Reply #15: Yep, nationalizing US oil might drive up prices.

[eallen]

There are some facts you might want to keep in mind, in designing your nationalized oil industry. (1) The US imports most of the oil it uses. (2) US oil production peaked in 1970, just as Hubbert predicted twenty years earlier. US production is in decline. And there's not a damn thing anyone can do about that. (3) The only oil that the US government can control by nationalization is the oil within US borders, and the oil it controls by conquest abroad. (4) Oil is priced in a global market.

Venezuela, which has a nationalized oil industry, and Canada, which has a capitalist oil industry, are two nations that export oil and gas to the US. Guess which of these nation's has the more effective energy industry. Guess which of these nations is more enriched by its energy industry. Chavez might learn something by looking to his neighbor to the north. The far north.

:hippie: