Posted by AuntieMel on November 5, 2004, at 12:32:12
In reply to Re: oil men, posted by Toph on November 5, 2004, at 11:03:37
Ah, but fact is I wouldn't call either one of them "oil men." Shrub ran a small oil company funded by Friends of Dad, and it failed.
Cheney was ceo of Halliburton for a few years, but before that had no experience in oil.
I'm still a bit fuzzy about Iraq. I believe Cheney pushed for continuing on in the first gulf war, but lost that battle. I think this one came out of his feeling there was 'unfinished business.' If it was only about oil, I don't think we'd be there - we were buying just about all that came out of there before and could have had plenty more if we eased up on the sanctions.
As for ripping off the taxpayers, I don't have enough data to have a final opinion on that, and believe me I'm no friend of Hal. anyway. But one fact is true - that the company really is the only one with experience in working in war zones. Hal's division - KBR - got a lot of the (nobid) contracts to rebuild. KBR stands for Kellogg Brown & Root - and if you remenber (or not) B&R was the co. that did a lot of the contracting in VietNam. If I was wanting to go to a war zone for the extra money (big if) I would want to do it with a company that had lots of experience with that environment. But again - that's not really oil, it's more engineering.
The real solution to linking oil with global policy would be to encourage more exploration here (and I'm not talking about environmentally sensitive areas either.) During the 80's the Democratic gov of Texas, Ann Richards, proposed setting a floor on the price of domestic oil of about $20-25. It sounds cheap now, but at the time of the big '86 oil bust it was about twice the going rate, so it didn't have a chance of being passed. The problem with domestic production is that the price is so volitile that the economics of drilling dictates that it won't be explored for unless the well is expected to make a profit at $10-15. Set a floor and you'd be surprised at how many of the small independents get really busy. Establishing a floor is really a no lose proposition - stability in pricing, more domestic production, etc.
I could go on forever......
But the problem is that the industry can't be explained in sound bytes. And most of the country hears only the few negatives.
poster:AuntieMel
thread:411295
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041105/msgs/412160.html