Posted on 10/11/2011 11:54:22 AM PDT by olivernelson
First off, "Big oil" (I'm going to start an oil company named that some day, just so I can sue idiots) pays for the leases, does the research, after jumping through the government hoops and obtaining the necessary permits, and then on a day when the government doesn't actually revoke their drilling rights over some spurious horsecrap, goes through the expense of drilling and producing the wells, of which the Government gets a royalty share on a government lease.
Keep in mind that it didn't cost the government a plugged nickel to put those resources there (they stole them from the Indians), and that all expense and risk is borne by the oil company.
On private leases (yes, Virginia, there are privately owned mineral rights), mineral rights owners get the lease money, the royalties, and surface owners get surface damages, production location rent, easement fees, etc.
How terribly capitalistic, people actually get rich off of that.
Go back to your collective, where people don't know enough to know your talking points are B.S.
BTW, the only shining spots in the US economy today are related to Oil and Gas production, unless they are heavily subsidized by our tax money like the 'green energy' industry, or government jobs. GOvernment has been doing all it can to shut down the traditional energy generation industries, Oil, Gas, and Coal, in case you missed the past three years.
There is NOTHING to sympathize with about the OWS crowd.
They’re simply a bunch of “gimme stuff that I don’t want to work for” communist useful idiots.
Gang Green knows perfectly well that “green energy” is incapable of supporting a capitalist economy, and that’s the whole point.
My point is that people act in self-interest.
Those who are “small government types” are often only small government types because it profits them.
You didn’t really address my point on oil. Do we give away 50 million barrels of oil a day? Yes. Is it worth $100 a barrel? Yes. Does that amount to $5 billion a day? Yes. Who did the oil belong to when it was in the ground? The people of the USA. Who gave it away? Politicians. Who gets the money? Politicians and their political supporters. Who doesn’t get the money? The people of the USA.
You say big oil should get it because they work hard. That’s why the Kochs, for example, deserve their more-than-$10million-a-day income. Well, suppose I work hard and convince politicians to give me $10 million/day in gold from Fort Knox. Afterwards, I give those politicians $1 million in campaign donations. Isn’t that fair? Isn’t that me being a good businessman?
The truth is that our oil give away is not rugged individualism. It’s corruption, pure and simple. Maybe in 1890 oil companies were taking a risk, but there is no risk in oil anymore. They know where the oil is. Making money in oil is easier than selling drugs. There is no reason that we should give away the wealth of the people of the United States. Norway doesn’t. Kuwait doesn’t. No people of any nation gives away their natural resources more freely than the people of the USA. You can call us rugged individuals for that; I call us suckers.
As for 'we know where it is', well if that was the case, I'd be at the house and out of work instead of wrapping up a 145 hour day on a wellsite. We don't know where it all is, or there would be no 'Exploration' in E&P.
Who did the oil belong to when it was in the ground? The owner of the mineral rights. West of the Mississippi, that's half the Federal Government, and half private individuals.
There;s a reason a Federal Lease is called a Federal Lease. You lease the exploration rights for a fixed time, extended if you find and produce oil. You pay a royalty (up to 20%, negotiated in advance) on production to the mineral owner (in the case of the Federal Government, to the Government). The operator (that's the oil company) assumes the cost of doing all the various surveys for everything from 'cultural assets' to tortise nests, rare plants to raptors, and the costs of building locations, access, drilling the well, completing the well, any and all production infrastructure, and reclamation of the site and the road when done, as specified in the BLM manual.
If you don't find oil, or if someone finds a 'rare' plant, an inconveniently located decade abandoned eagle nest, or an arrowhead of 'great religious significance' or somesuch, you are out the money. No risk? Free? sheesh. Millions, no tens of millions were invested in areas the government closed off and revoked the paid for leases to in Utah and Wyoming without so much as a howdy do.
So you contend we give away 50 million barrels of oil a day. Fine. Where? Cite your source.
Here is one even you can be comfortable with: NY Times, and the US doesn't produce 50,000,000 barrels of oil a day, in fact far, far less.
In fact, the latest EIA figures show US production, onshore and off (combined), to be a mere 5.6 million barrels a day. Maybe the government is printing oil like money to give away?
I think I have adequately addressed your bullshit contentions.
