Yes – I can tie all 4 together. Friedman's column today says the nation who gets to the green technologies first – wins rights to this century. A friend of mine who helps start-ups succeed told me yesterday that for every $1 in federal subsidies for corn grown to support ethanol production, there are $11 in federal subsidies supporting Big Oil. (There, I connected all 4 in one paragraph!)
Hence, the appropriateness of this quote from Friedman's column:
When you're talking oil, you can't just say, "Let the free market work," because there is no free market in oil: the producers have a cartel, and governments — like ours — subsidize oil, so we don't pay the full cost.
Jim's Blog 