Recently, Halliburton, one of the largest American energy conglomerates that proudly calls U.S. Vice President Dick ‘Balls’ Cheney a former chief executive officer, announced that it was moving its corporate headquarters from Houston, Texas, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Now, in a time when many Americans go to sleep at night wondering if their jobs will have been shipped overseas by the time they wake up, I can’t think of a more uplifting news story besides this one. The beacon of the United States energy industry packing up and moving to a Middle Eastern country run by an extravagantly rich royal family is just what the economic doctor ordered for the United States.

It would have been justifiable for Halliburton to open up a satellite office in Dubai. After all, most of the oil left in the world is located in the Middle East, and not so much in the middle of Texas. Why Halliburton felt it necessary to specifically clarify that the CEO of the company will now be working in Dubai is absolutely beyond me. I can say with complete certainty that the CEO of the company is not getting up in the morning and pumping the oil out of the ground with his bare hands. In this age of instant information and intercontinental communication, why does the CEO of one of the largest American companies have to leave America to do his job?

Another alarming development I read about this past week was that another United Arab Emirates state-owned, Dubai-based company, Dubai Aerospace Enterprises (DAE), was headed toward the purchase of major interests in the United States aerospace and defense business. After reading this story, I wondered aloud, to no one in particular: ‘Is there really no possible way that we can keep our aerospace and defense businesses out of the hands of a country that calls Iran and Syria its loyal allies and partners in trade?’

The United Arab Emirates is hardly the beacon of freedom shining in the Middle East that Dubai’s massive skyscrapers and ridiculously cool world map project (300 man-made private islands placed to look like a map of the world) would lead us to believe. The media is state monitored and littered with censorship, and political opposition to the ruling family is about as tolerable as yelling ‘Fire!’ in an empty theater.

I would almost rather give these contracts to Canada.

It concerns me that the lucrative businesses of energy and defense have apparently decided the well is dry in the United States and have managed to find fertile ground right next door to Saudi Arabia. Is good old-fashioned American ingenuity really dead? Does corporate America have that little faith in our abilities to come up with an alternative to foreign oil?

What Halliburton should really be doing is investing in alternative energy sources to wean the American economy off of poisonous foreign oil, and pumping all those dollars they are saving in the tax breaks the business-friendly Bush administration has provided them back into the American economy. If George Bush, ‘Balls’ Cheney, Karl Rove and their band of merry men are really going to try to convince the average Binghamtonian, paying over $2.50 at the pump for a gallon of gas, that Halliburton’s massive tax breaks are for the good of the economy, shouldn’t they take the necessary measures to ensure that the billions of dollars not being paid in taxes are actually reinvested into the American economy and not sent abroad to a country that trades with two of our sworn enemies in Syria and Iran?

Shame on you, Halliburton, for turning your back on the American people. I hope your stock plummets lower than Britney Spears’ record sales.

‘ Jonathan Schwartz is a junior economics major who has heard that Riyadh is beautiful this time of year.