Fleece beggers
Where did I say anything different?
Pee Party by the looks of it.
You are absolutely right, and I am wrong. The US oil production is far less than 50 million barrels per day. The top google return (http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/oil_production.html ) says that it is 9 million barrels per day. But your sources says 5 million per day. I don’t know why there is such a discrepancy, if you know I’d be curious to learn. There may be some acounting or definition difference.
I should not have said anything about the oil business. It weakened my argument. (On the other hand, I have learned something.) But I wanted an easy example of an industry whose interests are served by less government, but for which less government has a consequence that is harmful to the national economy. That is a very radical idea, but it is not an unAmerican idea.
For example, Teddy Roosevelt used the government to break up monopolies. That’s using government to limit business freedom to help the economy and the nation.
Or, another example, the government in the post-Jungle years enacted food and drug safety regulations. That limited food business freedom but greatly reduced internal parasites and made people healthier.
Or the government removed lead from gasoline after studies showed elevated lead levels in childrens’ blood leading to mental diseases. That limited gasoline business freedom but made people healthier.
And the government banned illegal alien labor undercutting US labor. That limits business freedom (at least in theory) to help US wages.
There are many examples of government action on behalf of the population that limits business freedom to increase our freedom. We ought not to turn a blind eye to the historic role of government in promoting American prosperity. There is a great line in “Lost Horizon,” that goes “Moderation in all things, including moderation.” Even the push for small government has to be moderated, or we will trade political tyranny for economic tyranny.
But I wanted an easy example of an industry whose interests are served by less government, but for which less government has a consequence that is harmful to the national economy.
Right now, the oil industry is resposnible for huge economic activity, in spite of the government. Why in spite?
Well the government is so desperate to throw a monkey wrench into the works that it is prosecuting seven oil companies in North Dakota over 28 migratory bird carcasses found on drilling or production locations. Considering it took 45 days of flitting about in helicopters to find some of those violations, covering over 5,000 producing wells and another roughly 200 in progress, I find it odd that there is no mention of the relative holocaust for our feathered friends over by windfarms.
THis is indeed a typical example of government run amok.
BTW, western North Dakota has had no decline in housing values (they have gone up, significantly), has between 1% and 3% unemployment, and it is due to oil activity.
It is a question of which level of government whould regulate what, and in the case of privately or State held Mineral rights, I think the State Government does a dandy job, without all that 'help' from the Feds.
Now the fine (per bird) is $15,000.00, and they are talking about 6 months in jail, although it isn't certain who would be called upon to serve the time.
Meanwhile windfarms can look like a feather pillowfight in progress, and no peep from the Feds. The reason should be almost self evident, after all, windfarms are politically correct, 'green', and incapable of evil.
Otherwise, the Oil industry is doing well, the State is in the black, people are prospering.
Someone in Gov't will find a way to foul that up, and it isn't for lack of looking that they have failed.
TO have the Federal Government issue one-size-fits-all decrees only works when standarization is desireable. In some things it is, and the Constitution tasked the Federal Government with maintaining standard weights and measures-so a gallon of gas at a specific temperature will have the same volume as one on the other coast at the same temperature and pressure. That's good.
But let's take, government establishing a standard amount of energy you can use, and that just won't work, from Alaska (and North Dakota), to the Florida Keys, one size does definitely not fit all.
This is just one example where the concentration of micromanaging power in the Federal Government is definitely not good for business, the economy, people, or the country.
Busting up monopolies...preemptively. My local cell phone provided was up for sale. The other major local cell phone provider wanted to buy them out. This would have meant twice as many towers, twice the carrying capacity, and significantly improved coverage for customers.
The Feds said no.
The people who bought the company had a hideous transition, so much so they lost significant market share. The customers who fled, fled to the provider who tried to buy the other out, and in conjunction with an influx of people seeking work, they, in turn were promptly overloaded, too.
The result is that a voicemail sent yeaterday will arrive some time today, with nothing special going on. I was stuck in a blizzard on my way to a rig on New Year's Eve, and the text messages I left were delivered the next day (18+ hours later), the voicemails took three days. That very easily could have been a matter of life and death, considering the weather and the temperatures, but fortunately I am prepared: My take: Federal involvement has made a complete balls-up of communications around here for the past 10 months.
