[Sixstrings]

"Do people really WANT gas to cost $7 or $10 a gallon?"

Another bugaboo to try to frighten the hoi poloi.

High gas costs do not seem to be an imminent threat right now, if you hadn't noticed.

And, yes, we have to get off of all ff, so ultimately increasing their costs one way or another will likely be part of that. Ideally, other good non-ICE transportation options would be put in place in the mean time.

If they got harassed a LOT and had to pay a "big tobacco" type tens of billions dollar settlement then yeah, that would raise the price of oil and ultimately gasoline.

Canceling the pipeline could affect future prices, too. These polices would have an affect at some point, you can't tear an industry down and not create a shortage.

BACK ON TOPIC.. with this thread..

If I were the NY state AG.. and even though I'm a Democrat.. I would say.. "no, we can't do this, it's not right per the law. This would be over prosecution."

Sometimes throwing red meat to the base just isn't the right thing to do, whether's it's the leftist base or the tea party.

The law matters. Constitution matters. We can't become a tinpot 3rd world country like Ukraine just doing political prosecutions. BLAMING SOMEONE FOR THE PLANET is just ridiculous.

I'm not denying climate change.

I'm defending logic, and reason.

You cannot blame one company for the planet, that's just so nuts.

It's the same kind of logic as "reparations for slavery," would be. It's the same darn thing. What the left started with, with "big tobacco" in the 90s was a slippery slope and now in 2015 they want to do a "big guns" thing and a "big oil" thing and where does it stop, can you tell me that?

Can you honestly say this isn't misuing RICO statutes?????

That law was meant for the mafia and that's it, JUST the italian mob. It was never intended for other organizations in America, whether that's "big oil" or conceivably "planned parenthood" or anything a Republican AG or governor or president may want to prosecute -- bringing RICO charges against leftist groups.

Think about the principle here.. it's not about defending Exxon, defending the principle defends your rights too..

And really pause and think about if you'd want Republicans to be just as crazy as the left is being, on this issue, seriously Republicans could start bringing RICO charges all over the place, if they wanted to.

[Cog]

Of course the left wants to increase the price of gasoline. They also support the destruction of the capitalist system by any means necessary. Its in their manifesto. Just like a woman can't be a little bit pregnant, you can't be a little bit socialist. It inevitably leads to the nonsense that we are talking about here. Suing oil companies because they are selling a legal product that you don't like. If you don't want to use gasoline then stop using gasoline. That will show those evil oil companies that you mean business.

[Lore]

We've been a little bit socialist since the founding of this country. There remains however no truly socialist country on the planet.

The death of capitalism will be the result of continuing to use fossil fuels in BAU

[dohboi]

Ah, now 6S is the hero of both logic AND reason!

I am now defeated. Such a stance is clearly beyond parody.

[Sixstrings]

"the far left "

Where is this "far left"?

I know Far Left when I see it, and this thing is Far Left.

IT ALL STARTED in a "climate change newsletter."

Then Bernie Sanders jumped on it and sent a letter off to the Obama justice dept.

Then Clinton got asked if she'd do the same thing Sanders did, and she said "sure you bet! Yeah, sure, there's a lot of evidence Exxon misled people, they should be probed!"

And CLINTON saying this made this even more acceptable, and next thing you know the NY AG office is on it.

And it all started with a poorly reasoned, poorly written, radical lefty "climate change newsletter."

So yeah, Doh -- the Far Left exists and it's actually getting some things done for once. So now we're arguing whether this thing is nuts insane or not, and I think it is. Exxon never even hid their research. Exxon published their research. They worked with universities, UN climate panels, etc.

But moreover, "denying climate change" isn't even against the law.

The whole thing is just so nuts, anyone with some logic can see that. Why do you think it's RICO charges? Rico is for when you can't find another law to charge an organization with, because there is no law about it.

Or, RICO is for a genuine criminal organization -- the mafia, the actual intent of the RICO law -- that can't be convicted on anything else because they buy off or eliminate the witnesses.

Exxon has done NOTHING like that and it's a TRAVESTY OF LOGIC and justice to try to suggest they "conspired to keep the world from knowing the truth of climate change."

it's just not even true, they did a lot of research and published it all in peer reviewed journals.

So the crux of the matter is that they gave money to right winger groups at the same time, well guess what that ain't illegal.

[Cog]

This thread meshes nicely with the Should we arrest Climate Deniers thread?

This is how the hard left thinks. Arrest, silence, punish anyone who is not on board with their agenda. They could use reasoned arguments to further their position but that takes time and they have no time to waste on such things. They have a planet to save and if you get in the way expect to get jailed or worse.

[Sixstrings]

This thread meshes nicely with the Should we arrest Climate Deniers thread?

Right. And that's what's freaking me out.

We all remember the crazy "should we arrest climate deniers" thing that doh posted.

But I'll be a son-of-a-gun if that crazy far left idea didn't wind up going mainstream!

I couldn't believe it, I started seeing that "climate denier jail" thing published more and more, in more outlets. I'm thinking wtf, this is nuts. But I never posted it on this forum, I just assumed it was fringe.

In September, I saw an article that said something like "climate scientists urge Obama to prosecute climate deniers." I almost posted that one, but I didn't, because honestly I'm not an anti cc troll.

But then sure enough, this exxon thing started in October.. and NPR talking about "should the executives go to prison" and the climate change newsletter guy says "yes, they were in a position where all humanity could have been saved if they'd said the right things."

