Who Cares About the Oil Crisis?

After I worked for an oil and gas consulting firm out of business school from 1979-81. Bob Clark’s column (“The Latest Oil Crisis,” March 2006) was interesting, slightly out of the dull-financial-planning box and spot on.

Me? My next car will be a Toyota Prius…but I still intend to drive my 28-cylinder diesel motor yacht and my 12-cylinder twin Cessna as long as the petrol holds out. Call me bi-polar. Hell, call me an adult-child playing with too many cylinders.

Seriously, market forces and pricing will lead through exploration to lots more petroleum, as you said. What might make it interesting could be the federal government’s underwriting of research and advanced technology, which could make alternative fuels and energy sources viable. As I was flying from Texas to Phoenix the other week to meet with a client, I saw about 1,000 huge (300+ feet tall) 1 MW wind turbines in the north-west hills of Texas owned by Florida Power.

I’m betting on the hydrogen fuel cell–when that hits, it’s going to change the entire political/economic structure of the world. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see the evolution/revolution/fireworks.

Glenn Kautt, CFP

The Monitor Group

McLean, Virginia

Compliance, Please

Melanie Waddell does such a good job with her articles–please do one on compliance education. I see hundreds of articles on corporate complaints; huge costs; regulatory nightmares…never a peep about basic education of all employees up to management levels. Some still don’t know what Sarbanes Oxley is. Some think it is a fancy new financial term. According to a survey recently released by the Securities Industry Association (www.sia.com), “the essence of compliance is embedded in the concept of ‘supervision,’ where business management, not the compliance department, has ultimate responsibility to ensure that every element of the firm adheres to all regulatory and legislative mandates.”