nationalizing oil

[knabe]

I was going to put this in the oil thread, but thought it deserved it's own.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/just_47_oppose_nationalizing_oil_industry

Just 47% Oppose Nationalizing Oil Industry
Just 52% of American voters believe that an oil company should be allowed to keep profits from any alternative energy source it discovers.

wait till america figures out the rise in natural gas prices this winter.  maybe their profits will be obscene too.

as far as i'm concerned, this socialization should happen faster than when fdr did it so we can end it quicker too.

profit is simply an avenue to even greater government redistibution of wealth and guaranteed outcomes rather than equal opportunity to put capital at risk.  amazing how no democratic platform is for putting one's own money at risk separate from the government.  mccain isn't far behind that notion.

 

[AAOK]

Oklahoma is scattered with Independent Oil Produces, and I have several close friends in the business.  On a National scale, those independents produce only a fraction of our supply, but this group has produce a great many millionaires with a lot of political clout.  One of my best friends is a third generation Oil produce.  His brother is the same, and has spent the past 25 years building the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association ( www.oipa.com ) into the State's most powerful lobby.  I have been assured that the U.S. Oil industry will never be Nationalized, because only a handful of Independents is all our Government could acquire.  The Major Oil companies and even the smaller ones such as Oklahoma's Chesapeake and Devon have already made arrangements to move their headquarters and operations to other countries should such a coup ever be attempted.

Our Country MUST elect a Republican President for you and I to stand a reasonable chance of reducing the cost of GAS at the pump.

Copied from Northstar Writer's Group:

The American Energy Protection Act of 2008 (Senate Bill 2958) would remove restrictions on oil exploration and drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This would have opened access to about 24 billion barrels of oil, which is enough to keep America running for five years with no foreign imports, while other energy technologies are being developed.

During the week of May 15, 2008, the Senate had three opportunities to increase the domestic production of oil and help ease our economy’s dependence on foreign oil. All three times the Democrats voted as a block to deny passage of critical oil liberating legislation.

Senate Bill 2958 would have removed commercial leasing restrictions on oil shale rich areas of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Oil shale is a solid material containing oil, which makes it more expensive to extract than traditional oil liquids. But today’s oil prices have made access to this source of oil more cost effective.

It is estimated that there are two trillion barrels of unexplored oil shale right here in the United States. That’s trillion with a “t”.

Lifting the oil shale restrictions was considered separately as an amendment to the FY2008 Supplemental Appropriations Bill in Committee, and failed on a party line vote of 15 to 14. No Democrats voted in favor of oil shale development.

The third opportunity came as a motion on the Senate floor to give governors the authority for increased exploration on the OCS in their “backyard” for new areas of production. The motion was voted down by the Democrats 51 to 44 with three Democrats voting with the Republicans. Sen. Landrieu was one of the Democrats . . . another bone to the people.

The mainstream media’s preoccupation with trying to squeeze more drama out of the Democratic presidential primary has left the Democrats in Congress unchecked on other critical issues. This is not a new development. It’s just a worsening one.

As the Democrats in Congress hold useless hearings to attack oil companies, pass useless legislation to try and sue OPEC, and continue to promote their wrongheaded idea of a “windfall profits” tax, the people continue to endure the pain of their irresponsibility.

There is nothing more critical to our national security than addressing our rapidly increasing dependence on foreign oil. And there is nothing more frustrating than the Democrats in Congress continuing to block all attempts to explore the oil resources we have right here at home.

 

[GONEWEST]

Knabe, while you are certainly be right about the opinion of drilling changing among Americans, it has not changed among Congress, who makes the rules. Americans don't seem to want  to be bothered with the political process that would remove those people and add people who share their views and values. All politicians want to do is get re-elected. When oil companies and lobbies provide resources for them to do so by the boat load, why would Congress do anything that could remotely have a negative impact on them? I heard McCain make the statement that drilling is not an environmental issue but an economic one. That is correct, but I believe it's only more words to get elected.

