BOONE PICKENS: 'I'm about to give up on Washington'
"I'm about to give up on Washington figuring anything out. This is so simple. So routine..." Pickens said during the SALT Conference in Las Vegas.
Interviewer Stephanie Ruhle, who is the cohost of Bloomberg TV's "Market Makers," asked Pickens if he thought that anyone in Washington understood oil.
"No. No. I don't know a better way to answer it. No they don't. You can't have a five minute discussion on oil in Washington, a serious discussion, it will be over in three minutes because they will run out of what they know."
The audience erupted into laughter. In fact Boone's entire talk was filled with gems.
Ruhle then asked Pickens, "What does the government need to do?"
"I don't want them to do anything," Pickens said. "Leave it alone. Let supply and demand, the free market work."
Ruhle pointed out there's not a free market though. The price of oil is controlled by a group of producer countries for the most part.
"No, it does not. It's not a free market. OPEC sets the price for oil and they do it by adjusting the supply. You know there's a free market in the United States that when we shut these rigs down we're going to need to supply and consequently the prices will go back up. No, it's not a free market," Pickens said.
During the talk, Pickens also predicted that we will see $70 a barrel oil by the end of the year.