All in the name of keeping us safe from the eeevil corporations who are trying their d@mndest to straighten the mess out.
In a market, people commonly vote with their business, the government overrides that, often from thousands of miles away, and makes a mess. Recall, "Government is not the solution, government is the problem."
Or, another example, the government in the post-Jungle years enacted food and drug safety regulations. That limited food business freedom but greatly reduced internal parasites and made people healthier.For starters, people aren't going to buy food somewhere that the food makes them sick. The market can correct that problem, and will. The laws just give government a way to cash in on the problem. The victims still have to bring their own suits, and usually after the business is gone.
and, for a while. Regulators don't feel fulfilled unless they can find something (else) to regulate. Thus it has been with food and drugs. From the war on 'drugs', to tobacco, to current efforts under way to require you to obtain government ok to have vitamin supplements and take those, the government at the Federal level is becoming far from the 'post-jungle' protector, and moving wholesale into nutritional micromanagement.
The greatest tool in this, of course is the BMI (body mass index), which, when I was in High School at 6'0" and 240 lbs would have proclaimed me, sight unseen, as morbidly obese.
LOL! I worked all summer with jackhammers and bucking hay bales, and was definitely NOT fat.
Now, the government would say I was abused, based on the work I (quite willingly) did, or my BMI, or other such nonsense.
As government expands, it doesn't just reduce the options of corporations, it reduces the options of people, individuals, as well.
Consider that when my ancestors came here, there was no country, just a string of barely founded colonies on the Eastern seaboard. They had a land grant in one of those colonies, and in the course of being careful stewards of that land, an ancestor planted trees on part of the farm she deemed to be poor farmland. Now those oaks are about 180 years old, prime for harvest--and worth a fortune, and reaching the age where they will start to die and decay. But for each tree, if approval is granted, some nine different permits are required from a host of government agencies which not only did not exist when my family acquired the land, they are from governments which did not exist either.
It is likely those trees will rot before those permits could be obtained, all in the name of keeping a river "scenic"--as if people who have passed the land from generation to generation for 370 years might not be interested in continuing that practice, along with good stewardship of the land.
But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is why having the power in this Republic concentrated not in the hands of ministers and underlings, but in the People themselves was the ideal. Those who wrote our Constitution were shrewd in that they understood human nature. The more power the government was granted, the more corrupt it would likely become, because those in it would ultimately hunger for power or the wealth it could generate.
Similarly, those who claim to be the "99%" (of what, I do not know), who claim to be 'powerless' are playing that like the race card. No one forced them to choose their profession (provided they have done so), no one forced them to live where they live, do what they do, spend what they spend (outside of court judgements), etc. It is still a free country to the extent they are free to whine or to do something about their lot. I meet people daily who came here in search of employment, of honest work, and thanks to those eeevil corporations out there, they are finding it. The Government is doing all it can to hinder that.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
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Thanks.
“But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, which is why having the power in this Republic concentrated not in the hands of ministers and underlings, but in the People themselves was the ideal. Those who wrote our Constitution were shrewd in that they understood human nature. The more power the government was granted, the more corrupt it would likely become, because those in it would ultimately hunger for power or the wealth it could generate.”
I agree with everything in that paragraph but with this important additional observation — government is not the only thing that can be corrupt in a society.
Tea Party has the backing of big business and the news media. They will be protected. They were fuming hatred and treason at the town hall meetings against Obamacare las fall. That was a total shit show and they owned it. They were absolutely crazed. And now they have enough control to tell the president what to do. They also have $millions at their disposal and are organized by big corps. Just because they're organized doesn't make them right. That's kinda hard to tell in a campaigning year though.
Occupy aren't even talking to politicians. And they aren't talking to mainstream media either. Did you see how they shut down Geraldo and Fox in NY? He didn't even get to roll film because all he woulda captured is hundreds of people shouting "Fox Lies". They aren't giving big media the chance to twist what they are doing.
Occupy are making their own media and gathering their base. If you watch Fox News or CNN you will see violence and dismissal and that's about it. And yes, it will get worse and you will probably believe what you see when you watch network news.
And as far as one standard goal? You're still missing the point and will continue to.
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