Oil Companies to Cheer For
I found a couple oil companies to cheer for.
Wait, let me correct that. I applaud all oil companies. I love gas, don’t you? Couldn’t drive my car without it.
Sure, I complain when the prices I pay go up. But it’s fine with me, really, when oil companies — and other producers of great stuff — make a lot of money. We know what happens when we interfere with those profits: We interfere with our ability to get what they produce. Remember the long lines at the pumps back in the ’70s? Thank price controls.
Venezuelans, alas, are going to have to learn this lesson again, the hard way.
The crackpot government down there has been nationalizing the oil industry. Hugo Chavez’s administration — a de-term-limited administration, mind you — wants the victims to pretend all is well. Oil firms are supposed to accept a minority stake in the stolen companies if they want to remain involved in Venezuelan oil at all. That way, the government holds all the assets, but also perhaps gets some management expertise to help them keep pumping and distributing.
Many companies are co-operating, but ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil have refused to sign off on the surrender. Good for them: when thugs steal your stuff at gun point, show a little backbone, a little resistance. I only wish these oil companies would say as much in their press releases.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
