OCR Text |
Show f WASHINGTON ik "I i AND SMALL IJ BUSINESS pgilB Why Not, Indeed? I The Shah of Iran Is a most interesting personality, inasmuch inas-much as in his position as perhaps per-haps the world's only absolute monarch, he is quite open to press interviews. In a recent TV Interview he announced that probably In September the oil producing nations will again raise their prices on crude. This means that with the dollar dol-lar a barrel U. S. import duty plus the planned gasoline tax, many small business enterprises enterpris-es could be hurt. A survey conducted by Faculty Fac-ulty Associates for the National Federation of Independent Business Bus-iness shows that motor fuel is the biggest energy expense encountered en-countered by small and independent inde-pendent business. But this seems to be significant. signifi-cant. The Shah took the position posi-tion that oil prices cannot be considered too high. If they are, he asked, why are not the industrialized nations doing more to open up other energy resources such as coal, nuclear energy, solar energy and other forms? This is a very tough question to answer. Traditionally, In a free economy, econ-omy, when one commodity has become too expensive, a substitute sub-stitute Is develooed. Yet despite all the fuss and storm raised in Washington over the need for more energy, so far, inasmuch as anyone can discern, nothing concrete has been accomplished to develop alternate sources. In fact, In California, next year there will go on the ballot bal-lot an initiative which If voted into existence, would stop the installation of new nuclear gen. erating plants and In all probability proba-bility close down the three that , are currently operating. The head of this drive, iA a TV interview, came up with a startling rationale. He said he felt that electricity, no matter what its source, eliminates manpower, therefore he does not feel that it is in the public interest to develop electricity. Thus, regardless of the validity vali-dity of the Shah's statement, one thing seems obvious. As an absolute monarch, he does not understand the working work-ing of a democracy. . It would Indeed be interesting interest-ing to see what would happen to any environmental group that demonstrated against his plans. Such a group would undoubtedly un-doubtedly find the environment Quite unhealthy nersnnallv. National Federation of Independent Business I |