Things like flex fuel vehicles and higher mpg vehicles will not have the least bit of effect on the demand for oil. Any conservation practices here will be negated by the hundreds of thousands of $2,000 automobiles that are beginning to be built for those in India and China that could not previously afford them.

The only fuel source  that is sustainable as far as powering vehicles is water (hydrogen). Today, the Army has 28 HMV's powered by water. A Japanese company will begin producing water powered vehicles in quantity this fall. Why aren't we pursuing this energy source with the same urgency we would if we were trying to put out our hair if it was on fire?

 

[Dusty]

I just had an idea....

Beings how we are going to be in this Iraq thing for awhile.
Why don't we just annex them.  Make them a commonwealth kind of like Puerto Rico.  We won't be satisfied until their country is just like ours anyways.

We could send our oil companies in to drill for oil. 

We could put up pivot irrigation and start farming the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.

I think eventually the Iraqi people would come around to the Oil Rigs, John Deere tractors, corn fields and Bud Light that we American's have come to embrace.

Think of all the possibilities....

 

[GONEWEST]

Dusty I don't think it is too much to ask that we pump oil out of there to repay us for the gazillions of dollars we spend on that country. What could be unfair about that?

 

[itk]

To kind of hijack this thread what about makeing the speed limit 55 again. My parents have started driving 55 everywhere and are getting 8 mpg better. I don't think I could reguarlly drive that slow unless forced but think of the money we would save and the decrease in consumption there would be on a national level.

 

[Dusty]

Dusty I don't think it is too much to ask that we pump oil out of there to repay us for the gazillions of dollars we spend on that country. What could be unfair about that?

I was actually being dead serious in that entire post....

 

[knabe]

here's more on gore

http://tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.


hypocrisy we can believe in.  change we can detect.

 

[knabe]

this is in canada, but coming to america in so many ways


http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=597169

The father, who is appealing the decision, was "devastated" by the ruling, and is refusing to take his daughter back "because he has no authority over her."

this reminds me of why people don't want to be chaperones.

stop a kid from drinking and driving, get sued for imprisonment
restrain a kid who is hitting another kid , get sued for battery,
threatening a kid to stop something, get sued for assault.


this is why i feel freedom is won sitting on a jury.

the logical extension

"What will be too much punishment? Not going to a dance? I want my boyfriend to sleep at my house and my parents aren't letting me? I want to use Internet and my parents aren't letting me? Where will it stop?"

this is what progressive freedom is all about.  the logical extension of this is that the state will be responsible for your kids, and since you can't sue the state............

 

[garybob]

Don't think for a minute, NO!....a Gol'Darned SECOND, that the "Conservatives" who are currently profiting from $4 fuel, are inclined to diminsh our dependence on Petroleum. There's Elitists in both Parties who want to control us, too.

GB

 

[red]

little off topic but here is a transcript from the Glenn Beck show. Pardon any offensive language, just copied it as it was.

Glenn Beck: Bugs for oil
Audio Available:     

