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Why the World Is Running Out of Helium
jamie writes "The US National Helium Reserve stores a billion cubic meters of helium, half the world supply, in an old natural gasfield. The array of pipes and mines runs 200 miles from Texas to Kansas. In the name of deficit reduction, we're selling it all off for cheap. Physics professor and Nobel laureate Robert Richardson says: 'In 1996, the US Congress decided to sell off the strategic reserve and the consequence was that the market was swelled with cheap helium because its price was not determined by the market. The motivation was to sell it all by 2015. The basic problem is that helium is too cheap. The Earth is 4.7 billion years old and it has taken that long to accumulate our helium reserves, which we will dissipate in about 100 years. One generation does not have the right to determine availability forever.' Another view is The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve, the government study from 10 years ago that suggested the government's price would end up being over market value by 25% — but cautioned that this was based on the assumption that demand would grow slowly, and urged periodic reviews of the state of the industry."
1) Means test Social Security and prohibit double dipping.
2) Means test the shit out of Medicare. If you can pay for it, Medicare sends you the bill, even if it leaves you with an estate balance of $0 when your kids go to inherit your wealth.
3) Bring our troops home from the 130+ bases we have abroad and put a division on the southern border instead.
4) Stop this bullshit "stimulus spending," most of which goes either to irreparably bankrupt institutions (hint: the balances on most banks are so deep in the red that the US literally could never make the balance) and government institutions at the state and local levels. It would be more effective to throw excess $1 bills in drum barrels, light them on fire and call it "heating for the homeless" than what we have been doing.
5) Cut all federal subsidies. All of them. Let me say that again. All of them. As in everything from road assistance, to law enforcement assistance, to university grants, to farm subsidies. Nuke the entire system from orbit and don't even consider restarting it until the economy has recovered fully.
In five incredibly easy steps, we can go from a federal deficit to a federal surplus in the middle of a nascent depression. Congress could probably draft most of these bills over an extended lunch break.
Right at the end, the number I was looking for: Professor Richardson also believes that party balloons filled with helium are too cheap, and they should really cost about $100 to reflect the precious nature of the gas they contain. That will be the day all the party stores start selling their Helium reserves to NASA.
Anybody else get the impression the good professor will start talking about precious bodily fluids next?
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Next time don't cause yourself the trouble and don't reply to begin with.