How do we know that Solyndra and First Solar and Fisker Automotive and thirty other failed Obama-subsidized green energy ventures are (or were) highly moral enterprises? Because they are all going bankrupt. They all produce less value for consumers than they cost in resources. That’s good because producing net value—making money—is the criterion of immorality.
Such, at least, is the message from ExxonHatesYourChildren.com, where an actor pretending to speak for Exxon smugly plays the Grinch:
Here at Exxon we hate your children. We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart but we don’t care, because it’s making us rich.
Wait a minute. If they are getting rich, doesn’t that mean they have to be creating quite a bit of value? Doesn’t it mean that people need the gasoline that Exxon is producing and find it’s price inexpensive compared to the value they get out of it? Indeed, if gasoline producers stopped producing, wouldn’t everyone, including the children, die practically on the spot?
Condemning energy suppliers is just as perverse as condemning food suppliers. Unfortunately we have to take these people seriously because the country just re-elected a president who thinks much the same way, so witness the dripping hatred for mankind, made palatable (to some) by a sugar coating of anti-capitalism and class warfare. Here’s the video:
Here at Exxon we hate your children. We all know the climate crisis will rip their world apart but we don’t care, because it’s making us rich. That’s right, every year Congress gives the fossil fuel industry over ten billion dollars in subsidies. That’s your tax dollars lining our pockets, making a fortune destroying your kids’ future. At Exxon, that’s what we call ‘good business’.
The ExxonHatesYourChildren.com website was created by Andrew Boyd, an eco-leftist activist who was an originator of the class-war demagoguery of the Occupy movement. That’s why Boyd’s group is called “The Other 98%.” Boyd got in early, before his Occupy comrades decided that 98 to 2 was not enough advantage and changed their slogan to “the 99%.” These people have backing all the way to the top of the Democratic Party. New Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren claims to have laid the intellectual foundation for the Occupy movement and Obama himself endorses it (“we are on their side“).
Where are the REAL subsidies going?
Of course Boyd’s demagoguery goes beyond his explicit appeal to class warfare. His group is also fabulously dishonest. When they (and Obama) claim that oil companies are getting billions in subsidies what they mean is that Exxon gets to take advantage of the same tax breaks that other businesses do in order to keep a bit more of the money they earned. Keeping your own money is not a subsidy.
Want to see some real subsidies? Check out Obama’s bankrupt 33 (from The Heritage Foundation), with the amounts of direct taxpayer funding each received from the Obama Administration. The 19 asterisked companies have already filed for bankruptcy. The others are near bankruptcy:
1.Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
2.SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
3.Solyndra ($535 million)*
4.Beacon Power ($43 million)*
5.Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
6.SunPower ($1.2 billion)
7.First Solar ($1.46 billion)
8.Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
9.EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10.Amonix ($5.9 million)
11.Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
12.Abound Solar ($400 million)*
13.A123 Systems ($279 million)*
14.Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
15.Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16.Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
17.ECOtality ($126.2 million)
18.Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
19.Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
20.Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
21.Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
22.Range Fuels ($80 million)*
23.Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
24.Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
25.Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
26.GreenVolts ($500,000)
27.Vestas ($50 million)
28.LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
29.Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
30.Navistar ($39 million)
31.Satcon ($3 million)*
32.Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
33.Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
As for “tax subsidies” (letting earners keep their money), the vast majority of those also go to “green” energy. From the Congressional Budget Office:
Since green energy is tiny compared to brown energy, the subsidy as a percentage of the industry is vastly larger for green energy than even this graph indicates. Heritage has run the numbers:
…wind energy companies, for instance, get about 1000 times the subsidies that oil companies do, per kilowatt-hour of energy produced.
Just for fun, somebody should ask some actual children what they would think of a character who tried to turn off the electricity and take away gasoline. It’s like the villain in a superhero movie. And that “climate crisis” that is supposedly going to “rip their world apart”? Notice that Boyd et al. lack the conviction to even call it “global warming.” Apparently they know full well that global temperature has not risen significantly in over a decade but are unwilling to relinquish the demagogic power that comes from blaming natural phenomena on their capitalist enemy.
“We all know the
climateideology crisis will rip their world apart”There, fixed it for them.
