Defiantone.com

Ok, I had some free time on my hands after watching the Drake Bulldogs getting beat at the buzzer - by a three pointer no less - so I let my imagination run wild for a few minutes. Eventually, I needed to call in reinforcements to reel it back in but I had traveled down an interesting bunny trail. Oil prices are high and gas prices are the highest I’ve ever seen them. What can we do to lower oil prices in the short term while looking for a long term energy solution?

If you’ve read Atlas Shrugged you’ll know that you can’t always win when trying to do something for the “public good.” In the book, the government decided to nationalize D’Anconia Copper and found, much to their dismay, that it had already been dismantled and that nothing was left. They got too greedy for their own good and took everything away from those who worked for it in pursuit of a socialist state. A few revolted and set up a unique society where each earned his own - and charity was never given. We could find that if we take over the oil industry that there may be nothing left - we could have already reached Hubbert’s Peak - the point in which oil production will only decrease because we have used 50% of the available reserves.

My thought was what would happen if we nationalized the US oil industry? There isn’t much precedent for the nationalization of an industry in the United States and through my research I only found two examples. During WWI we nationalized the rail industry but promptly privatized it following the end of the war. The other example is of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Following the 9-11 attacks in NY City, the private run airport security industry was transferred to government control. Both were done in due to a national interest and only one of the two returned to private control. Venezuela recently privatized Exxon and took control of the production facilities within its border. While they only control a fraction of the market for oil they have leveraged it to create more strain on the system - thus raising prices.

Can we nationalize an industry in America by force? No - we’ve got to provide adequate compensation for the industry in accordance with UN Laws

In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1803, “Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources,” which states that in the event of nationalization, the owner “shall be paid appropriate compensation in accordance with international law.” In doing so, the UN rejected both the traditional Calvo-doctrinist view and the Communist view. The term “appropriate compensation” represents a compromise between the traditional views, taking into account the need of developing countries to pursue reform even without the ability to pay full compensation, and the Western concern for protection of private property.

Occasionally, the nationalization of an industry does not work to the advantage of the public as it can lead to corruption and the downfall of the industry. Mexico nationalized Pemex and it has been a failure ever since. Since the government took over they have not explored for more sites or increased production on existing sites. In fact, the company is now 42 billion dollars in debt in an age of ever increasing oil prices. Bad management? Possibly - but there is much more to the equation - and I’m not going to dig into it.

Arguments for the corruption of the oil industry run rampant. I found an interesting take on rising oil prices at Seeking Alpha

- the author is talking about how the futures market creates some interesting questions - here is an excerpt

So what did happen? Well the traitors cancelled 117,558,000 barrels of oil, that’s 29M barrels A WEEK from October delivery in order for the weather girl on CNBC to be able to tell you every Wednesday at 10:30 how tight supplies are. And what did they do with those barrels? The same thing they do every month, they “roll” the contracts into the forward months, creating a false demand there for oil they never intend to accept delivery of and they have done it EVERY SINGLE MONTH FOR THE PAST 2 YEARS!
But, they are not done…

Were the traitors traders to accept delivery of the 171,442,000 barrels of oil that are still open today, BARRELS THAT THEY HAVE ALREADY BILLED YOU FOR, it would create the biggest glut of oil in US history and crash the oil markets. So these traitors traders will, in the next 4 days, CANCEL ANOTHER 130M BARRELS OF CRUDE and slip the majority of them into the next 3 months in order to create the perception that there is, simultaneously, a record demand and a tight current supply

Responses were varied but few agreed with him

The author, who seems to be totally unfamiliar with the workings of futures markets, is welcome to his misconceptions, but does not deserve space in this forum.

Wow - what’s next? Black helicopters?

Hillary has either made a flub or a direct statement that she supports the nationalization of the oil industry - your interpretation will determine your opinion. I’ve highlighted and italicized the important tidbit

The other day the oil companies recorded the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits. And I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will actually begin to move us in the direction of independence

Obviously your interpretation of her “taking those profits” means quite a bit in this situation. I don’t really agree with her thought of directly taking the profits but profiteering is killing us all. Taking over an US owned industry would be monumental and could have epic repercussions.

I found a few links to others making arguments for the nationalization of the oil industry - you can check out the arguments at the Huffington Post and at Pww.org

Ok - the bottom line - should we? No - we couldn’t afford to give them adequate compensation. What we should do is to stop all tax subsidies for the oil industry despite the fact that it could cause a short term increase in the price we pay at the pump. We should make a concentrated effort to expand research into alternative energy as we made a national effort to get to the moon in the mid-twentieth century.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 5:54 am and is filed under Life as I know it, ahh the news, desert, rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.