During the roundtable Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” columnist George Will had this to say about rising gas prices: “I blame God. The intelligent designer of the universe, for whatever reason, put the oil under some turbulent places — Nigeria, Venezuela, the Caspian basin, the Middle East.”
Added Newsweek International’s Fareed Zakaria: “It may be the other way around. When you have oil in the ground, you tend to produce highly dysfunctional, corrupt political systems.”
Will concluded: “The curse of natural resources.”
So maybe getting 60 percent of our oil from overseas has an upside.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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14 Comments
One thing I like about George Will is his ability to put things in perspective. I don’t always agree with him, but my guess is on a debate team, he would walk away a winner most times hands down.
That said, he is correct again. Oil is power and power corrupts. Look at any oil rich country, including the Unites States. You will find greed, abuse of power and little or no thought for the average Joe. And it transcends to all natural resources. Man is indeed one greedy feeding machine.
Speaking of corruption, look at the crooks in Washington. Will might be on the right track.
Actually we have plenty of oil at home. We just can’t drill to retrive it.
Also! Blame the dinosaurs. Not enough of them died and turned into goop.
Joe – the geologists I talk to disagree with you.
Try a hybrid motorcyclehttp://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/hybrid-motorcycle.html
Ben. What is there to disagree with? He have plenty of oil if we are pumping enough today here at home to feed 1/3 of our oil consumption.
Mexico just announce they found billions of barrels worth of oil in the Gulf that they will begin to drill and pump.
Cuba is going to drill for oil 40 miles off the coast of Florida with a huge oil reserve found there.
We still have large amounts of oil shale in Utah and Colorado.
We still have ANWR.
We might not become 100% dependent with oil on our own soil, but we have a lot here.
If your Geologist disagrees that we have plenty of oil, I suggest him talking to the BIG oil companies.
suggest he talk to the big oil companies.
There’s plenty of oil in the U S Ben. Rush says so. Your geologist friends are just to busy doing science to listen to him!
Resources a curse? In the modern world maybe. Especially if you are not well armed to protect them from others who feel they have a right to them. Resources get you lots of “attention” from other nations ususally to the dertiment of any stable goverment or society in your own. Other nations will want to “help” you with those resources. So you will need to be kept in a state that requires that “help”.
Crooks in Washington? Corrupted by oil money? Say it isnt so….
Once again, the rude pundit nails it. And once again, the rude language is not for the faint of heart or those with too much koolaide in their tummies.
http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/
Yes natural resources are a curse. If the Middle East didn’t have oil, the westerners would have absolutely nothing to do with them, and no war on Iraq, Afghanistan, or 9/11 would have taken place. Israel wouldn’t exist though, since we would have no reason to back them up with our military technology.
Joe – the oil companies also know the domestic resources are limited. Yes, we could temporarily increase output a bit but far below what it would take to feed our insatiable addiction. All that would do is hasten the day when we totally run dry. You might think that is a good idea; I don’t.
Just like with water in the Ogalalla in west Kansas – when its gone its gone. Far better to find way to use less today than none tomorrow.
Speaking of domestic oil…has anyone noticed that just about every single pump around Wichita is running like mad? They sit idle when prices are lower…but now they are cranking like crazy.
Wish I owned one…
I wish you did too raptor.
Unlike the oil barons out here, you probably wouldnt be buying farmland or renting it out from under family farmers so you could farm SUBSIDIES not crops.
I have neighbors who pay outrageous cash rent for worthless cropland, then scratch the surface in a half hearted attempt to convince the feds they farmed it, and then deposit the subsidy money as it hits the mailbox. Some of them even irrigate their subsidies!
I wish you had their oil money instead of them raptor.
Hey raptor I know you are a reasonable coservative.
Some taxes are good.Some susidies are good. (But your subsidy stories make me angry kfg)Those wells you see are stripper wells. Up around Salina and all the way out to Hays you will see them NOT running.
When gas was cheap in the 90’s they weren’t producing enough oil to keep running competitively. An effort was made to subsidize these small producers. But it was shot down and those wells were shut down. Because of the loss of pressure (constant pumping) they are no longer usable and that little bit of oil is lost.
Sometimes a tax for a subsidy is good.