June 18, 2008 - 13:01 ET

RELATED STORY
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol
GLENN: Okay, I think we are at the end of days. I just want to say I think today may be the last day we all live. No, I don't mean to be depressing, I don't -- you know, hey, Glenn, you're out of control, that's crazy. What do you mean you're calling for the end of the world? Yep, I'm calling for it. I say about 4:30 this afternoon. Jesus is going to come around maybe 3:00, maybe there will be a picnic or something, there will be giant clouds parting, angels split the mountains. And then around 4:30 or so he will be like, hey, you want to have a snack real quick before I destroy everything? And I'll say, you know, what you got? I'm just saying today may be the end. Check your Bibles. Why do you say this? "Oh, Glenn, that's crazy talk. Why?" Well, here's a novel idea from San Francisco. San Francisco says they know how to solve our oil crisis. Biotechnology company based in south San Francisco specializes in a genetic alteration of bugs. Single cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth of a size of an ant so that when they feed on agricultural waste like wood chips or wheat straw, they excrete crude oil. Now, that's an awful lot of bug poop to run my car. I mean, how many -- let's see. A billionth of a size of an ant. Unless they've got a billionth of a size of an ant diarrhea the size of much more than the biggest elephants on the planet, I don't think we can produce a billion barrels of oil but maybe it's just me. I was going for the ANWR route! But I think we should really think about the billionth size of an ant poop that we can put directly into the tank of our car. Jesus, come take me now! How many of us are now praying for death? This is what we've turned into? Do you know how our grandparents would slap the crap out of us right now? Our grandparents would just, they would take us out to the wood shed. "You what?" "Grandpa, I think it's a good idea." "What?" "Well... hang on, listen to reason. Polar bears... coal is making things... well, okay, it hasn't since 1998 been hotter... but Al Gore... they are a billionth the size of an ant." "Get to the wood shed!" That's what he would say to us. He would. He would me. And if you're one of these pinheads. "It's an ant. They are going to be pooping crude oil." First of all, I don't think this is a good idea. Let's stop messing with nature. Can we do that? What do you say? What do you say we don't start splitting one-celled organisms and making them into -- you know what they need, big teeth. If we could just get some of these bugs with giant teeth and make them ferocious." No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't need a half cow, half man. I don't need dad to never have to go to the store again for a carton of milk because dad will just squeeze his teat. I don't think I need that. Thank you, thank you. I don't think I need supercorn, thank you. I'm okay with the regular old corn. "No, but this will grow 8,000 stories tall." Yeah, I don't think, I don't think. "Of course, we couldn't get it to not have giant claws." Yeah, uh-uh. "But it poops ethanol. You're not going to be able to buy it anywhere." Let's drill for oil. What do you say?

President's supposed to give a speech today. President's going to say he's calling on congress. Please, don't call on congress to do anything. You can rescind through executive order, the 1990 executive order. Gee, who was in office in 1990? I'm trying to think who it was. Oh, your dad. You could rescind the executive order from 1990 that says no offshore drilling. What do you say? What do you say? Hmmm? Come on, George, come on. Come on, you can do it. I'll give you the pen. Just sit down at the desk. "I want offshore drilling, GWB." What do you say?

Here's what I'd like the President to do. I don't even want to see him. I don't want to see him in the rose garden. Looks nice, sure does. You know fertilizer is made with natural gas? Do you know how much we're probably spending on fertilizer right now at the White House to be able to keep those roses so lush, that grass so green? How much are we spending on that fertilizer? I'd like to know. I bet we're spending at least twice the amount this year for the exact same amount of fertilizer. And you know what? There's enough bullcrap in Washington to make those flowers grow for all eternity. I don't want to see you in the rose garden, I don't want to see you in the White House. You know where I want to see you? I want to see you standing in front of a mountain, live shot, Denver, Colorado. That's where I want to see you. I want you to -- I don't care if it's on a playground, I don't care if it's in the middle of somebody's living room, I don't care if it is underneath a bear at the city zoo. I want to see you standing there on television and you say this -- behind you are these rough necks, okay? The big oil drilling guys, you know? And I want to see them like in that old movie. You remember in that old oil movie? I don't remember what it even was but all the guys -- maybe it was even a James Dean movie where they had those silver construction hats and they were all dirty from oil and they're wearing the rolled-up, you know, denim shirts and they got the khakis on and they're all just covered in oil? I want those guys standing behind the President and I want the President to say this: "America, we're up just a nasty river without a paddle. So I'm going to give a paddle, and here it is. When I finish this speech, these guys behind me, they're going to drill right here because right here, see underneath this bear at the zoo? Right here is about a million barrels of oil. And by the way, it's just not here. In fact, here's a live shot from ANWR and here's a bunch of guys in a big tanker. They're going offshore right now and they are just going to start dropping stuff that they can start to drill, you know, soon. We're just going to start building this stuff. They are going to start building it and they are going to drill today and we're going to do it by executive order because enough is enough. There's no way we can run this country, there's no way we can be who we want to be, we can no longer lead the free world if we're out of energy. Everybody is -- yesterday on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, it was all of these companies that were fighting for the leasing rights of oil, oil rights off our shore. Vietnam was one of them. Vietnam, yeah. Currently at war. The Vietnam War, except this one is over oil and they're fighting with Sweden and China and India for the drilling rights off Florida. If Vietnam, you know, the home of the boat people can have the technology to drill for oil off our shore, don't you think we should? Don't you think? Hmmm? Or we could wait for the billionth size of an ant to poop crude oil. We could wait for that.

