Quote Originally Posted by Lyle View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Killface View Post
Doesn't the government of Brazil own the oil companies? "We" won't strike it rich on anything.
Free market buddy....nationalization is for suckers!

Say the US nationalizes oil fields well #1 we don't produce enough and we consume a ton #2 OPEC would shit a brick and the price goes up.

Say the US just discovers a ton of oil and we sell to the highest bidder #1 if we produce more oil then the supply hits the market and more supply = lower prices #2 The companies we would have drilling here are US owned and opperated and therefore taxed by the US government and therefore the American people get benefits from finding and producing oil here even if we don't get to use all of it.

Brazil IS energy independent though and why? Because they drilled and found a gigantic amount of oil....it could happen to us
Lyle, you're wrong on that point. We would not reap the benefits of any company paying additional dollars in tax when the budget hasn't been balanced in almost a decade. At best that means we would just borrow less from China. At worst, the oil companies would just find additional tax shelters to avoid higher payments. That's like if you got a raise and instead of using the extra money that isn't in your already overdrafted bank account you just spend a little less with the Discover card to get whatever you wanted anyway. I forget the year, but General Motors completely avoided paying any taxes one year through whatever loophole was available at the time and Exxon-Mobil has reason to beam about their record-breaking profits: they know the gov't isn't getting a drop of it. And with a John McCain budget draft with no numbers in it that just means we're in for more of the same.