Lower Oil Prices Are a Free-Market Victory

Real Clear Politics ^ | November 29 ,2014 | By Larry Kudlow

[Sherman Logan]

I like your idea better.

IMO the most effective way, or, more accurately the most effective method we might be willing to use, to attack Islamism is to defund it.

I also would be in favor of the US providing incentives to American companies to frack across the world. Shale oil and gas are found very nearly everywhere. Such production in Ukraine or Brazil defunds the Islamists every bit as much as production in North Dakota or Alberta.

It also might do a lot to make poor countries more prosperous. That’s a good thing.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I also would be in favor of the US providing incentives to American companies to frack across the world. Shale oil and gas are found very nearly everywhere. Such production in Ukraine or Brazil defunds the Islamists every bit as much as production in North Dakota or Alberta.

It also might do a lot to make poor countries more prosperous. That’s a good thing.

It matters some, tho, just how a nation becomes prosperous. When oil became a valuable mineral, in America the preponderance of it was exploited on private land, and so private individuals gained dramatically from it. But when a government gets all the money, you have an entirely different effect - government hypertrophy.

[Sherman Logan]

Quite right, of course. As I understand it, few countries have much in the way of private property ownership of mineral rights.

Doesn’t make a difference when it comes to defunding Islam, though. A barrel of oil not from a Muslim land is a barrel of oil not from a Muslim land.