 

[chambero]

All of our oil resources will be eventually exploited.  Its just a matter of when.  A big part of north Texas is right in the middle of a monstrous natural gas boom.  I imagine every drilling rig in the country is busy right now.  You folks might not see it where you live, but it is amazing the number of Christmas trees (drilling rigs) you can see at night in lots of places in Texas.

There is a very intentional strategy to use other country's oil while it is still relatively cheap.  Our reserves can be accessed any time in the future.  The Arctic Naitonal Widllife Refuge, the oil shale fields, and all of the offshore sites will get drilled someday.  Its not even a question.  The Dems and Republicans just like to make a big show in regards to arguing over the when.  Kind of like when to empty the piggy bank.  As bad as it hurts right now, we are probably better off saving them for a rainy day.

Our politicians aren't as stupid as they sound.  Kind of like how we beat the USSR by essentiallly bankrupting them.  We pay for everyone elses oil while sitting on ours.  Ours will buy us time when we really do have to find alternaive energy sources someday.

Use of the oil shale fields is becoming economically feasible.  But there is a big ugly wart to that - you have to dig all of that stuff up and leave big holes in the ground - right in the middle of ranching and wildlife country (a lot of those reserves are on public land - BLM/USFS that are leased by western ranchers).  Your gonna have a whole bunch of cattle ranchers and hunters and environmental groups teaming up on that one.  I think its better to hold off for now.  We're still surviving without it.  

 

[knabe]

i have to agree strongly with chambero on this one.  i heard the rant beck gave on E. coli and industrial vats.  the south silicon valley executive he's talking about is craig venter, the founder of celera, one of the early players in the genome project where he wanted to sequence gene rich regions and fooled the public effort and his former bosses to use their backbone to fool the investing community he had a good method to "shotgun" sequence the human genome which never worked, but everyone still thinks it does.  anyway, venter moved on to synthesizing the smallest genome possible to make a living organism, and now he's focusing on oil.  i'm optimistic about this, and he's right on the money about the effect of ethanol on gaskets of existing auto's, which will fail earlier than normal, but later made cars should be relatively ok, don't know about that though, as ethanol has too much water and causes shrinking swelling of interfaces between metals that hold gaskets and can exacerbate tolerances.  how big does glen beck think the organisms in cow's stomach's are?

401k's are benefitting from oil profits.  i guess if we nationlize them we can give out more social security benefits from somewhere.

by the way, here's some of obama's funding.

These are the top employers of Obama contributors:
Goldman Sachs $571,330
University of California $437,236
UBS AG $364,806
JPMorgan Chase & Co $362,207
Citigroup Inc $358,054
National Amusements Inc $320,750
Lehman Brothers $318,647
Google Inc $309,514
Harvard University $309,025
Sidley Austin LLP $294,245
Skadden, Arps et al $270,013
Time Warner $262,677
Morgan Stanley $259,876
Jones Day $250,725
Exelon Corp $236,211
University of Chicago $218,857
Wilmerhale LLP $218,680
Latham & Watkins $218,615
Microsoft Corp $209,242
Stanford University $195,262

Roughly 90% of funding for Presidential campaigns comes from individuals, and just 1% comes from PACs. Lobbyists and PACs are convenient scapegoats, but just the tip of the iceberg compared to the millions Obama has received from corporate executives who hire lobbyists to represent them before Congress and the executive branch.  the above seem to be scapegoated as PAC's in disguise.

so, chambero logic is right on this one too. the govt is deflecting us with complaining about PAC's.  money will find a way to these people, that's why i don't vote for them, AND IT'S NOT A WASTED VOTE.