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(Wall Street Journal)   A couple of Senate bullies decide Exxon's opinion on global warming is doubleplus ungood; "encourage" Exxon to throw money at environmentalists. Nice little oil company you have there -- be a shame if something happened to it   (opinionjournal.com) divider line
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798 clicks; posted to Politics » on 04 Dec 2006 at 12:42 PM (16 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



71 Comments     (+0 »)


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BeanFreak
2006-12-04 12:23:24 PM  
I love a good f*cked up headline.
 
Pocket Ninja [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2006-12-04 12:29:23 PM  
The words "Exxon" and "little oil company" probably should not appear within at least 100 pages of each other.

And yes, this is a trainwreck of a headline. Try to keep it down to a single allusion, submitter. Too many makes you sound schizophrenic.
 
Hanky [TotalFark]
2006-12-04 12:30:12 PM  
The Wall Street Journal: All the conscientiousness of Fox News with a lot more brains.
 
FarkinNortherner
2006-12-04 12:32:31 PM  
OMG ! Teh politicians are campaigning for what they believe to be the public good !

What's that you say: "that's what we elected them for" ? Pshaw, everyone knows politicians should be the unthinking pawns of big business. After all, it's a policy that's been an unmitigated success for Bush and Cheney.
 
zorgon
2006-12-04 12:35:51 PM  
Hanky: more brains

Interesting hypothesis, but I think it's incorrect.
 
Action Replay Nick
2006-12-04 12:39:44 PM  
If there's one thing Exxon should definitely not have to do, it's care about the environment.
 
dj4aces
2006-12-04 12:43:52 PM  
Hanky: with a lot more brains.

Someone ought to tell these guys where to find them.

[image from tfmr.zerobrains.com too old to be available]
 
tnpir
2006-12-04 12:46:06 PM  
If there's one thing Exxon should definitely not have to do, it's care about the environment.

You're absolutely right. The only purpose of a corporation is to provide shareholders with a profit. That, however, is why we have government regulation of business: to protect public interests that profit-driven entities have no interest in or "responsibility" for.

This is why I would never support the notion of unfettered capitalism. Public interests like the environment, workplace safety, fair wages, etc. would be pissed away in a heartbeat if the corproate masters of this country could do it.
 
Radioactive Ass
2006-12-04 12:46:42 PM  
I didn't know there were so many people in favor of governmental censorship around here.
 
whidbey
2006-12-04 12:47:21 PM  
Windfall tax, money goes into cleaner alternative technologies and public transit.

Come on, you guys...
 
Bgdojo
2006-12-04 12:48:14 PM  
Is the headline reminiscent of 1984 or A Brave New World?


/Too lazy to check
 
BeanFreak
2006-12-04 12:48:23 PM  
Ahhh...cleaned it up the headline for green. Much better. I guess Big Brother is looking out for headlines, too.
 
albo
2006-12-04 12:51:17 PM  
congress plus science equals stupidity divided by censorship.

what the senators don't know about science is that a basic tenant of science holds that nothing is ever settled, no question is every out of bounds--any idea, even the claim that the earth beneath you, can be questioned through theory and experiment.
 
Abagadro
2006-12-04 12:51:32 PM  
Negative externalities biatches!
 
Tigger
2006-12-04 12:52:30 PM  
This is why I would never support the notion of unfettered capitalism. Public interests like the environment, workplace safety, fair wages, etc. would be pissed away in a heartbeat if the corproate masters of this country could do it.

The oil companies do not work on the principle of unfettered capitalism. that is precisely the problem. There is no market for the true costs of their activities.
 
Malicious Bastard
2006-12-04 12:53:23 PM  
Abagadro
Negative externalities biatches!

Lol.
Abagadro FTW
 
carmody
2006-12-04 12:53:52 PM  
Looks like a couple of Senators aren't getting their Xmas Bribe Basket this year.
 
Gwendolyn
2006-12-04 12:54:12 PM  
Action Replay Nick
If there's one thing Exxon should definitely not have to do, it's care about the environment.

