[austro-libertarian]

Originally Posted by JohnBirchSociety

Considering we EXPORT 1.1Million Barrels of oil a DAY, we could reduce our dependence on imports by nearly 8% a day, but just stopping our exports. That's right. We could reduce our reliance on foreign oil by nearly 10%, IMMEDIATELY, by stopping the export of US oil.

If we take Canada and Mexico out of the equation (they've been generally friendly allies), then we're left with 9Million Barrels a day of oil from nations that are historically unfriendly with America (except for wanting our money). Now, again, if we immediately stopped exporting our oil, we'd only need to import 7.9Million Barrels a day from our enemies (for lack of a better term). That would be a decrease in current importation of 12%, with no need to drill for more oil.

Simply put, our politicians / eco-extremists / alarmists are wrong.

From public figures, we can actually "drill ourselves" out of this mess. Here's how:

1) Stop exporting our oil (1.1Million Barrels a day)
2) Drill now for our 40Billion Barrels of known oil (Standard sources, not shale or coal oils which would put us ahead of most, if not all nations in the world for total oil reserves)

So, we can immediately reduce our reliance on our enemies for oil by over 10%. And, we CAN drill ourselves out of all reliance on foreign oil.

What do you think?

What I think is that this sounds a bit too much like "we" are a big club that can make these decisions. It is up to the individual companies to make these types of decisions. I think trade is beneficial and should not be arbitrarily defined by a country's borders. You could make the same argument of self-sufficiency within any geographic territory. Imagine Alaska decides not to export (i.e., trade) its goods to Washington; or perhaps Los Angeles doesn't want to export its products to San Francisco; or a community doesn't export to another community; or an individual decides not to export any of their products to anyone else. Sounds a bit silly to me . . . trade is mutually beneficial and prices help coordinate exchanges in the market.