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Military.com Forums Hot Topics & Current Events Point-Counterpoint Are you ready to “socialize” the oil industry?|
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It's OK to be a little paranoid. Someone somewhere is out to get you. |
Are you ready to “socialize” the oil industry?
. . . Waters challenging the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, to guarantee the prices consumers pay will go down if the oil companies are allowed to drill wherever they want off of U.S. shores. Hofmeister replied: “I can guarantee to the American people, because of the inaction of the United States Congress, ever-increasing prices unless the demand comes down. And the $5 will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies.” Waters responded, in part, “And guess what this liberal would be all about. This liberal will be about socializing . . . uh, um. . . .” The congresswoman paused to collect her thoughts. “Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies. . . .” Largely because of an “anti-progress, anti-capitalist” (aka green) agenda, foreign countries such as Canada, China, India, and Spain “drill for oil within spitting distance of our shores without competition from U.S. [companies].” Domestic oil production has dropped 40% since the 1970s while consumption has doubled. We’re lucky the price of gas is no higher than it is. |
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When I say "knock it off" I mean "knock it off".  |
Since demand will not decrease it will probably stay fairly constant or rise slightly, it would make sense to increase the supply, whereby the laws of supply and demand would affect the price in the manner of decreasing it. Typical executive looking at the bottom line of his company and not wanting to allow for any decrease in corporate profits by admitting that if they were allowed to tap into new areas of oil that would increase gasoline supplies and they would have no excuse for the high prices at the pump. Too bad that Waters wasn't quick enough to point that little tidbit out. I think we should go after the oil on in or near our shores and to hell with the tree huggers. Someone is going to get that oil and it might as well be us. At least we have some form of oversight on how environmental issues are handled. Of all escape mechanisms, Death is the most efficient. ~~ H.L. Mencken |
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Member |
Venezuela, here we come. Vote jackass party this fall, and see and hear worse than that.
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"Resistance to reason is futile" |
That's a comforting thought. |
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Member |
I think most thinking people have the idea of drilling ANWR ourselves. Might as well throw in nuclear power as a better option to wind power. Geothermal is another option. Anything is better than socialize....letting the government take over an industry. |
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KEEP WHAT IS USEFULL,THROW OUT WHAT IS USELESS |
WHEN GOV. TAKES OVER...EVERYONE LOOSES!!
WE'LL GO FROM FREEDOM, TO JUST PLAIN.... DUMB. |
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Highly Experienced Member |
BV - government took over a long time ago - with the general consent of the American public.
At one time, we'd toss out anyone who even dared suggest that any of the freedoms guaranteed us in the Bill of Rights could be abridged. Now, people seem to think that it's okay - and in the name of being "safe". The oil industry doesn't need to be "nationalized" so long as we put people in office who are smart enough to take the long view of their actions and don't allow themselves to be compromised by narrowly-focused special interests. We suffer from a combination of bad policy, neglect brought about by ignorance or indifference, greed by those who have taken advantage of those two things, and a general lack of interest in that which will take effort and occasional sacrifice. |
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Member |
The sentiment and underlying truth are as accurate now as two years ago.
