"aemeijers" wrote in message
...
On 10/30/2011 12:17 AM, Robert Green wrote:
(snip)
Precisely. Big Oil and Big Pharma have learned to plead poverty all the
way
to the bank as they lobby for even more tax breaks. Big Oil constantly
forgets they are extracting something that doesn't belong to them, but
to
every US citizen and yet we pay more everyday for our own mineral
wealth.
Where's the money going?
If the Feds can run the largest military organization in the world,
they're
perfectly capable of hiring everyone and everything they need to extract
our
oil for us. Deregulation for some necessities of life has been pretty
bad
for the consumer and much better for the stockholder instead of a public
trust. Business has been slowly infiltrating many previously
government-run
institutions with less than stellar cost savings or results.
I won't bother addressing some of the other points I don't find
plausible, but could not let this one go unremarked. I've worked for DoD
for over 30 years. They have trouble finding their ass with both hands,
There's a singular problem with your assessment. As part of the
infrastructure you are criticizing, we then have to assume that *you* can't
find your ass with both hands and that your criticism should be viewed in
that highly suspect light. (-:
Aside from biting the hand that fed you for 30 years, is it really fair to
condemn one of the world's largest organizations (the US Federal Government)
from your experience with one end of it? Particularly an end that can cover
all of its many sins with secrecy that makes it impossible to determine
where, exactly, our tax dollars are going? One tasked with developing new
military technologies that can't benefit from competitive bidding nearly as
well as other entities because of the secrecy involved?
and probably waste one dollar out of three.
Wow. Does that means you're getting paid three times what you're worth? Or
that you work one third as hard as private sector employees? Or if there's
not 100% chance of success, we shouldn't undertake the effort or risk?
We've gone from the can-do spirit of the post WWII world that put a man on
the moon (a Federal government effort, as was creating the A-bomb) to the
"we can't do that it, it might fail." Now, other countries succeed at what
we've failed at. They have universal health care, faster and more reliable
internet access, cheaper gas, longer life spans and their citizens, unlike
ours, have some feeling that if they worked hard all their lives to help
build a country, they won't get kicked to the curb when they're too old or
too sick to work.
They succeed in the field by
throwing money at problems till they are overcome. Nationalizing the
oil production infrastructure would, within a decade, give us $10 gallon
gas.
You'd probably be surprised to learn how many countries have nationalized,
either fully or partially, their petroleum industries and *lowered* the
price of gasoline in their countries. They did it because they were always
at the ends of onerous contracts that they (rightly) believed did not
compensate them fairly for the value of the resources. Take out the
incredible billions of of profits that multi-nationals earn from oil that
belongs to everyone in the US and perhaps gas prices would drop. Do you
think those billions in profit going more and more to overseas investors
helps as much as keeping those dollars, jobs and revenues within the
country?
Even the allegedly incompetent Feds could manage to provide gasoline to its
citizens far more cheaply than the Big Oil companies once you subtract the
billions in profits they take. Apparently the Arabs are smarter than we are
when it comes to striking shrewd deals with the petroleum companies for
national resources. Even the Canadians are smarter than we are.
Following the OPEC oil embargo in the early 1970s, Canada took initiative
to control its oil supplies. The result of these initiatives was
Petro-Canada, a state-owned oil company. Petro-Canada put forth national
goals including, increased domestic ownership of the industry, development
of reserves not located in the western provinces, that is to say, the
promotion of the Canada Lands in the north and offshore, better information
about the petroleum industry, security of supply, decrease dependence on the
large multinational oil corporations, especially the Big Four, and increase
revenues flowing to the federal treasury from the oil and gas sector.
The first country to successfully nationalize after the structural change of
the industry was Algeria, who nationalized 51% of the French companies only
ten days after the Teheran agreement and later was able to nationalize 100%
of their companies. The nationalization of Algerian oil influenced Libya to
nationalize British Petroleum in 1971 and the rest of their foreign
companies by 1974. A ripple effect quickly occurred, spreading first to the
more militant oil producers like Iraq and then followed by more conservative
oil producers like Saudi Arabia.
Stephen J. Kobrin states that "By 1976 virtually every other major producer
in the mid-East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America had followed nationalizing
at least some of its producers to gain either a share of participation or to
take over the entire industry and employ the international companies on a
contractual basis." [9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...f_oil_supplies
I suppose it's only fair that other countries now get to profit from every
dollar US citizens pay at the pump since it was the other way around for so
long. One after the other, oil-producing countries realized they weren't
getting top dollar for their valuable oil. How long will it take for us to
wake up and realize that Big Oil will still drill wells without outrageous
deductions thrown their way? They'll just threaten and cry more, but like
BoA will eventually back down on whatever threats they make.
There's a reason for small, backwards countries to sign concession
agreements with Big Oil. They are too technologically backward to drill and
refine their own oil. We're not. We created the A-bomb and put men on the
moon. Yet we're too stupid to negotiate to our advantage the way so many
smaller countries have.
Read the list below and figure out who has nationalized petroleum and who
hasn't?
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...bal_gasprices/
(as of 2005)
Nation | City | Price in USD Regular/Gallon
Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08
Estonia Tallinn $3.62
Bulgaria Sofia $3.52
Brazil Brasilia $3.12
Cuba Havana $3.03
Taiwan Taipei $2.84
Lebanon Beirut $2.63
South Africa Johannesburg $2.62
Nicaragua Managua $2.61
Panama Panama City $2.19
Russia Moscow $2.10
Puerto Rico San Juan $1.74
Saudi Arabia Riyadh $0.91
Kuwait Kuwait City $0.78
Egypt Cairo $0.65
Nigeria Lagos $0.38
Venezuela Caracas $0.12
In a few Latin America and Middle-East nations, such as Venezuela and Saudi
Arabia, oil is produced by a government-owned company and local gasoline
prices are kept low as a benefit to the nation's citizens.
In America, citizens pay high gas prices to multi-national oil-companies
with investors profiting all over the globe from our need for gasoline. I'd
rather keep those dollars in American, helping Americans.
So I very much doubt your ten dollar a gallon scenario as a result of
nationalization will come to fruition unless you believe we're vastly
inferior to Nigeria, Venezuela, Egypt, etc. and can't accomplish things that
they have done. The oil and mineral wealth of the US belongs to all its
citizens but in reality benefits mostly those in the upper tax brackets.
Ask the poor residents of W. Virginia: they can tell you about the state's
coal wealth and how it benefits a very small number of people.
--
Bobby G.