Say Anything: Dorgan Doesn't Get It On Energy Policy
Zsa Zsa
· 3 years ago
Sen. Dorgan is a big Socialist. Just about anything he is for. I am sure to disagree with.
puzzlefeet
· 3 years ago
And people across the political spectrum in North Dakota from liberals to conservatives continue to elect him with as big a numbers as Bush. So Zsa Zsa, you can call him a "big socialist", but then again, North Dakota is "big socialist" state, since we pride ourselves on our state owned Bank of North Dakota and our state owned mill and elevator. In a republican dominated state, they protect their socialist businesses.
Rob
· 3 years ago
Puzzle, ND's state-owned entities have more to do with populism than socialism. The state bank, mill and elevator are hold-overs from a by-gone age and certainly not reason to embrace the collectivist ideas that spawned them going forward.
As for socialism, I wouldn't be too proud of being a socialist if I were you given that socialism is responsible for more death and oppression in the world than any other ideology including fascism.
FreeRepublicans.com
· 3 years ago
The State Mill/Elevator and State Bank are part of the Populist Socialism that we call "Prairie Socialism." They were actually needed at the time in order to combat the Big Railroads and Big Banks in Minneapolis.
Its the type of socialism that was created out of need, and was a fairly bottom-up movement.
Looking at the past of the Dakota Territory and the early days of the state from an economic and political view, there was no other way to sustain such a low population.
However, that being said, there is an argument to be made that their time has come and gone.
Unless these socialist holdovers can be used to make the farm situation better today as was their orgininal intent, something should be done.
The way the Bank of ND throws around money in the form of student loans, for example, is illogical and irresponsible. I've talked with bar owners in Dickinson and Bismarck, and they have told me exactly "we know when the kids get their disbursement checks."
Tuition is high enough. The State Bank should not be enabling students to take on more debt as a form of economic development for local drinking establishments.
These State Corporations need to be re-tasked and reformed.
Rob
· 3 years ago
However, that being said, there is an argument to be made that their time has come and gone.
Which is the argument I put forth. They are hold-overs from the past only still in existence more out of bureaucratic inertia than anything else. And the fact that the government never likes to give back power/money once the populace has given it to them.
Robert Perry
· 3 years ago
It always amazes me that liberals never quite seem to figure out that "windfall profits" are simply the signal for new vendors to get into the business.
puzzlefeet
· 3 years ago
Thanks Rob and Free, I actually read the histoy of the NPL in a terrific book called "Political Prairie Fire" written in 1954. So I well know the roots of the bank and the mill. My point was to show ZsaZsa, that we have socialist businesses in ND, a very conservative. And Rob, whether they were populist, they were still socialist as well.
Oh and Rob, thanks for the lecture on the ills of being a socialist. I was simply making a point to ZsaZsa, no need for the lecture.
And Free, it is not just the bank that gives student loans and it is a bit whack to think that the bank gives out money so the Students go out drinking. I think it happens when the students get paid as well, just like the rest of us.
Rob
· 3 years ago
Oh and Rob, thanks for the lecture on the ills of being a socialist. I was simply making a point to ZsaZsa, no need for the lecture.
Given the state of the Democrat party these days there is always a need for lecturing you guys on the evils of socialism.
;-)
FreeRepublicans.com
· 3 years ago
Puzzle> Well, as a recent graduate, "I know how it works."
As far as the socialism, the reason that it worked in ND in the past was because they took as socialist concept and ran it under conservative/capitalist principles.
If they would have run it as 'just another program' it would have never worked.
Rob> I know thats what your argument was. I was just expanding on it. We're on the same page with this one.
puzzlefeet
· 3 years ago
Please Free, enlighten me and tell me how the NPLers ran it under conservative/capitalist principles. That's not my recollection from Political Prairiefire.
