too big to fail

If you were energy tycoon kind of bank$ter, and you wanted to make really sure you got the chance to rape and pillage the entire countryside, you just might want to create an investment bubble that ensured endless depredation.

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.



But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles...

It worked for Wall Street once. It shouldn't be surprising they're trying it again with the assistance of the same kind of people we've come to associate with Cheneyburton. Who wants to argue with the needs of 'Merika in a time of War?