Why not? Some moran decided it was a good idea to make tobacco companies pay their smoker's medical bills and fund anti-smoking campaigns.
 
tallguywithglasseson
2006-12-04 1:08:47 PM  
Ooohhhh, poor little Exxon!
 
March_Hare
2006-12-04 1:09:23 PM  
[image from geocities.com too old to be available]
 
ericjohnson0
2006-12-04 1:12:42 PM  
Olympia Snowe... RiNO.
 
whidbey
2006-12-04 1:13:36 PM  
Tigger: The oil companies do not work on the principle of unfettered capitalism. that is precisely the problem. There is no market for the true costs of their activities.

They still make one hell of a profit. They must be able to meet costs...
 
Tjos Weel
2006-12-04 1:14:55 PM  
Tigger

There is no market for the true costs of their activities.

Ronald Coase begs to differ.
 
EZbaked
2006-12-04 1:15:46 PM  
why is the tone of this article so in defense of the oil companies? oh right... wall street journal.
 
Guy Innagorillasuit
2006-12-04 1:17:19 PM  
I'm glad you've pointed this out, submitter. Giant corporations are woefully underrepresented in our government.
 
BobtheFascist
2006-12-04 1:19:23 PM  
Yawn
 
cryptozoophiliac
2006-12-04 1:24:57 PM  
Perhaps they could have phrased their statements a bit more diplomatically, like so:

"HI! We're now at War with Islamofascism (TM). YOU are currently doing business with the enemy, which means we could pull your corporate charter stat. Either work with us to change the energy portfolio of this nation, or find another gig."
 
Bloody William
2006-12-04 1:26:54 PM  
Senators bullying Exxon? Isn't that sort of like the chess club ganging up on the linebacker whose father has mafia connections?
 
tallguywithglasseson
2006-12-04 1:27:51 PM  
Add Exxon to the WSJ editorial board's list of the oppressed, along with white, Christian males.
 
equilibrium
2006-12-04 1:27:59 PM  
albo
what the senators don't know about science is that a basic tenant of science holds that nothing is ever settled, no question is every out of bounds--any idea, even the claim that the earth beneath you, can be questioned through theory and experiment.

Yeah that science... it provides nothing but an ever shifting and unreliable description of the world around us. Why all our ideas of gravity, electromagnetism, space and time could be overthrown in a moment by the right experiment and the seemingly stable ground beneath us could go spiraling off into the sun.

/yeah it could happen
//but it won't
 
Tigger
2006-12-04 1:29:30 PM  
They still make one hell of a profit. They must be able to meet costs...

They make lots of profit because they DON"T pay for the economic costs of polluting.

as someone mentioned earlier - negative externalities biatches.

a proper capitalist system would provide markets for externalities. what we have is a half ass balls up. it's not 'unfettered capitalism' that makes Exxon able to do what it does, it's a failure to properly implement capitalism.

as an aside, a good fifty percent of Fark economics threads contain incorrect arguments based on posters not understanding externalities.
 
albo
2006-12-04 1:29:55 PM  
Why all our ideas of gravity, electromagnetism, space and time could be overthrown in a moment by the right experiment

if anybody can ever put together one that proves m-theory, well, yes
 
Goldsfool
2006-12-04 1:29:57 PM  
Bloody William

Nah, I think it's more like Penguins (dems) and seals (reps) trying to take on a pod of rabid orcas.
 
Goldsfool
2006-12-04 1:30:41 PM  
I can't really understand why I decided to capitalize that "P".
 
Saiga410
2006-12-04 1:33:11 PM  
Goldsfool, hockey fan?
 
Glasgowsfinest
2006-12-04 1:36:28 PM  
albo: if anybody can ever put together one that proves m-theory, well, yes

I did, but it was REAL dull, so I rubbed it out and drew a HUGE PENIS.
 
Dancin_In_Anson
2006-12-04 1:38:23 PM  
whidbey: Windfall tax,


It worked so well last time, didn't it?
 
