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Comment by savramescu | Hacker News Reader

This is not about the price of oil. Sweden and the US may pay the same price. But who's extracting it? Who's making the profit in the sale?

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It's not about the price of oil? This chain of comments was sparked by yummyfajitas asking "does the US pay less to import oil or steel than Sweden or something?", which seems fairly focused on price. And he was replying to a comment that claimed that American prosperity was due, in part, to "military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources". Which, again, seems awfully focused on price.

Now, you might want to change the subject to talk about oil company profits, but I'm not sure why you'd want to, because that makes even less sense. It's frankly ludicrous to suggest that American prosperity is in some way linked to the fact that ExxonMobil is headquartered in Texas rather than Canada or Europe. It's a publicly traded multinational corporation!

Sure it paid $15 billion in income tax in 2009, but none of it was in the US. Think that number would be higher if they were incorporated offshore? (Hint: No.) Yes, it pays dividends, but it does so regardless of whether those shareholders are citizens of the country it is headquartered in. Think the ratio of dividends paid to Americans versus Swedes would change if ExxonMobil moved offshore? (Hint: No.) And since this "isn't about the price of oil", we don't need to even ask if prices at the pump in the US would change if they moved offshore. (Although, obviously, they wouldn't.)

So I'm curious: The original post was talking about how America is richer than Sweden 'cause the American military is used to do something relating to oil. You say it's not about the price, but about oil company profits. Okay. Even if we accept that the US military has done wonders for the bottom line of ExxonMobil...how does Joe Bloggs become better off because a nominally American oil company is making a higher profit this year? Answer: He doesn't. So maybe we need to look a little further.

(And that's not even touching on the idea that military might is exogenous - this thing that some lucky countries have, and others don't.)

You said so yourself, the US and Sweden pay the same rates. What's left is who's making the profit on the sales for the next 30 years. No wonder the guys drilling works for an American company. Somebody has to lobby right?

I wasn't suggesting that this was about American prosperity. I was suggesting that this is about who's lobbying Congress to do what and with what money.

So if we go up...six levels of comments, we reach batista saying: "And, no, the reason US has a slightly more advanced economy than, say, Sweden, is not due to harsh working conditions. It's has more to do with human capital, a large unified market PLUS tons of military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources."

Now you say "I wasn't suggesting that this was about American prosperity." Which I think means you agree with everyone in this branch of the discussion except batista (who's the only one who asserted that it was about American prosperity). shrug In any case, I agree with you. Just another textbook example of public choice theory, of the sort you'll hear about endlessly if you hang out at Ron Paul rallies.

If I pay 100$ for oil from X, and someone else in the US makes 1$ profit from that sale then the US paid 99$ for that oil.

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