More on oil
If politicians understood the facts and were truthful,
they would rant against “greedy” socialists rather than private oil
companies.
says Richard W. Rahn in Socialist Oil Death Spiral.
Most people do not realize that about 90 percent of the
world’s liquid oil reserves are controlled by governments or
state-owned companies. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest privately owned
oil company, owns only 1.08 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and
the five largest private global oil companies together own only about 4
percent of the world’s oil reserves.
This is news to me too. How come we hear so much about the evil private oil company and so little about the rest?
Questions to ask regarding the article “Socialist Oil Death Spiral”1. Mr. Rahn believes that OPEC is “underproducing” petroleum because of mismanagement. What production figure would be Mr. Rahn’s ideal and why should OPEC care?2. If I possess a finite resource and can achieve a high rate of return on it in the international marketplace, what is my advantage in producing more?3. Mr. Rahn states that “there is enough liquid oil in the ground to last generations”. At what rate of consumption is that so and where is the proof?4. Mr. Rahn states that “the US only has about 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but produces little more than 8 percent of global production”. Is it a hallmark of mismangement to squander your finite resource for short-term gain? 5. Canada’s oil sand production will replace the United States’ entire extracontinental oil requirements?? 6. What extraction method exists that will make Canadian oil sand extraction anything other than environmentally devastating?7. Ten years from now the car you buy will be electric. If so that is a surprise to the US government, the US auto industry, the US petroleum industry, and the US biofuel industry. I wonder how so many got the future wrong?The most cost effective methods of coal extraction in the US today result in the complete destruction of mountains in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Is that our legacy to our children?Is OPEC truly run by “socialists” in the Western sense? In many of the OPEC countries the ruling elite is a tiny handful.What is the Indian take on this? You have a very large population and I would think are very close to the question of balancing the needs of that population with the need to preserve your unique Indian environment. More Indians everyday are adopting lifestyles more like the West. I hope that you will learn from our mistakes. I would also like to thank you, because the pressure you exert in pursuing a more Western lifestyle is forcing the West to re-examine the environmental cost of the lifestyle and to work to improve the situation. It was popular in the United States thirty years ago to blame private industry for all environmental ills, but now the more enlightened have come to realize that the individual lifestyle decisions that each one of us make in the aggregate has a greater impact. In the small town in Michigan, USA that I live in we have started the slow process of converting our public buildings to solar energy.In my opinion, the Cato Institute is fine for gleaning certain kinds of information, but it is a heavily weighted propaganda machine for American Neoconservatism, which is a fanatical sort of religion.One last thought: In the United States the CEO of a publicly-traded corporation who did not seek to use his office to increase the shareholders’ gain when it could be proven that he could do so could face legal action from the board of directors and major shareholders.