The "Atlas Shrugged" solution.
Memo to ExxonMobil: Blow it up
By TigerHawk at 1/19/2007 08:05:00 AM
In 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro assumed total power in Cuba, he nationalized the assets of the big oil companies, which consisted principally of refineries. Texaco wrote a letter to its shareholders asking that they write their Congressman to secure a remedy. My father was one of those shareholders, and he wrote back to Texaco's CEO with a different idea that was at once more satisfying, even if less than practical and entirely unsupportive of international socialism: blow it up. Don't let somebody nationalize your refinery. Just blow it up. Yes, you will never get your refinery back, but the next thug will think twice before he confiscates your asset. (Yes, I appreciate that there are innumerable risks associated with this strategy.)
Fast forward almost fifty years, and Castro's ideological heir and actual protege, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is arrogating to himself the power to issue laws by decree, and declaring that he, too, will nationalize big oil's assets. ExxonMobil has responded with a strongly worded statement about the "sanctity" of contracts.
"I don't want to get pejorative about it, but contract sanctity is very, very important to Exxon Mobil... We don't enter into our obligations lightly and we expect that others don't enter into their obligations lightly either," he said.
That's all well and good, but Chavez is a Commie. He doesn't do sanctity of contracts. He will decree that ExxonMobil's assets are now the property of the "people" of Venezuela, by which he means the people who will specifically support Hugo Chavez. The difference between Cuba of 1960 and Venezuela of 2007 is essential, though. Oil is the lifeblood of Chavez's post-Commie communism, and it keeps him in power. ExxonMobil really should blow it the frack up. It would be doing us all a favor.*
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* For all of you out there who believe that one should not advocate a policy that one is unwilling to pay for, note that I own enough ExxonMobil stock that a few points off its stock price would be enough to pay my mortgage for several months. For what that's worth. And, yes, I know that it would be virtually impossible to pull off without putting innocent people in jeopardy of life or limb, so I appreciate that ExxonMobil should not actually do this. But apart from those messy details, it would be the best result for everybody, including the people of Venezuela.
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