen, because no one will respond – but what is the cost, if so?
At 10 cents per kwh and 20,000 terawatt hours per year, electricity is a $2 trillion per year industry, and a major new private investment in this sector would be more than enough to compensate for the loss of jobs in the public sector in southern Europe.
Best of luck to all of you… we will need it.
Also see:
https://drpauljohn.blogspot.com/2012/07/status-of-threat-of-great-depression-ii.html
We need to use as much solar energy if we want to think about the future.
The most important contribution to the debate that I have seen. Thank you. I will be referencing your work in my consumer presentation on the same subject that follows. It has the objective of simply defining paper money in terms that are accessible to everybody. This is done in the form of a parable – The Goldsmith’s Tale:
http://www.manfriday.com.au
Yours to use and share.