Free, I believe you when you say you know how it works, my point was it's not just the Bank of North Dakota and its school loan programs. Some students use their loans for non-school purposes, it is just not endemic to BND
Robert Perry
· 3 years ago
No quibble that there is a fair amount of socialism in the Plains states. When the government-sponsored railroad is gouging on freight rates, the government-sponsored banks are issuing worthless fiat currency, and farmers sent west by a government-induced banking failure (after the Civil War) find that their government-granted land isn't able to raise raise at a reasonable price, it's not surprising that those farmers asked for some government help to their problems as well.
It's not the choice I'd recommend, but it's perfectly rational, and it's one of the main reasons we have a monstrous federal bureaucracy and debt. It's hard to progress from "you broke it, you fix it" to "you broke it and can't fix it, so get the heck out of here."
Zsa Zsa
· 3 years ago
Puzzle...I guess every State has their share of Big Socialist's. Look at what Mass. keeps doing? Mass. has Kennedy and Kerry. Yikes! AND poor Nevada with Reid... Actually, Just the mention of windfall profit tax bothers me! I come from a long line of evil oil business people... SO, of course Dorgan the anti oil industry Sen. is going to offend me. Windfall profits tax is a been there, done that thing that did not work. It will only insure petroleum products will be more expensive.
oldhats
· 3 years ago
The windfall profit tax "scheme" is always one that has perplexed me since one of the guaranteed outcomes is higher prices at the pump...hurting the very people its proponents claim to be protecting.
Puzzlefeet
· 3 years ago
Robert Perry, let me clarify what the farmers did between 1915-1924, they didn't ask their government for help, they organized all the farmers in North Dakota and went into a coaliation with labor and took over the government, electing the majority in the house and senate and electing their own governor. They bought their own newspaper and set their own agenda, as they knew they were the government.
I don't know if the windfall profits tax is the answer but I have to laugh when you tell me that petroleum products will get more expensive, more expensive than what, now, a few months ago? Why do oil companies need corporate welfare when their profits are the best they have ever been? Why do these oil companies need government support to build new refineries when their profits are at all time highs?
SSmith
· 3 years ago
Not only will a windfall profit tax hurt the people it claims to help it will give foreign companies an unfair advantage over our domestic ones keeping the cost of gasoline high.
oldhats
· 3 years ago
Opposition to a windfall profits tax is different than support for corporate welfare...I want government to get out of the way and allow American companies to compete and succeed on the global stage. Seven of the 10 largest oil companies in the world are state-owned. And retroactively taxing American companies because they've found success is the equivalent to a subsidy for those foreign-owned companies. We need to be talking about how to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, not putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage!
Robert Perry
· 3 years ago
Puzzlefeet, the fact remains that the troubles of those farmers were largely inflicted by government (federal in this case), and that they turned to government for the solution.
And no, there isn't a whole lot of "corporate welfare" going to oil companies, as far as I can tell, at least from the U.S. government. Rather, their entire businesses are under a fairly heavy thumb of regulation, and they're requesting that the regulations be re-examined and/or reduced to allow them to build refineries here. See the difference?
Rob B.
· 3 years ago
I can't comment on the tenets of socialism or the politics of North Dakota but as an "evil oil" employee I can say that a windfall profits tax is the last thing we need right now.
If you look the Department of Energy's information website they have several studies that show demand for oil is going to go up and production will decrease. Meanwhile, the emerging economies of the world in South America and Asia will be increasing in demand as they are modernizing and growing. Add that information to the fact that oil is a global market and that most other country's largest oil companies are state owned and that sets you up for a time where the US is going to be competeing to provide oil in a decreasing supply state under increased demand.
The windfall profits tax will put money into the governments hand, not that I have faith in government spending, but it will also destroy smaller market oil firms that need windfall profits in order to survive dry or uncommercial wells. Less small independ
Finally, if you increase the cost of oil production who do you think will pay that differencce in the end? Everyone that uses gasoline or plastic. It's pretty much a tax on the people because we all use the service.
So in playing Robin Hood, we are going to put the farmers out of work because we robbed their lords and we're going to make bread more expensive at a time that wheat is going to become rarer. The Senator's idea strikes me as a very bad one.