Cheryl Hall Who owns Big Oil? You and I Wednesday, April 26, 2006 Taxing Big Oil is mighty enticing – especially after we learned that former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Lee Raymond will pocket nearly $100 million in a lump sum later this year as part of an estimated jaw-dropping $357 million retirement package. Personally, I have a tough time believing any executive deserves such monumental bounty, even one who steered a company to monumental results. Mr. Raymond did, after all, earn $41 million last year in salary, bonus, incentives and options exercised for doing his job. As a result, the growing cry for a windfall profits tax may reach deafening levels Thursday after Exxon Mobil reports what are expected to be stunning first-quarter results. But who really owns Big Oil? And who would pay that tax? If you have a retirement plan of any sort, chances are you'd foot part of the bill. I know I will. I don't own any individual shares of Exxon, Chevron Corp. or ConocoPhillips. But I have a 401(k) and a retirement plan that undoubtedly do. Take a look at the top investors in the three biggest U.S. oil companies, and you'll see the same cast of characters: stock index, mutual and retirement funds, banks and insurance companies. Run the totals, and you'll discover that Vanguard Group Inc. held nearly 236 million shares of the Big Three at year's end, and Fidelity Management weighed in with 129 million shares. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas owned 32 million shares, including 20.3 million of Exxon's. That's twice the amount owned by all the company's bigwigs combined. According to its proxy, Exxon insiders held just under 10 million of the company's 6 billion outstanding shares as of Feb. 28. Of that, Mr. Raymond held 3.7 million shares, and his successor, chief executive Rex Tillerson, owned 576,570 shares. If all 28 insiders exercised all their options, the group would still only own a third of 1 percent of Exxon. A bright spot: Shad Rowe, chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board, hopes Congress will wake up to this reality before succumbing to populist pressure. "When you look at who really owns Big Oil, it's teachers, firefighters, police officers and ordinary people who hope to retire someday," Mr. Rowe says. "Their retirement plans have been generally disappointing. The only bright spot has been the performance of energy stocks." And what, if anything, would such a tax really do to the price and availability of gasoline? Yes, paying $3 a gallon for gasoline makes me wince. And I think the government should nail anyone guilty of price gouging. But I'm not too keen on paying two bucks for a glass of iced tea at a restaurant, either. Nor am I insensitive to the working poor, deeply challenged by each extra nickel they spend on transportation. But I seriously doubt that taxing oil company profits will reduce our angst at the pump any more effectively than the lottery fixed our state finances. And when Jimmy Carter tried the windfall profit tax in 1979, it didn't spur the production of alternative fuels either. "To argue that an excess profit tax is any kind of a positive force is remarkably difficult," says Dan Short, dean of the business school at Texas Christian University. "The question is: What problem are we solving? Are we simply taking money from retirees and giving it to low-income people who need help in paying for gas? "The trouble is, we never use excess profit taxes to solve the fundamental problem of limited supply and excess demand." Wrong message: James Smith, who holds the Cary M. Maguire chair in oil and gas management at Southern Methodist University, says that to his knowledge, no oil company ever paid a dime in windfall taxes. The price of crude fell below the critical level just as the tax went into effect, and oil companies were adept at using the tax codes to their benefit. Plus, reinstituting it sends precisely the wrong message at a crucial time, Dr. Smith contends. (What? You mean the leftist Change We Can Believe In only drags us back through the same old, same old "stuff?") "It's backwards thinking. Companies will not risk billion-dollar investments if they think Congress will come in and skim the profits if any show up. The answer is not to tax supply – that will exacerbate the problem. If you want to tax, tax demand." Cutting consumption may not be as painful as we believe. If every American motorist reduced consumption by just one gallon a week, Dr. Smith estimates, the price of gasoline could fall by 60 cents a gallon. Hmmm. As Pogo told his cartoon pal Porky in 1971: "Yep, son, we have met the enemy, and he is us." |
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Member |
Major Oil Company, insider politician. Bull ****!
Nationalize and let them try to punish their biggest customer. |
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Basic Training |
Ill vote for any energy system that keeps gas prices at a level where I can afford to maintain a reasonable quality of life. |
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Experienced Member |
The oil industry has already "socialized" itself on it's own level hasn't it? Exxon and Standard already know how it's going down.
Why should they have all the fun? |
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Member |
When you mention affordability, make real sure to capture ALL costs. The ignorance about all such costs runs rampant, at least, as they relate to collectivization of economic activity. |
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Experienced Member |
Hell yes. Next question?
