Reports of Peak Oil's Death Are Somewhat Premature, by
Kevin Carson, 22 Jul 2013
Examines shale oil and tar sand oil vis-à-vis the state policies that allow extraction to be profitable
"Shale oil extraction simply isn't sustainable or self-financing. It requires enormous investor financing to get the wells producing. Returns per well quickly decline, so there's no way to recoup that investment from production. The average one-year production drop-off from existing wells is 38%. Wells more than a few years old have very little output, and most current output is from the most recently drilled wells. The so-called "shale boom" requires not only large-scale financing up-front, but continued drilling just to keep the operation going."
The Sanctity of Private Property, Part 2, by
Jacob Hornberger, Jan 1991
Contrasts the attitudes of 20th century American citizens towards international trade and the oil business to citizens in communist countries, the former believing they live under a "private property" system which is not socialistic in nature
"One of the ironies is that during depressed economic conditions, when some oil companies go broke or bankrupt, the American people take the attitude of, "That's their problem. They chose to go into the oil business, and they can't cry when it fails to pan out." But when conditions change, and demand for the product suddenly increases, Americans take the same attitude as [communists] ...: "It's not fair for others to have more when I have less. I need the oil and gas. He's gouging me. I am 'forced' to pay these high prices. Take his product and his income away from him and give it to me." "