Rep's Absurd Defense Of Oil Subsidies

Rep. Landry (R-LA) tries to defend oil subsidies. Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Oil
• Subsidies
• Taxpayers
• Companies
• Executive
• Compensation
• Bonuses
• Money
• Pay
• Profits
• BigOil
• Drilling
• Exxon
• Republican
• CEO
• CenkUygur
• YoungTurks

[apocalyptichybrid2]

The argument to turn this country into a peoples socialist country becomes greater with each passing day.

The American Dream? This is his version of that great idea? How fucking sick can one human being be?

End lobbying, publicly finance campaigns, abolish the fed elections committee, watch our government become an honest one and all the other ills of our nation such as war, homelessness and low wages, disappear. Full on capitalism is a failure, it has turned into a Corporatocracy.

[lapiz4azulli]

Time to vote for a third Party and stop this ridiculous two-party system voting system. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! PERIOD!!!

[MsDarbrown]

I a few years ago, ran for a small town office. I did not ask people for money for something I decided to do, I did not have fundraisers. I felt they needed their paychecks for the neccessarities in life. I live In approximently 10,000 population. I ran as independent, no political experience and received a little over 1,300 votes....If you have an interest in experience of working as a voted in representive for the people...GO FOR IT.....People seek change.... peace

[cowlark2000]

I didn't hear an argument here. What is it? "They make money, stop giving them money"?

[CmdrTobs]

@Houshalter "Are you talking about IP rights? Yes" Yes, pattens for the superior idea IS the raison d'etre for buyouts. They exist in this FM system that we are using that I'm critiquing.

Not really. The government is beholden to market forces too. If many eople buy cars because the trains have been destroyed then the *blame* lies at the destroyer of the trains. It's not a natural monopoly at all if oligarchs steered a society to depend on it's product through means other than product merit.

[Houshalter]

@CmdrTobs Are you talking about IP rights? Yes, patents and the like are state granted temporary-monopolies and that is why I am against them for the most part.

As for buying out alternative forms of transportation, the government usually sets up the infrastructure for that in the first place. You are getting into natural monopolies and that is a whole 'nother topic.

[CmdrTobs]

@Houshalter Like I said there usually are a limited number of alternative superior ideas. All the oligarchs have to do is buy out 1 maybe 2 companies (and thus the I.P) a generation. That's EASY.

In the case of whole industries (where there is no IP to buy) they simply can buy out an idea until it's no longer a feasible threat. An example of this is Detroit & Oil liquidating electric trams. Trams are now inferior largely if not solely on the grounds that suburbia was built without them.

[Houshalter]

@CmdrTobs it could be collapsed within days if enough people on the market see the profit potential. At the very least within the time it takes to form new competetion. There's just no way they could get enough money to pay everyone off, and if they did, they could never ever make it back even with monopoly prices.

[CmdrTobs]

@Houshalter Of course they can.... there is no reason why sales of there inferior idea wouldn't remain strong to enable this. In any case the 50yrs+ it would take giant or cartel to collapse is hardly acceptable. I've heard marketeers condemn whole "socialist" regimes failures within than time frame.

In any case, with the buying out the new company the cartel ALWAYS acquires the patents which they will happily sit on and there likely aren't infinite ways of doing better in a given industry.

[Houshalter]

@CmdrTobs of course it could not afford to buy out indefinitely, it would have to have the entire money supply to do so. People can invest to make a new company and demand a bunch of money from the cartel or threaten to break it by competing. Even if the cartel gives, all it does is signal more people to do the same. They will have to pay off every rational actor in the economy to win, hope those contracts are enforcable, and somehow use their monopoly status to pay off their losses.

[CmdrTobs]

@Houshalter "the market can pool resources to meet those barriers, if there is profit in doing so." The reality is it doesn't.

" Even getting bought out by the cartel/monopoly counts as profit ..." - Again a miss match with reality. A large company or cartel can afford to buy out indefinitely. Even if they could only do for 20, 30 years that is a whole generation that will have to make do with an inferior product.

[Houshalter]

@Ablativearmour the market can pool resources to meet those barriers, if there is profit in doing so. Even getting bought out by the cartel/monopoly counts as profit and will continue to attract new investment until eventually the cartel can't afford to keep buying them out. Besides, cartel arangements only work when they are enforcable by an external agency, and monopolies just bid up the price of a resource until they get so deep into debt they can never recover their losses.