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.

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. 

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.

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.

Sen. Dorgan is a big Socialist. Just about anything he is for. I am sure to disagree with.

Rob B. knows what he is talking about…Oh Roooooob! Thanks man!

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.

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? 

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.

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?

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!

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.