The U.S. Government Is Not the Daddy of U.S. Oil Companies, by Jacob Hornberger

There are some games where you place your bets, take your chances, and if you get cheated, too bad. From Jacob Hornberger at fff.org:

Among the many rationalizations that the Trump administration is using to initiate massive force and violence against the Venezuelan people is that the Venezuelan government nationalized American oil interests many years ago. The notion is that since “they stole our oil” several decades ago, it is entirely proper, U.S. officials say, for the U.S. government to retaliate against Venezuela, including, presumably, getting back the oil they supposedly “stole from us.”

But contrary to what many Americans now have convinced themselves is true, Venezuela never stole “our oil,” especially if one is referring to you and me and most other American citizens with the use of the possessive pronoun “our.” That’s because neither you nor I or the vast majority of other Americans ever owned Venezuelan oil.

For that matter, the U.S. government didn’t own any Venezuelan oil either. It was U.S. oil companies that were granted concessions from the Venezuelan government near the beginning of the 20th century to extract oil from Venezuela in return for payment of concession fees to the Venezuelan government.

The situation was similar to what happens when an oil company enters into a lease contract with a private landowner here in the United States. The oil company pays the landowner a bonus to sign the lease. If it later strikes oil, the oil company pays royalties to the landowner.

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