Dirty money
Dd accounting principles at work: today the CBC carried a story. An op-ed piece, from my chair; how the oil industry in Western Canada is losing SO MUCH money, because they can’t get their product to the “right” market. Forced to accept heavy discounts on every barrel, which means that the riches are simply evaporating.
Why I find it odd is that earlier in the week, we had another story. One that mentioned how the oil industry (in Western Canada) has seriously underestimated the costs faced in remediation. I know, a word they don’t like to use. It refers to the responsibility of the industry to clean up their mess. Why, when you put the discounts and the remediation numbers in the correct column, it behooves the real question. Why do we/they even bother? The product is not viable in any economic model. Worse, the taxpayers (myself included) have spent just as much money to subsidize the industry. Rather depressing. And if you Google the question, be prepared to wade through a soup thrown up by the industry to obfuscate.
I know, the other voices are in loop. The jobs. The wages. The need for petroleum. Here’s the catch. That same industry wants to export their product (it’s all about the money, not about our needs). If we took the tax dollars we already spend and simply transformed the money into pay packets, the average Joe In The Oilpatch wouldn’t see any difference at the end of the week (except for cleaner fingernails).
Crude oil is a dirty business. Crude oil is a really poor way to make your fortune (unless you happen to be a shareholder in Big Oil). How about a little test? Let’s turn off the pumps, and see if the world even notices.
