Comments on: UPDATED: Where Have All The Oil Rigs Gone? (Too-bin The Tit) https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/ by ilana mercer Wed, 02 Apr 2025 19:29:09 +0000 hourly 1 By: Robert Glisson https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10987 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:13:39 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10987 Gringo: I had no intention of doing a cost analysis on the subject of private property rights vs public property, only commenting that it is still being done. One might note that I mixed the private and government up fairly well in my comment. Ilana mentioned the subject of privatizing waterways and you mentioned not privatizing roads. I stated that when the state builds a toll road, it is in effect a privatized roadway. The state is making a profit, same as a private cooperation. There is no reason why states don’t privatize roads and many do, now how we can privatize (government acting as a for-profit entity) the ocean floor. My guess it would be through permits. The most important thing though is your comment in regard to the cost to BP. Their people paid a high price already. Eleven men died; men with homes, families and friends. Maybe I missed something but, I have yet to see an article that considers their loss. I live in the Oklahoma Oil Patch and every now and then we still have a funeral for someone who died in an oilfield accident. The grief is widespread

]]>
By: Gringo Malo https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10983 Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:45:27 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10983 Robert, have you converted the toll amounts to gold to see whether they’ve risen in real terms? Even if they have, you’re probably still paying less in tolls than you would if the existing roads were sold off in small chunks to families (or biker gangs), or in large chunks to corporations. If some private owner bore a grudge against you for some reason, you might not be able to get out of Tulsa for any amount of money. By the way, the Erie Canal seems to have been funded by the State of New York, after private entrepreneurs failed in similar projects.

]]>
By: Robert Glisson https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10980 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:18:11 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10980 “We don’t privatize waterways for the same reason that we don’t privatize Interstate 45.” Sorry Gringo, but we in Oklahoma (and other states, likewise) have State Toll Roads. To go from Tulsa to Oklahoma on I-44, it will cost you $3.50. Bypass OKC another two dollars. Etc. The highways were funded in the idea that when they were paid for, the state would convert them back to public roads. They paid for themselves and the state decided to keep the roads as toll roads to ‘pay for the upkeep’ and raised the rates. Booker T. Washington and others in the past built toll roads and the Erie Canal. But Ilana is right, the day of the “Private right of way” in anything is gone.

]]>
By: Gringo Malo https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10977 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:56:58 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10977 Pardon me, ma’am, but I think your article underestimates the strong proprietary interest of the BP and Transocean employees on the Deepwater Horizon. They had bet not only their jobs but their very lives that they could safely contain the oil in their well. Some of them lost. People screw up, often at great cost; it’s the nature of the beast. Privatization is no more likely to change that than communization.

We don’t privatize waterways for the same reason that we don’t privatize Interstate 45. As things are, it’s a four hour straight shot from Houston to Dallas at a cost of $20 to $50 in gas, depending on what you’re driving. If a different “private owner” demanded a toll at gunpoint every fifty feet or so, the trip would take months and exhaust most people’s life savings. Sometimes government management of a resource is perferable.

BHO undoubtedly claimed authority for the moratorium under some act of Congress. At least, I hope so, but I’m having difficulty finding the original order or any statement on legal justification from the administration. Has anyone else done better?

]]>
By: Myron Pauli https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10965 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:35:51 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10965 The President of the United States is supposed to enforce LAWS passed by Congress (such as immigration laws). The President is not authorized to rule by fiat. The Supreme Court rebuked Harry Truman when he tried to confiscate the steel industry during the Korean War so perhaps it will do so again.

P.S. To those Republicans out there – this is the same Harry Truman they now idolize for PERSONALLY declaring a UN “police action” (e.g. war) in Korean in defiance of Article 1 Section 8.

]]>
By: Gringo Malo https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10963 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:12:48 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10963 Loathe as I am to say anything in defense of Barry the Bolshevik or his commissars, oil exploration companies do lease tracts of the continental shelf from the federal government. We don’t live in an anarchist’s nirvana. The fedgov owns the continental shelf, and a big chunk of our land mass, too. It has since the Revolution.

Not having examined the lease agreements, I can’t say whether the administration is within its rights to suspend drilling. Judging from the press reports, I can’t tell whether the judge in this case has examined the plaintiff’s lease agreement either. The government might rightfully tell businesses to stop doing business when the government owns the tracts on which the businesses are doing their business, depending upon the terms of the lease.

[Good point; hence the never-to-be-realized need to privatize waterways.]

]]>
By: Robert Glisson https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10962 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:20:00 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10962 It seems the governor and private industry got a reprieve, when a Federal Judge set the ban aside; however, the White House (Interior Dept.) said they will appeal. “http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill”

]]>
By: Dan https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10961 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:03:56 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10961 I’m afraid this white house simply represents the majority (even if a slight majority) of the people of this country. We have truly become a nation of idiots.

Dan

]]>
By: Dennis https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10959 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:38:10 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10959 What are we really seeing here? Is it a global specialization of production & services country by country similar to Michigan growing apples vs Florida growing oranges? Where there used to be small numbers of men building handmade cars, we have large numbers of men who perform a single function, e.g. operating a nut-runner, to produce vehicles. In the FOUNDATION stories, the galaxy was governed by a central government and other planets & peoples provided for the needs of the central government. Currently, we read articles calling for a common currency or, at least, a small basket of select controlling currencies. “Under what authority does this…”, well, it appears to be the same as an assumptive close used by salesmen. I am to the point that my mind says we have lost our “home”, the U.S., to power grabbers, vagrants, and misdirected do-gooders. Thus it has been throughout history: thus it is now. All Hail the new Caesar! (ps: Does New Caledonia look like a safe haven?)

]]>
By: james huggins https://barelyablog.com/where-have-all-the-oil-rigs-gone/comment-page-1/#comment-10958 Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:36:52 +0000 http://barelyablog.com/?p=26645#comment-10958 The White House isn’t alone in making the US look ridiculous. The American people are doing a pretty good job of it too. In a crisis we actually have people looking to Obama for leadership when he has exhibited no leadership, ever. The idiocy of a drilling moratorium makes sense to the democrat faithful but not to anyone who actually thinks. This country is a classic case of the blind being led by the blind.

]]>