They really do hit low. They really must be desperate. People everywhere must be sick of the emotional blackmail. I am. I hope there are a lot of complaints to that campaign.
The child with the plastic oxygen mask is being saved by a petroleum industry product. Imagine the oxygen mask made of ox leather – hmm too much GHG from oxen, or wood, hmm killing trees causes more CO2 in the atmosphere,…okay stone, a little neo-neolithic industry anyone?
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes people forget the hundreds of other applications of petroleum. Right now we need oil, and not only is it an addiction, it’s necessary in some cases. Our life expectancy values would be nowhere near as high without it.
Tell that to the folks in New York and New Jersey without gas, light, homes, food, and all the other amenities those fools take for granted everyday. I didn’t see any of those morons rushing in to build windmills, or solar panels promising those people all the heat, light, and power they would ever need. I’m so sick and tired of those idiotic degenerates preaching pure crap they make me puke. Not one of those deadbeats ever got me a job, put food on my table, put a roof over my head, fed my family, bought me transportation, or any of the other things in life MY job in the oil sands does for me right now! To me the eco freaks are pond scum. To believe any of them are nature’s benefactors is a joke! WE planted 30 million trees! They never planted a single tree for us! WE, oil companies up my way, do more for nature then they ever did and they ever will do. To me it’s about time the rest of society smartened up and learned basic math. That is why CO2 is referred to as parts per million. What morons can’t understand that?
Their children will be breathing just fine in the future. They’ll be getting lots of fresh air. Unfortunately they won’t have a choice because they’ll be so broke they’ll be living in tents.
I suspect a major lawsuit and these bozo’s will pay. At least I hope so. Slander and defamation at a minimum, me thinks.
Alas – Having been in the “corporate enviroment” for most of my life, let me tell you the problem is NOT that companies as Westinghouse, Exxon, B.P., Commonwealth Edison, etc. are IMMORAL and plotting to “kill” people with emissions, the problem is their MANAGEMENT AND EXECUTIVES are COWARDS.
They can, and do (on occassion, actually fairly RARELY..mostly it’s uncontrolled managers who are given TOO MUCH POWER and TOO LITTLE OVERSIGHT) abuse their employees. That is relatively easy to do when you have POWER over their INCOME.
BUT, put up ANY of the “Top Level” management of ANY large corporation against the “Enviromental Lobby”, or the “Protect this or that..” Or ACORN, etc, etc… whether it be emissions or the great BUG-GA-BOO “Diversity”…and what you get is meek little sheep who run around bleating, “Baaaaadddd! We are Baaaaaaadddd… We are sorry…WHATEVER YOU WANT US TO DO!”.
Now, let me tell you about the Koch Brothers! Their FATHER developed a coal/peat to oil process during the 50’s, which DID NOT TAKE COMMERCIALLY in the USA. BUT outside of the USA it found a GOOD market. He came back to the USA “wealthy” during the ’70’s, started buying poorly run refinerys. HE “fixed” them, made they run right (which in general, ALWAYS LOWERED EMISSIONS on an ECONOMIC basis. He had two sons, the “evil” Koch brothers. BOTH OF THEM GOT CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEGREES. (Do you have any idea how RUGGED that ciriculum is compared to all other Engineering degrees?) They took over the family business.
BOTH OF THEM ARE PERSONALITY LIONS! They don’t back down. THEY DO go on the talk shows and they DO run counter ADS, and they DO fight back!
DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW WHY THEY ARE THE ONES THAT ARE REALLY HATED?
Exxon, and the others…take it in the shorts, because they are Public Relations Pacifists! But the Koch brothers can take it and dish it out. Yet, it is fascinating to note that the PIDDLING $70K they
gave to Heartland Inst. was for some “social issue” and not anything to do with AWG.
But look how the “lie machine” works on that. The lesson from this is: YES, we NEED the Exxons of this world, the BP’s, the Comm Ed’s, etc. BUT don’t every expect them to defend themselves!
And the PERIL is thus THIS – When the RADICALS, the “destoyers” get power…they will FIRST OFF destroy those they have villified. No matter HOW obsequious they have been.
