This topic is derived from Cecil’s column posted today, about the sale of US shale oil to pay off the national debt.
Cecil suggested other assets the US could liquidate more easily, one of which is Alaska. I thought “Whoa! Who would you sell it to?” Canada, I hope. We wouldn’t appreciate it one little bit if you sold it to Russia.
I was aware that shale oil is expensive to produce, as is Canada’s tar sands oil. It was my understanding (but correct me if I am wrong) that when OPEC declined to slow its oil production due to the excess of oil on the market driving down the price, the rationale was that if the price of oil is low, it will hurt the producers of expensive oil and possibly put them out of business, which would benefit OPEC. It would also hurt one South American member of the cartel, (Equador, I think) but never mind that…
Texas keeps making noises about seceding, and there is some amount of sentiment (here on SDMB anyway) to the effect “Let 'em, and good riddance”. So how about selling Texas (back to Mexico maybe?) before they can secede on their own?
I’m not sure Canada could afford it at any price meaningful for the US debt. The 2.5 trillion price suggested in the article is slightly over twice the current Canadian national debt (assuming it was sold in Canadian $ so I can avoid looking at the conversion rates). That would put their debt as a percentage of GNI at around 250+% while not adding much in the way of increased output from Alaska.