gatt wrote:
Guys who bring this up on or.politics are usually called socialists,
communists, or America-hating lieberals, and the advice they're given is to
invest in XOM. To me, that's tantamount to investing in organized crime.
At some point we're either going to force them to put the national interest
over record oil prices, or pull a Chavez and nationalize it. I'm not being
a big-government socialist when I say that the federal bureaucracy could run
the oil industry at lower user cost. (Not necessarily more efficiently,
but in ways that are less damaging to the US economy, transportation
industries, etc.)


The very best way to lower prices on anything is to open up
the marketplace... encourage entrepeneurs to enter the market.
Provide incentives to modernize/increase efficiency and expand
and modernize production and manufacturing facilities. Lower
the barriers (regulation/red tape) that prevent smaller and
more agressive youg companies to establish themselves.

This philosophy is not popular in today's environment.
The media is not interested in talking honestly about this
subject... only vilifying "big oil"... Hillary talking about
taxing more "big oil" profits... how evil they are and how
they should be stopped/shut down/punished. All of this is
music to the ears of envrironmentalist groups that are really
anti-capitalist groups in disguise. Meanwhile nothing is done.

Since there is no leadership in Washington DC this country
wallows around powerless to foreign oil interests while
oil conmpanies take advantage of the situation (who wouldn't?).
When a country is led by 500 some-odd dumbasses all living
together in on city on the Potomac River what do expect would happen?