For real. This response to gas prices is probably one of the worst things Biden has done thus far. He should be threatening nationalizing gas companies. They would start ramping up refinement in no time if he did that. Instead we need another layer of stupid bureaucracy? These neo-liberal politicians' solutions are getting old.
Republicans would rightly ridicule President Biden for threatening to nationalize oil companies. They would visit big Democratic donors who have stock market wealth, and point out that capitalism no longer applies under a Biden Administration. They'd get a huge fundraising boost from President Biden's lapse in judgement.
If President Biden threatens to steal the entire oil sector - rob the companies of all their assets... what prevents those companies from shutting down and moving overseas? If they stay, they lose the whole company anyways. Company leadership receives most of their pay in stock options, which Biden would be threatening to make as worthless as the stock. So the most vital equipment and people, in my view, would leave the U.S. ... and what is leftover couldn't be run well by random people from the government.
I think you got somethign wrong here.
The companies don't own anything. The owners of the company might.
And nationalizing does not make that go away. Specifically nothing is robbed from the company. Every oil terminal, every pump is still there - as are the workers.
Stock holders might make a long face, but apart from that (and more money to run since you don't have to pay dividends) nothing changes.
You claim "companies don't own anything", yet every quarterly report states a company's "assets and liabilities". Are you claiming every quarterly report filed in the United States is materially false?
A statement like "stock holders might make a long face" hints that I might not be the one who is wrong, here. As Michael in ABQ points out, the 5th amendment ends with: "... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
According to a quick Google search, the CEO of Exxon makes:
Salary $1,615,000
Value of Stock Awards $8,434,725
So 84% of their salary comes from stock / stock options. If the U.S. government were to nationalize Exxon's U.S. assets, the stock would become worthless. Then 84% of the CEO's pay would become worthless, and the CEO would take an 84% pay cut. That CEO is going to quit and find another job at their original, 6x higher salary.
I think it's also worth pointing out the extreme bias people have after 1 year of oil company profits - look at the S&P 500 against the energy sector over the past 10 years.
S&P 500, 12.65%/year
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SPY/performance?p=SPYoil sector, 5.37%/year
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/XLE/performance?p=XLEAn oil sector that struggled in 2020 and underperformed the S&P 500 for a decade is being singled out for one good year. How are they supposed to make up for the other 9?