ONLY IF THEY THEMSELVES ARE COMPLETELY IN CONTROL (this is the statist versus freedom of association and private property arguement) will they abate their distructive tendancy!
So that is meant to give an overview of this MINOR attack on a major giant, but to help to understand why there WILL BE THUNDEROUS SILENCE from Exxon as a response.
Some day, RIP Exxon as you are dissected and buried.
@TImothy Sorenson: There will be no defamation suit in this case for fear of invoking the Streisand principle. Maybe 200 people knew about this video before WUWT put this article up. If they file suit the hit counter will go through the roof and the message will be spread much farther than the (self-snip) group could have ever dreamt. They will likely leave this one alone and hope for it to die in obscurity.
These people need to adopt the lifestyle of the Amish, for example, before we take them seriously.
Cut them off from gasoline, natural gas heating and airplane fuel. They blame Exxon for their use of gasoline, natural gas and airplane fuel? It is more than ridiculous. They are the reason Exxon exists in the first place.
Profit is not a dirty word. In fact, it is a measure of an organization’s contribution to our standard of living. They take inputs worth $100 and make a product worth $120. That is what value-added is all about. That is what differentiates us from our hunter gatherer past, our pick fruits from a tree even farther back past. Profit is actually a measure of how much an organization is adding to society.
We should outlaw profit? That would really help things wouldn’t it. Live in trees and pick fruit is really what they are promoting.
l don’t think they will be many haters of oil and gas when very low temps hit large area’s across the NH this winter.
I just sent an email, with this post’s link, to Exxon, suggesting that they protect their good name from this libelous attack.
Solyndra is listed as $535 M and having filed for bankruptcy. I haven’t tried to keep up with such things but because “Reorganizing the parent would allow it to exit bankruptcy with as much as $975 million in net operating loss carryforwards intact. The carryforwards may generate more than $300 million in tax breaks, . . .”
This was such a mess that even the IRS objected to it.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-10/solyndra-bankruptcy-plan-has-objections-from-irs-energy
Further there are connections between backers of Solyndra, and who makes off with the tax loses, and the current US Administration.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Solar-Investigation-solyndra-obama/2011/11/09/id/417493
As with most things like this we might learn the truth in about 10 years, or never.
Though many media outlets are desperately trying to spin anything out of Doha COP18, the hangover and vomiting are just now hitting the esteemed delegates, i.e. parties, of COP18 ZombiLand.
And as we see on display the Enemy-Mine had contingency plans to go … and go they are.
XD
The idiot might want to think on the fact that the feedstocks for most of the medicines, clothing, fertilisers etc comes from the oil industry or the petro-chemical industry as it should be properly known. Of course most of these eco nuts are middle class leeches who have never had any real responsibility or who have been well off enough because of mommy and daddy’s hard work (sounds like Obama a bit)…
Fortunately Mr. Boyd never taught real children in California, or he would be biting the hand that feeds him. CALSTRS, the California teacher’s retirement fund, holds $1,242,687,000 worth of Exxon-Mobile stock. (As of 30 June 2012. See
http://www.calstrs.com/Investments/portfolio/usStock.asp#E )
And what happens if Exxon-Mobile and the other large corporations don’t make enough profit to hold their value and pay dividends? Well, in California, the taxpayers get to make up the difference between CALSTRS obligations and investment income. Perhaps Mr. Boyd and his kind would be willing to show their concern for children by making a donation….?
Bullshit!
I know Exxon. I was living in Valdez when the Exxon Valdez piled on the rocks of Bligh Reef. I know how Exxon thinks and how it acts.
At their first press conference an Exxon spokesman said, “You don’t know how lucky you are. You have Exxon and Exxon does things straight.”
That was the first of their lies.
This kind of junk should not come as a surprise to anyone. The right wing as been as strident as the left when it comes to class war and this subsidy foolishness it just that think Wall Street, Banks and so on. They spend far more money doing it too. The mythology of free enterprise is just a bankrupt as socilism. What is needed is not more divisiveness but some sanity to find a sound middle of the pack solution to what ever politial problem we encounter.
Max Hugoson says:
December 9, 2012 at 5:54 pm
Appreciate your comment, Max. Unfortunately your name link doesn’t work for me.