Zsa Zsa
· 3 years ago
Rob B. knows what he is talking about...Oh Roooooob! Thanks man!
oldhats
· 3 years ago
Rob, Your points are well made and well taken. It strikes me as so odd that by "protecting" consumers from the oil companies with a WPT, the result is higher prices at the pump...paid for by the same people who are supposedly being protected. It's a head-scratcher.
SunLover
· 3 years ago
Let's not forget that a WPT was tried back in 1980. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service reported that as a result, domestic oil production decreased while oil imports increased. The WPT was repealed. We must learn from past mistakes, not repeat them!
The.Whistler
· 3 years ago
History doesn't matter. What's right doesn't matter. What matters to Senator Dorgan is politics and Socialism. This ones a twofer.
Wayne Palmer
· 3 years ago
Rob - You definitely know whereof you speak. This is economics 101: taxes get passed down the line to the consumers.
The oil industry is one of boom and bust. Money made during booms is saved or invested to cover the busts. How soon we forget the economic devastation of the '70s and '80s when the oil industry was hurting. Excessively taxing oil companies now will only insure their failure later. Then the government will be called on to bail them out and you can just imagine the outrage at that point.
El Grande
· 3 years ago
Rob - You definitely know whereof you speak. This is economics 101: taxes get passed down the line to the consumers.
The oil industry is one of boom and bust. Money made during booms is saved or invested to cover the busts. How soon we forget the economic devastation of the '70s and '80s when the oil industry was hurting. Excessively taxing oil companies now will only insure their failure later. Then the government will be called on to bail them out and you can just imagine the outrage at that point.
All Comments
Puzzle, ND's state-owned entities have more to do with populism than socialism. The state bank, mill and elevator are hold-overs from a by-gone age and certainly not reason to embrace the collectivist ideas that spawned them going forward.
As for socialism, I wouldn't be too proud of being a socialist if I were you given that socialism is responsible for more death and oppression in the world than any other ideology including fascism.
The State Mill/Elevator and State Bank are part of the Populist Socialism that we call "Prairie Socialism." They were actually needed at the time in order to combat the Big Railroads and Big Banks in Minneapolis.
Its the type of socialism that was created out of need, and was a fairly bottom-up movement.
Looking at the past of the Dakota Territory and the early days of the state from an economic and political view, there was no other way to sustain such a low population.
However, that being said, there is an argument to be made that their time has come and gone.
Unless these socialist holdovers can be used to make the farm situation better today as was their orgininal intent, something should be done.
The way the Bank of ND throws around money in the form of student loans, for example, is illogical and irresponsible. I've talked with bar owners in Dickinson and Bismarck, and they have told me exactly "we know when the kids get their disbursement checks."
Tuition is high enough. The State Bank should not be enabling students to take on more debt as a form of economic development for local drinking establishments.
These State Corporations need to be re-tasked and reformed.
Thanks Rob and Free, I actually read the histoy of the NPL in a terrific book called "Political Prairie Fire" written in 1954. So I well know the roots of the bank and the mill. My point was to show ZsaZsa, that we have socialist businesses in ND, a very conservative. And Rob, whether they were populist, they were still socialist as well.
Oh and Rob, thanks for the lecture on the ills of being a socialist. I was simply making a point to ZsaZsa, no need for the lecture.
And Free, it is not just the bank that gives student loans and it is a bit whack to think that the bank gives out money so the Students go out drinking. I think it happens when the students get paid as well, just like the rest of us.
Given the state of the Democrat party these days there is always a need for lecturing you guys on the evils of socialism.
;-)
Puzzle> Well, as a recent graduate, "I know how it works."
As far as the socialism, the reason that it worked in ND in the past was because they took as socialist concept and ran it under conservative/capitalist principles.
If they would have run it as 'just another program' it would have never worked.
Rob> I know thats what your argument was. I was just expanding on it. We're on the same page with this one.
Please Free, enlighten me and tell me how the NPLers ran it under conservative/capitalist principles. That's not my recollection from Political Prairiefire.
