I think you're overestimating how much most Americans self-identify with US-based oil companies, especially nowadays.

You make a good point, but I think Americans want the oil to stay in the family, and then they can wash their dirty laundry en famille (and even then, when is the last time Americans actually did anything to hurt Big Oil?)

It's a particularly vile form of stupid that suggests we're better off with an American company controlling assets stolen from a people we're busy murdering and raping. Corporations DO NOT have any allegiance to country; they barely recognize sovereignty, and often fail to do so. It would be preferable that a "foreign" corporation take over just for the sake of political fodder.

There are a tremendous number of Americans who will happily see us torture and murder so long as the treasure flows home. This frothy mix of evil and imbecility fails to recognize that people willing to commit war crimes lack the moral character to deliver spoils to their "compatriots" back "home." Home is whatever ultra-luxurious vista they happen to prefer today, not podunk American towns.

This frothy mix of evil and imbecility fails to recognize that people willing to commit war crimes lack the moral character to deliver spoils to their "compatriots" back "home." Home is whatever ultra-luxurious vista they happen to prefer today, not podunk American towns.

Oh come on.

I suspect that your view of those committing war crimes and lacking morality is dominated by the insulated rich (iow, the Lizard folk's first line henchmen).

It's tough out there; the willingness to commit war crimes and dispense with "back home" morality extends right down to the trailer parks and their vistas too.

A body needs to buy gas and groceries at a reasonable rate. We didn't care about where the $6 nafta shirts at Wal*Mart come from, and don't care much for where gas comes from, as long as it keeps coming.

People tell me that it's better that we need to keep it out of the hands of the Chinese and Russkies, and I can't help but feel we'd be screwed worse by them than by GWB's cronies. Maybe it's the teevee.

You're right, Labiche: it's the tevee.

And I was very much saying that the pro-war crime faction extends to the poor. I gotta share space on public transit with the fuckers. You misread me.

And we should not present false alternatives: if we didn't go around committing genocide it doesn't mean the rest of the world would "take up the slack" and commit more genocide. That notion is, um, stupid. So keeping assets out of the hands of the "Chinese and the Russkies" is a red herring. Fuck, man, our government is working with both countries for a variety of unpatriotic goals. Double-fuck, the very origins of the Chinese communist (really totalitarian, but anywho) regime was the same selfish, anti-American, "let's get in there and take their stuff" mentality in the first place. Are you getting it now? There is no "us versus them" when the "us" includes rat fuck sons of bitches. Once a ratfuck realizes he's in the game alone, he raises up another ratfuck to run interference. Thus, the lack of the USSR raises up terrorists -- terrorists who were funded by the ratfucks who outlasted the USSR.

And we walk the streets shoulder to shoulder with those trained by our professional sports franchises to pretend faked games are real root for laundry, and they do so in all things, in sports and in foreign policy. So they don't even think to ask any questions beyond what colors was the winner wearing? It never occurs to them to note that the winners and losers were issued their uniforms from the same entity.

And though they are less culpable than our aristocracy -- which is a saurian free, primate-only club, thank you very much -- that doesn't mean I like sharing space with those assholes.

So now we fully understand the lesser-known Third Clause of Powell's famous Pottery Barn Rule: you break it, you own it...and no one else is allowed to buy it.

There IS a nominal difference, which is this: a national oil company controlled by, say, the Chinese is less likely to sell that oil on the global market. For them it might make sense just to plug that oil directly into the veins of the Chinese economy. An American oil company, by contrast, will definitely trade the oil freely. It doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of difference - in the former situation we might imagine that it's just going to reduce demand from China for oil on the global market. But it seems more likely to me it would just grow their appetite, meaning the rest of us would be worse off. In the American-controlled situation, that oil really would go towards reducing our fuel consumption woes.

saurabh,
you suck. and you think strange things about oil.