Gosling
2006-12-04 1:38:46 PM  
Been a long time coming.
 
Tjos Weel
2006-12-04 1:41:40 PM  
Tigger

as someone mentioned earlier - negative externalities biatches.

As someone mentioned earlier (me, in fact), Ronald Coase Biatches!

as an aside, a good fifty percent of Fark economics threads contain incorrect arguments based on posters not understanding externalities.

True dat. Some people even think they exist. Its all about transaction costs. Here is the best link I have found: Coase's Theorem
 
Goldsfool
2006-12-04 1:45:38 PM  
Saiga410

The only sport I like to watch is womens' tennis.

/and it ain't exactly for the tennis
 
timmy_the_tooth
2006-12-04 1:45:45 PM  
not this cup of shiat again...
 
KEMMLASER
2006-12-04 1:53:49 PM  
coase doesn't really apply here since there is no good mechanism for the establishment and enforcement of property rights, with relevance to the the sort and size of externalities a company like exxon produces.

also that headline was f'd, smitty
 
HotWingConspiracy
2006-12-04 1:54:41 PM  
I don't see the problem. Just offering them some friendly advice.
 
Rakkim Epps
2006-12-04 1:58:29 PM  
ericjohnson0: Olympia Snowe... RiNO.

Olympia Snowe also has a 79/18 approval/disapproval rating, (the next highest Republican is Susan Collins, also of Maine, with a 73/23 split), and will get re-elected until she no longer wants the job. If the Republicans wish to cast her off, I am quite sure the down east Democrats would only be too happy to add her name to the party.

(http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2006/Net100USSenatorApproval061122.htm)
 
Tjos Weel
2006-12-04 1:58:33 PM  
KEMMLASER

Ummm...isnt what you said a (THE?) major point of Coase, that some times transaction costs prevent an obvious solution to the externality. That, without transaction costs, there is no such thing as an externality at all.
 
Fakk
2006-12-04 1:59:30 PM  
I would have preferred a much shorter letter:

"Dear Oil Companies:

The government of the United States has decided to make all oil production within our borders state-run and state-owned. Please hand over the keys to all of your refineries and wells within 30 days. Thanks."
 
Tjos Weel
2006-12-04 2:01:39 PM  
One last Coase related comment, this is the last paragraph from the article I linked above. Worth posting here.

There is at least one more thing worth saying about "The Problem of Social Cost." Economists, then and (to some degree) now, tend to jump from the observation that the market produces an inefficient result in some situation to the conclusion that the government ought to intervene to fix the problem. Part of what Coase showed was that, for some problems, there is no legal rule, no form of regulation, that will generate a fully efficient solution. He thus anticipated public choice economists, such as James Buchanan (another Nobel winner), in arguing that the real choice was not between an inefficient market and an efficient government solution but rather among a variety of inefficient alternatives, private and governmental. In Coase's words: "All solutions have costs and there is no reason to suppose that government regulation is called for simply because the problem is not well handled by the market or the firm."
 
The Reverend Smith
2006-12-04 2:02:49 PM  
Fakk: I would have preferred a much shorter letter:

"Dear Oil Companies:

The government of the United States has decided to make all oil production within our borders state-run and state-owned. Please hand over the keys to all of your refineries and wells within 30 days. Thanks."


You and Mussolini.
 
moops
2006-12-04 2:07:14 PM  
Olympia Snowe... RiNO.

That's right, keep belittling those in the GOP that don't vote alongside the extra-chromosome crowd known as the religious reich. Maine will be glad to elect Democrats in place of Snowe and Collins.

So cut off your nose to spite your face, I gladly invite you to do so. It will only strengthen our majority.
 
Tjos Weel
2006-12-04 2:13:52 PM  
moops

I guess its a good thing that the term DINO doesnt exist.

/I have never called anyone a LINO
//Actually, not true, when Coulter tried to run as a libertarian, I would have called her a LINO if she had made it on the ballot
 
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