One thought on “Economic growth”

  1. Nelson Bunker Hunt died Tuesday at the age of 88. Hunt was once the world’s richest man. He controlled 8 million acres in a Libyan oil field at one time worth between $8 and $16 billion dollars. In 1969 Moammar Gadhafi took power and nationalized Libya’s oil industry. So Hunt and his brother Bunker and his other brother Herbert tried to corner the silver market. In 1974 they had the rights to 55 million ounces of silver and by January 1980 they controlled 200 million ounces. Three months later the price of silver crashed and they lost $1 billion dollars. Over the next 8 years they lost another $7 billion dollars and became virtual paupers with only $1 billion dollars of wealth remaining. Hunt commented at the time that “A billion dollars isn’t what it used to be.” Hunt was a militant right-wing fascist a la the Koch brothers. The lesson we can learn from Hunt is that nationalizing the oil, coal and gas industry would be a wonderful thing. As for Hunt, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Comments are closed.