Free, I believe you when you say you know how it works, my point was it's not just the Bank of North Dakota and its school loan programs. Some students use their loans for non-school purposes, it is just not endemic to BND
No quibble that there is a fair amount of socialism in the Plains states. When the government-sponsored railroad is gouging on freight rates, the government-sponsored banks are issuing worthless fiat currency, and farmers sent west by a government-induced banking failure (after the Civil War) find that their government-granted land isn't able to raise raise at a reasonable price, it's not surprising that those farmers asked for some government help to their problems as well.
It's not the choice I'd recommend, but it's perfectly rational, and it's one of the main reasons we have a monstrous federal bureaucracy and debt. It's hard to progress from "you broke it, you fix it" to "you broke it and can't fix it, so get the heck out of here."
Robert Perry, let me clarify what the farmers did between 1915-1924, they didn't ask their government for help, they organized all the farmers in North Dakota and went into a coaliation with labor and took over the government, electing the majority in the house and senate and electing their own governor. They bought their own newspaper and set their own agenda, as they knew they were the government.
I don't know if the windfall profits tax is the answer but I have to laugh when you tell me that petroleum products will get more expensive, more expensive than what, now, a few months ago? Why do oil companies need corporate welfare when their profits are the best they have ever been? Why do these oil companies need government support to build new refineries when their profits are at all time highs?
Opposition to a windfall profits tax is different than support for corporate welfare...I want government to get out of the way and allow American companies to compete and succeed on the global stage. Seven of the 10 largest oil companies in the world are state-owned. And retroactively taxing American companies because they've found success is the equivalent to a subsidy for those foreign-owned companies. We need to be talking about how to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, not putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage!
Puzzlefeet, the fact remains that the troubles of those farmers were largely inflicted by government (federal in this case), and that they turned to government for the solution.
And no, there isn't a whole lot of "corporate welfare" going to oil companies, as far as I can tell, at least from the U.S. government. Rather, their entire businesses are under a fairly heavy thumb of regulation, and they're requesting that the regulations be re-examined and/or reduced to allow them to build refineries here. See the difference?
If you look the Department of Energy's information website they have several studies that show demand for oil is going to go up and production will decrease. Meanwhile, the emerging economies of the world in South America and Asia will be increasing in demand as they are modernizing and growing.
Add that information to the fact that oil is a global market and that most other country's largest oil companies are state owned and that sets you up for a time where the US is going to be competeing to provide oil in a decreasing supply state under increased demand.
The windfall profits tax will put money into the governments hand, not that I have faith in government spending, but it will also destroy smaller market oil firms that need windfall profits in order to survive dry or uncommercial wells. Less small independ
Finally, if you increase the cost of oil production who do you think will pay that differencce in the end? Everyone that uses gasoline or plastic. It's pretty much a tax on the people because we all use the service.
So in playing Robin Hood, we are going to put the farmers out of work because we robbed their lords and we're going to make bread more expensive at a time that wheat is going to become rarer. The Senator's idea strikes me as a very bad one.
Rob, Your points are well made and well taken. It strikes me as so odd that by "protecting" consumers from the oil companies with a WPT, the result is higher prices at the pump...paid for by the same people who are supposedly being protected. It's a head-scratcher.
Rob - You definitely know whereof you speak. This is economics 101: taxes get passed down the line to the consumers.
The oil industry is one of boom and bust. Money made during booms is saved or invested to cover the busts. How soon we forget the economic devastation of the '70s and '80s when the oil industry was hurting. Excessively taxing oil companies now will only insure their failure later. Then the government will be called on to bail them out and you can just imagine the outrage at that point.
Rob - You definitely know whereof you speak. This is economics 101: taxes get passed down the line to the consumers.
The oil industry is one of boom and bust. Money made during booms is saved or invested to cover the busts. How soon we forget the economic devastation of the '70s and '80s when the oil industry was hurting. Excessively taxing oil companies now will only insure their failure later. Then the government will be called on to bail them out and you can just imagine the outrage at that point.