Which is why oil should be nationalized. Same with the banks. If the people have to share in the cost of failure they should get the profit for successes.
I understand that nationalizing oil companies in the US is not going to be a palatable solution for a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure it’s the right solution, but I know for sure it’s not a politically feasible one.
We’ve had decades upon decades of subsidizing the rich. It’s always easy for the government to figure out how to do that, so we know they know how to give subsidies. Why don’t we try subsidizing the people who need the subsidies for their basic needs? In the context of fuel, it would be relatively simple to create a federal tax credit for fuel usage (which would arguably include a version for electric vehicles and their charging).
I don’t really see your point. Oil companies jack the price of oil up anyway, regardless of subsidies. The subsidies seem to only allow oil companies to expand their enterprises on US citizens’ tax dollars (apologies if your in a different country, just change “US” to wherever you live). We’re literally funding the expansion of industries that are actively killing our planet.
From another perspective, the only reason everything rises in cost when oil prices raise is due to oil dependance. It would be a momentary hardship, but oil prices rising would be a strong incentive for individuals and businesses to become oil-independant, which would mean using greener means of transportation, lowered plastic use, etc. It’s actually long-term the best thing we could be doing right now.
The issue is that the working class people who are already living paycheque to paycheque don’t wanna hear about austerity. It’s hard to give a fuck about the next generation when you can’t even afford the next month.
We need solutions that also improve the monetary stability of working class people, or else they will never be popular in election campaigns. These things are doable, but not through the current political dynamic in North America, and places in Europe like the UK.
Nationalizing Oil is also not going to be appealing to Americans. Moderate liberals and everyone right of them will parade such efforts as Communist and/or facism. Those efforts will die before they even make it to the table
I would say even eliminating oil subsidies would be an insane fight to take on at the national level.
The more realistic fights are most likely going to occur at the local level, with workplaces unionizing, pushes in cities and towns to move away from car-centric urban design, and various other efforts which whittle oil dependance away.
It’s only when those local fights are widespread that we’ll start seeing national changes, and those changes will more than likely revolve around how taxation is distributed than around subsidies.
It’s this comment here that makes me think of how naive some people are when they say that solutions to problems mostly described by “tHe ToP 100 cOrPorAtiOnS PolLuTe thE mOst” talking point have to be addressed by government action and government action alone. Republicans at the top are so deadset on anything anti-change to where national politics are super volatile and hardly something to bet the direction of the country on.
Local level politics allow for more stable growth in change, such as how we’ve seen with marijuana laws.
I mean, as a progressive I still want to vote for the most progressive candidates that can represent me, which often leads to blue over red, but that doesn’t mean we the citizens can’t contribute local government as much as more regional or national governments.
Banks, yeah I agree with that. Oil is more complicated. When oil prices go up, the price of everything goes up, sometimes dramatically.
I’m not saying oil subsidies are a good thing, just that a lot more care needs to be taken with eliminating them.
Which is why oil should be nationalized. Same with the banks. If the people have to share in the cost of failure they should get the profit for successes.
I understand that nationalizing oil companies in the US is not going to be a palatable solution for a lot of people. I’m not entirely sure it’s the right solution, but I know for sure it’s not a politically feasible one.
We’ve had decades upon decades of subsidizing the rich. It’s always easy for the government to figure out how to do that, so we know they know how to give subsidies. Why don’t we try subsidizing the people who need the subsidies for their basic needs? In the context of fuel, it would be relatively simple to create a federal tax credit for fuel usage (which would arguably include a version for electric vehicles and their charging).
I don’t think I fucking care.
🙃
I don’t really see your point. Oil companies jack the price of oil up anyway, regardless of subsidies. The subsidies seem to only allow oil companies to expand their enterprises on US citizens’ tax dollars (apologies if your in a different country, just change “US” to wherever you live). We’re literally funding the expansion of industries that are actively killing our planet.
From another perspective, the only reason everything rises in cost when oil prices raise is due to oil dependance. It would be a momentary hardship, but oil prices rising would be a strong incentive for individuals and businesses to become oil-independant, which would mean using greener means of transportation, lowered plastic use, etc. It’s actually long-term the best thing we could be doing right now.
The issue is that the working class people who are already living paycheque to paycheque don’t wanna hear about austerity. It’s hard to give a fuck about the next generation when you can’t even afford the next month.
We need solutions that also improve the monetary stability of working class people, or else they will never be popular in election campaigns. These things are doable, but not through the current political dynamic in North America, and places in Europe like the UK.
Nationalizing Oil is also not going to be appealing to Americans. Moderate liberals and everyone right of them will parade such efforts as Communist and/or facism. Those efforts will die before they even make it to the table
I would say even eliminating oil subsidies would be an insane fight to take on at the national level.
The more realistic fights are most likely going to occur at the local level, with workplaces unionizing, pushes in cities and towns to move away from car-centric urban design, and various other efforts which whittle oil dependance away.
It’s only when those local fights are widespread that we’ll start seeing national changes, and those changes will more than likely revolve around how taxation is distributed than around subsidies.
It’s this comment here that makes me think of how naive some people are when they say that solutions to problems mostly described by “tHe ToP 100 cOrPorAtiOnS PolLuTe thE mOst” talking point have to be addressed by government action and government action alone. Republicans at the top are so deadset on anything anti-change to where national politics are super volatile and hardly something to bet the direction of the country on.
Local level politics allow for more stable growth in change, such as how we’ve seen with marijuana laws.
I mean, as a progressive I still want to vote for the most progressive candidates that can represent me, which often leads to blue over red, but that doesn’t mean we the citizens can’t contribute local government as much as more regional or national governments.
Top-down & bottom-up ftw
Well Americans can wallow in their own self made mess. The rest of us, in other countries, can still push for oil nationalization.