Despite the fact that MOPE is a worthless commentator, saurabh is incorrect about the implications of Chinese control of Iraq's oil. If China's demand was reduced, it would, eventually, increase their demand as their industry and upper-class grew more demanding, but only an economist could argue that this would happen so quickly as to negate the positive effects of the short-term (we're talking decades of "short-term" here) price reduction. And American control WOULD NOT reduce our "fuel consumption woes"; western oil companies DO NOT want to increase the amount of oil on the market. Keep in mind they're flying high because Iraq is not producing oil. Just google Greg Palast and oil and check out the results. Short version: oil companies wanted us to invade Iraq for the same reason they created Iraq nearly a century ago: to reduce the amount of oil on the market.

So, yeah, China controlling the oil would be better in many ways.

But China is run by evil shits, so we still lose. Yay.

1. Adding and subtracting demand for oil is relatively simple and mostly involves driving more or less. Also, most of what we're talking about would be new output, and it would grow slowly, so there would be plenty of time for Chinese demand to grow as the productivity of Iraqi oil grew.

2. There's absolutely no evidence Western oil companies are trying to take oil off the market. There is, of course, an optimal price for their purposes, but if the price is TOO high, then there is a danger of precipitating the sort of flight that would be really damaging to their industry. Saudi Arabia has been afraid of this for years, which is why they haven't really ever shut things down since the seventies. With all the talk of windfall profits taxes, alternative energies and ethanol subsidies, etc., I imagine the oil companies are not too enthused about the current high prices.

1. Adding and subtracting demand for oil is relatively simple and mostly involves driving more or less.

Utterly wrong. As with most resources, the biggest consumer of energy is industry. Driving is irrelevant. (Gone to the grocery store lately? How do you think all that wonderful food got there? Do you think the food would magically stop appearing there if you switched to using a bike?) And, not to put too fine a point on it, this is irrelevant, anyway. China's reducing the demand for oil is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to who drives where. So there's no argument here at all.

Also, most of what we're talking about would be new output, and it would grow slowly. . .

Utterly wrong. Iraq is industrialized and is fully prepared to exploit the oil fields. In fact, it's too good at it. That's why we -- well, they -- invaded. Saddam was playing games with OPEC and the oil companies. He'd pull oil from the market, increasing the price, then dump oil on the market, driivng the price straight down. He was a fuckwith. THAT'S why he seriously had to go: not his killing of innocents (our government liked that, actually), and sure as fuck not his military strength.

2. There's absolutely no evidence Western oil companies are trying to take oil off the market.

Utterly wrong. Oil companies executives sat down with neocons, including Cheney, and discussed their plans to reduce the amount of oil on the market by invading Iraq AND wrote those plans down AND discussed them with a reporter ON TAPE. Thanks for playing, but you'll be getting our home game! Greg Palast has one of the two documents outlying plans for the Iraq invasion (written up before Sept. 11, 2001, of course) -- one of them, sponsored and created by the oil companies, called for turning off Iraq's spigots. Iraq was originally created to REDUCE oil output in the first place. This isn't farfetched; it's actually par for the course. The burden is on anyone who claims that, in defiance of recent and ancient history, energy companies are not using war and politics to enrich themselves at the expense of others by creating artificial scarcity. Seriously, where are you getting your facts?

No One,

You should consult the EIA. Motor gasoline is far and away the number one oil product in terms of consumption, and makes up 50% of total petroleum consumption in the US. Possibly the rest of the world differs significantly, but I am inclined to doubt it. So, driving does matter, and it matters a great deal. Your supermarket also makes choices accordingly - e.g., whether to buy fruit from Chile or California or from New York.

As to Iraq's vaunted influence over the oil price - Palast certainly plays this up, but it is not clear to me that he is quoting the original documents faithfully. It certainly does not seem to be an accurate assessment of the situation; in 2000-2001, when this invasion was being planned and these talks were happening, the price of oil was

As for how production would increase - Iraq definitely lost infrastructure in the past two decades. It's been war, sanctions, and war, all of which has the effect on debilitating Iraq's ability to do anything industrially. So I'm not even confident they could rapidly jump back to 3.5 Mb/d. But that wasn't what I was talking about - I was talking about developing new production beyond what they could historically. That takes time - just because of mechanics and geology. It would be highly unlikely that Iraq would jump up to 6Mb/d in a few short months or even years, no matter who was producing there.

