I don't think property rights enter the picture when it's a government steward making long term leases available, possibly against the public interest.
And that they're claiming he significantly raised prices for parcels that he didn't end up winning shows that the auction was a sham (basically the companies expected to not have much bidding competition).
I've heard that logging companies play the same game of plunder in the pacific northwest, though oftentimes they're shorter term leases, and leave soon after. The stewards appear to be convinced one by one through a calculated program of propaganda. It seems that people will do anything to bring jobs into their town, but nobody wants to think about when they'll leave.
And that they're claiming he significantly raised prices for parcels that he didn't end up winning shows that the auction was a sham
Not necessarily. It's entirely rational for bidders to say "hey, there's more competition bidding on this parcel than I expected, maybe this parcel is worth more than I thought". Bidders don't have perfect knowledge, and they are well aware of this fact.
It is true that a bid signals a committed willingness to pay a certain price. But then what disqualifies this kid's bids as not being part of determining the true cost? He says that he accepted possibly going to jail, and I'm sure he'd rather be in debt for the bid amount instead of jail, so in essence his bids were backed up by a commitment.
You know, now that he's got a bit of money and publicity backing him, it'd be kind of funny if he sued and got all of the sales that were completed after he was escorted out invalidated, as he was denied participation, and therefore they are _undervalued_.
I wonder about that, he got a lot of publicity and could probably start raising money to pay his bids. This is not a billion dollar FCC auction this is 1.8 million for 22,000 acres of land which he might be able to pay for. If nothing else he can probably resell some of these to the same drilling groups once there are less of these auctions to bid on.
Yeah, I suppose that was a stillborn argument, given that the debt in question isn't the result of a creditor explicitly loaning money for the purpose, but arising from a non-fulfilled transaction.
Hmm this is tough. Ugly or less domestic oil production...
Thing is, if we drill more, gas prices are affected (in a good way for us). If we don't drill, we will NEVER tap the potential of our resources (and it's there). And if we do drill, the land will look disgusting, which is definitely bad. Especially such beautiful land in the west...
But since I'm not living there I am inclined to be okay with the land looking ugly, since I'm not the one who has to live with it. It's the same deal with windmills -- everyone wants to build them but nobody wants to look at them. I guess I care more about my gas prices. Is that a bad thing?
Hm and can we stick to hacking? I mean it was an interesting article but man I'm depressed now. Haha.
In order to decide, we need quantitative estimates of how much prices will be reduced, and how much natural beauty will be harmed. It seems to me that even someone with your attitude will probably find the trade-off does not favor development in beautiful areas for the unmeasurably small change in prices we can expect.
