Believe it or not we have an "oil rush" right here in the United States, in North Dakota and Montana. It is called the Bakken Formation, as reported in IBD. The area is said to contain 4.3 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates go as high as 24 billion barrels.

Today North Dakota produces 400,000 barrels per day. With upgrades in infrastructure, production could go to 600,000 to 800,000 barrels per day.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007 feature. The voting has now closed and readers have chosen Google Inc. as the company of the year. Be sure and let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

Corporate America, the markets, and Wall Street are lumbering through a so-so year -- one likely to be characterized by mediocre U.S. GDP and earnings performance, along with ample portions of market volatility.

To be sure, no one will confuse 2007 with a peak year during the "Roaring '20s" or even the "Roaring '90s." Still, there were several standout performances, which we summarize in our "Company of the Year" award.

Facebook

Facebook deserves an honorable mention. The online directory shows considerable promise as an online community and networking device. Provided information is kept confidential and is not released or sold to unauthorized third parties, the business model can serve as another meeting room for groups that might not otherwise be able to meet for geographic or other reasons.

This post was written by Chris Pummer, special contributor to AOL Money & Finance.

Almost every American has a mega-company they dislike or downright despise. A select few companies bear the undesired distinction of being widely abhorred.

While consumers hold some whole industries in contempt like insurers and airlines – the latter unfairly given historically low fares -- certain industry leaders have become magnets of scorn.

Today's monopoly-wannabes are different than monoliths like John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil dismantled in the trust-busting era a century ago. The bygone variety abused a fast-expanding smokestack economy and vast scientific advances. Today's are retail and technology giants exploiting the deregulated business environment spawned in the 1980s and consumers' indiscriminate appetite for cheap prices and convenience.

Our collective spending choices and patronage vaulted each into its dominant position. Consumer champion Ralph Nader blames not only weak government oversight, but also our swift shift to a cashless society, in which consumers pay little mind to the consequences of their hasty credit- and debit-card transactions.