Posted by Jost on August 16, 2006, at 12:21:48
In reply to Re: only in the oil business » Jost, posted by Dinah on August 16, 2006, at 10:32:07
I don't have any greater problem with oil companies than other extremely large, somewhat aggressive companies.
There have been some rather egregious practices, as in California--which led to undue profits to the oil companies through manipulation of markets. Manipulation of spot oil markets, etc, to raise prices, a particular feature of the oil economy-- and the closeness of the oil industry to what used to be public utilities. I only commented on oil companies because it was the immediate subject. There's tremendous amount of wasteful greed, and short-term thinking in many corporations, in all industries, I think.
But world demand not USA demand drives oil prices-which is why the problem looks particularly insoluble, with the growing economic and population development of India and China, among others.
Certainly at the moment, the prevailing theory of corporate accountability uses shareholder profits as the sole the benchmark Director and CEO performance. But I think this is a narrow view, although certainly it has an appeal, because it's easily quanitifiable.
There are other values, such as jobs, community stability, and welfare, R&D, etc-- which can reduce pure profitability, and raise problems with the current model-- but that's a long, discussion--it's more what I was thinking of as opposed to Oil Companies per se.
Jost
poster:Jost
thread:675260
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060809/msgs/677086.html