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Highly Experienced Member |
So, in essence, you would like us to buy the argument that the citizens of the United States and the shareholders of Exxon-Mobil are exactly the same population? I needed the laugh. Maxine Waters is off the reservation as usual ... so what? There are equivalents on the other side of the aisle spouting nonsense. But what has always puzzled me is why we have no possible alternatives to handing over lucrative leases to the oil majors in order to get production of what is after all a national asset. Under current rules, if we allow drilling in ANWAR, the government stands to make a 16% royalty on what is our oil. Are you seriously suggesting that the energy companies wouldn't make rather more? What is preventing us from simply hiring an oil services company to do the drilling, and keep the proceeds instead? Call it socialism if you care to ... having a government entity competing directly with the private sector is hardly novel, and competition is not exactly stunning in the industry right now, if you haven't noticed. Please note this has nothing whatsoever to do with seizing existing oil companies, or their assets. It is about exploiting the public mineral resources under publicly owned land. Talk to me all day about how environmentally sensitive the industry has gotten ... but isn't the lawsuit over compensation for the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill still dragging through the courts? If we are concerned with the environment, wouldn't we be more likely to have a government entity not taking shortcuts? Say for example you were filthy rich and found oil on your own land. If you could make more money out of drilling for it and selling it yourself than you could leasing the land to an oil company, would that make you a rampaging pinko if you took that route? Why should we, acting en bloc, be any different? I suspect that is why the majors are so frantic to get the leases in place before we have time to consider alternatives.  |
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Member |
Name me one business that the Federal Government has gotten into where they haven't run it into the ground, like the postal service.
You want to kill something, nationalize it. You want to make it bloated, ineffective, full of mid-level beaurocrats, and unable to respond to market pressures, then make it a government agency. You want cheap oil... get the Demowhiners to let us drill in ANWAR, off the coast, and turn the 7 trillion barrels of oil shale into oil... and we'll eventually find an alternative. Oh but no... I forgot, the eco-whacko's are the Demowhiner base... |
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Highly Experienced Member |
The postal service runs fine ... its purpose is not to make a profit but to deliver the mail, even to places where they can't make any money doing it. The government ran munitions factories and shipbuilding yards during the second world war that ran fine, the TVA still runs fine, the national weather service still runs fine. You have stated in another thread that government is not the solution to everything. I agree. But there are some things where it is the only sensible solution, provided that you have people in charge who believe it is supposed to work. Right now high positions are handed out as rewards to large contributors or loyalists without credentials {Boss Tweed would be proud of this patronage writ large]... that this government doesn't work well is hardly proof that it is impossible for it to do so. Market pressures? In the oil industry? Can you remember the last time you saw a gas war, or aren't you that old? I think ANWAR could be exploited without severe environmental damage. I just don't think it is very likely that Exxon would be likely to do it that way, since they aren't that interested in anything besides making a profit. I think we could afford a great many bureaucrats for the difference between 16% royalties and just hiring Halliburton or Schlumberger to go drill it for us instead ... and still have plenty left over to help pay down the deficit hole this President did so much to dig for us. |
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Experienced Member |
Come on now... |
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Experienced Member |
Ahh, the horrors of Socialism. TVA is one of the cheapest electricity producers in the Country. There are others, that ARE cheaper, but they too are government owned. The post office sends a letter anywhere in the country at half the price UPS can, and UPS is NOT mandated by law to deliver to everyone. Plenty of places are not accessible to UPS. But I really like the idea that Exxon/Moble is really a Mom and Pop store - That indeed cracked me up. Manwhile, back at the ranch so to speak, Americans close to the Mexican border are flocking there to buy Mexican government produced gas, selling for $2.50 a gallon. And talk about a subsidy to oil companies that no one neven mentions, we lease them OUR oil for virtually pennies to the barrel, and meanwhile the Pentqagon, the largest single user of gasoline in the country, buys OUR OIL back from them at market price. How touching. How PATRIOTIC of them.  Dave |
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Experienced Member |
Well if you want to understand the graph your going to have to think hard about what happened on or around the following dates: Nov 06 Early Jan 07 Late Jan 07 Late May early June 07 Mid Oct 07 Mid Feb 08 Those are the key swing dates. Now the million dollar question is what happened on those dates? I think the first and third should be painfully obvious. The first dip on the graph starting around Aug of 06 was obviously the end of the Israeli/Hezbollah war. This message has been edited. Last edited by: floersh, |
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Experienced Member |
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