I haven't seen the documents or heard the tape you cite - if you could post a link that would be great. But as for turning off the spigot - historically, this may be what the Americans and Brits wanted to do there, but come on - that was the 1920s. Australia started off as a penal colony. Is that relevant now? Even the motivations of oil companies in 2000 are pretty different - back then oil was $20/bbl and had just gotten done being historically quite cheap. Now it is $140/bbl, and there are dozens of good reasons for people to want to kill it as a product.

I don't find Palast credible in this regard. He talks about OPEC as a cartel limiting oil productivity, but this hasn't been really accurate for decades, and especially isn't accurate now.

Also, there's no need to be insulting. I have been perfectly civil.

Argh! I lost a bit of a paragraph to a less-than sign (probably a php bug). I said:
As to Iraq's vaunted influence over the oil price - Palast certainly plays this up, but it is not clear to me that he is quoting the original documents faithfully. It certainly does not seem to be an accurate assessment of the situation; in 2000-2001, when this invasion was being planned and these talks were happening, the price of oil was less than $20/bbl. In the same period, Iraqi oil production went up and down, but was more or less constant at 2Mb/d. Since the war it's been about the same - so if the goal was to turn off the spigot, they haven't been doing a very good job of it. Also, the sources Palast quotes state they're less interested in reducing output than in ensuring stable output. I suspect this was also a minor motivation at best, since the price at the time was pretty low historically and didn't really vacillate that wildly.

Okay, you're just being a dick, and you have nothing constructive to say. I suggest you actually look at Iraqi oil production history before you make flip remarks. You can find it here:
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/PAPRPIQ.gif
Also, please go back and review the past 20 years of history of bombing and destruction in iraq, especially the specific destruction of Iraqi oil infrastructure following the invasion by insurgent forces. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Iraq has backslid in terms of productivity, not the least of which is that they have not, in two decades, managed to produce more than 3Mb/d, and since 2003 have not produced over 2.4 Mb/d. So, what evidence do you have to suggest that all their oil infrastrucure is intact, exactly? Or are you just bloviating.

This is my last comment, since you're too infuriating for me to respond to reasonably.

Okay, you're just being a dick, and you have nothing constructive to say

. . . which is why I responded to your points, point by point? Seriously, you are a complete asshole.

Look upthread. First, someone mistreats you and I point out they're being a dick. I take issue with your points and give counterarguments. You ignore some of my points and support your own with contradictory or irrelevant notions -- and it's the ignoring bit that's dickish, but fine. Then you accuse me of being a dick?

Seriously, fuck off. By any objective measure, I treated you far better than you treated me. Go on. If I were the problem, how come our conversation begins with me pointing out someone is abusing you and you returning the favor by simply ignoring my arguments.

. . .especially the specific destruction of Iraqi oil infrastructure following the invasion by insurgent forces.

Jesus, are you even listening to yourself? Arrogance and stupidity are poor combinations. Of course insurgents attack the oil supply. This proves what, exactly? Since I argued that Cheney's people are happy to see production stymied, that is supporting my point.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Iraq has backslid in terms of productivity, not the least of which is that they have not, in two decades, managed to produce more than 3Mb/d, and since 2003 have not produced over 2.4 Mb/d.

Ditto.

Do not reply to any of my posts please. I may take issue with one's argument but I never resorted to ad hominems until you did so. And now I do with gusto: fuck off. You honestly, truly have nothing to add to discussion.

Tsk, tsk, tsk. So much anger among friends

If I wanted this much earnest analysis, I'd read some dense government or industry report.

I expect snark, dammit! You made me read all that crap, and all it led to was bitterness and two more people that don't want to talk to each other.