A more appropriate web site would be “Exxonlovegreendupesdotcom”. Think about it. Environmentalism limits supply and resource development, chases out small, low cost producers with mountains of regulation, and expands the market for things like natural gas (which Exxon has substantial reserves) by shutting down coal. Bigger markets and fewer competitors, what company would not like that pricing advantage. I wonder how many greens know just how important they are to Exxon’s high profitability.
Michael A. Lewis,
Your emotional response is fact-free. The Exxon Valdez spill was every bit as political as global warming is now. But eventually the Supreme Court had the $5 billion damages award reduced to about $500 million, a 90% reduction.
Note that the recent Deepwater Horizon blowout spilled much more oil over a much longer time frame and a larger area. But today there is little evidence of any damage from that blowout.
This article reports on a scurrilous advertising campaign by anti-fossil fuel groups. As usual, they use fossil fuel products while hating on the providers. If they had any integrity they would stop using fossil fuel products.
Accidents happen; they can never be completely avoided. But American companies have done an outstanding job of providing safety. There are literally thousands of undersea oil pipelines and oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico alone. Occasionally there is bound to be an accident. The only alternative is to give up fossil fuel use. Are you willing to do that?
Max Hugoson @ur momisugly 5:54 says . . . some “social issue”
Healthcare would seem to fall into this category.
“. . . the Charles Koch Foundation provided $25,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2011 for research in healthcare, . . .”
http://www.charleskochfoundationfacts.org/2012/02/foundation-statement-on-heartland-institute/
However, including ‘Westinghouse’ in your opening list of corporates is a can of worms. The components, name, and brand live on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_(1886)#1980s
and, see also the following 1990s to 2000s.
Asea Brown Boveri,
Eaton Corp.
CBS
Infinity Broadcasting
Northrop Grumman
Toshiba
Viacom
[Siemens (German international company) bought Westinghouse Electric generators and turbine divisions.) Westinghouse (the Nuclear Div) is still a separate company because of USN nuclear security concerns. Mod]
Well, knowing these idiots are on the loose and now in charge, everytime I have occasion to leave the plantation, I make it a point, before returning, to stop past the sporting goods section and add a few “necessary items” to my shopping cart! Lead is heavy if carried in large quantities, but a little prepping never hurts…
The guy in the pictures looks like he could play the Devil in a Stephen King flick!
Where in Valdez? What years were you there (for starters)?
Also, how can you “… know how Exxon thinks” by simple observation of action?
Aren’t any observations you might make colored by any biases or preconceived notions you may posses, such as those possibly developed through a history of anti-progress ‘environmental activism’?
.
As they found in the early rocket-propelled aircraft trying to break the sonic barrier, a child trying to breathe through an oil-soaked “oxygen-impregnated” leather mask will be burned alive in her bedsheets ….
Yeppers.
Good thing Exxon-Mobil IS making the sterile plastics that allow this child – and millions like her – to live a healthy life.
‘Course, now, the eco-friendly Obama regime will be doing all it can to destroy the medical care that is saving lives.
Just found this on Reuters:
“But unless rich and poor countries can inject urgency into their negotiations, they are heading for a diplomatic fiasco in 2015 – their next deadline for a new global deal.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/09/us-climate-talks-process-idUSBRE8B808N20121209
‘Urgency’ I know the word.
But “Urgency” as above, I do not know.
Me thinks that a clever word-craftman is needed.
Yes it is true, 16 years and no trend in ‘global’ temperature change. Lots of problems, siting, instruments, time-of-day, blah blah blah.
1997, the UN Kyoto Protocol.
1998, still the ‘stand out’ year! Question: Anomaly or Artifact?
One of our dearest munchkins must have seen what Ante Maude has seen. Kissy Kissy.
Time for our Dearest Munchkin to STAND UP, MAN UP and Connect the Dots.
Pssssssssss …..
Empirical evidence abounds … quite astonishing to me … Ante Maude … Kyoto worked! .. Game Over. We Won! ‘Snicker Snicker’ ‘Kissy Kissy’ Oh, do not bother about the ‘Bothers’. Just flotsam and jetsam.
XD ;D