Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Avarice-alicious

So we've had this enormous "royalty review" process happening here in Alberta. Apparently, somebody thinks that we're not making quite as much money as we should be in the oil field, and we're not charging enough, (36% too little apparently!) for Exxon and friends to be extracting our oil.
Now, I'm sorry, but who exactly is not making enough money here? Fort Mac has the richest homeless people in the world (they can't expand half as fast as they need to, so guys are making $300,000 a year and living in tents) a girl like me can go up there and make good money for god's sake. And yet, apparently our poor, poor province (who sent out a 400$ check to each of it's tax paying citizens a couple years back because we just had TOO much money in the provincial coffers) has realised that it could be making billions more.
The problem? The oil companies have said, sure, you're midline. We don't pay too much, we don't pay too little, to get your oil. But if you put those royalties up, you can sure as hell believe that we'll find somewhere else to get our tea. So shocked were they, that they called us.. *gasp* socialists! (Um.. haven't we been calling ourselves that for years?) I just think it's unbelievable.
Actually, scratch that. It's just SO believable. That's whats shocking. I hope they leave in a rush and our economy plummets. Maybe I'll get that one bedroom loft that I want for less than $455, 000 - and it'll be cheap to heat too.

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