And then the NPR host just accepts that, as if that's reasonable, wtf.

[Cog]

You should read Saul Alinsky's Rules for radicals some time. It is very instructive on how the far left are proceeding with their ideology.

I see it played out in the main stream media and this board every day.

This is what I have warned you about Sixstrings. You want to partake of some of the left's ideas. That will never be good enough for them. You will be forced to eat the whole cow and not the single steak you desire. Or if dohboi is in charge, a hell of a lot of rhubarb since meat would be illegal.

[dissident]

"Do people really WANT gas to cost $7 or $10 a gallon?"

Another bugaboo to try to frighten the hoi poloi.

High gas costs do not seem to be an imminent threat right now, if you hadn't noticed.

And, yes, we have to get off of all ff, so ultimately increasing their costs one way or another will likely be part of that. Ideally, other good non-ICE transportation options would be put in place in the mean time.

Six$-retard thinks the readers of this board are all idiots. Exxon does not account for enough oil production to produce a restriction of the global oil supply that would create such a price spike in gasoline. And even if Exxon was to be bankrupted by government fines, its assets would be instantly snapped up by other companies and production would keep going. So there will not even be any physical effect on global oil production no matter what happens to Exxon. Of course, in the long run one could chirp about exploration being affected. Here again it will be other companies instantly taking up the slack. The reason that oil exploration and field development occurs is because of the oil market and not because oil companies are charities. Exxon is not the only company on the planet that does exploration and development.

[chilyb]

I stopped ready six strings posts after his initial god/climate change comment. which took me from page one of this thread to all the way here to page 4.

[rdberg1957]

Fraud is not free speech. Essentially what Exxon is being accused of is fraud. If you have data stating that cigarettes cause cancer and you bury that data and say the jury is not in,it is fraud upon shareholders in a publicly traded corporation. If you have data produced by your organization which has been internally acknowledged which confirms climate change and you bury it, publicly stating that climate change is a hoax, it is fraud upon shareholders in a publicly traded corporation. It is the behavior which is criminal, not the belief.

[Cog]

And what happens when you manipulate climate data to make things look worse then they actually are? is that not fraud as well?

[Lore]

What corporation is doing that?

[onlooker]

What corporation is doing that?

Cog is talking about that whole bogus episode of supposedly the scientists "cooking" the books on the data. Of course no mention of the fact that an overwhelming number of scientists agree on the science of AGW.

[Lore]

What corporation is doing that?

Cog is talking about that whole bogus episode of supposedly the scientists "cooking" the books on the data. Of course no mention of the fact that an overwhelming number of scientists agree on the science of AGW.

Of course, the argument is a logical fallacy. Building a straw man.

[Sixstrings]

Six$-retard thinks the readers of this board are all idiots. Exxon does not account for enough oil production to produce a restriction of the global oil supply that would create such a price spike in gasoline. And even if Exxon was to be bankrupted by government fines, its assets would be instantly snapped up by other companies and production would keep going. So there will not even be any physical effect on global oil production no matter what happens to Exxon. Of course, in the long run one could chirp about exploration being affected. Here again it will be other companies instantly taking up the slack. The reason that oil exploration and field development occurs is because of the oil market and not because oil companies are charities. Exxon is not the only company on the planet that does exploration and development.

What I was talking about is a possibility that if this thing went so far as class action lawsuits brought by the federal and state AG's, against all the oil companies (like they did with "Big Tobacco") then ultimately that could raise the cost of gasoline and heating oil.

Just as the big tobacco settlement, plus more taxes, raised the cost of cigarettes.

So, it does have an effect. Class action settlements plus maybe carbon taxes, who do you guys think pays that, the oil company? They just pass the cost along.

In fairness, it wouldn't raise gas a whole lot. But there's no limit to this thing though, carbon taxes can go as high as Americans want to go Left. There's no upper limit on carbon taxes it's just whatever people will accept.

I have to be objective about things though and just note these are possibilities -- I don't actually think it's likely this would go as far as lawsuit against "Big Oil," but then again, I never would have guessed they'd probe them for causing climate change.

P.S. I guess your point is just that non-American companies would take up the slack. Thing is though, all this fracking in the US and extra production did in fact cause global prices to go down. So it also follows, if we really went after our American oil companies then there would be less production and prices would go up.

Likely, foreign oil companies would be thankful for the supply destruction and that oil got back to higher prices again.

[Plantagenet]

A lot of folks here have been comparing the Exxon case in NY State to Tobacco litigation under RICO, but the actual case that the NY AG is making has nothing to do with RICO.

The NY AG is investigating whether or not Exxon harmed their stockholders by understating the risk of climate change to the future stock price for shares of EXXON.

Thats a much narrower question then many here seem to think is being investigated.

So---has EXXON's stock price been affected by climate change? Thats hard to judge, IMHO. However, the current price of EXXON stock probably has more to do with the ongoing oil glut then it does with climate change.


Has EXXON's stock price been hurt by climate change?

[onlooker]

Good observation Plant, in so much as the common man has not really been materially hurt for the most part by climate change and if they have do not immediately connect that to lack of forthrightness on the part of Exxon or anybody else. Also, naturally stockholders being the upper echelon would stand to be supported by government. I do not expect Exxon and any oil companies to be severely hurt legally by anything related to climate change anytime soon. Nor will climate change change our reliance on oil, too late for that.

[Sixstrings]

A lot of folks here have been comparing the Exxon case in NY State to Tobacco litigation under RICO, but the actual case that the NY AG is making has nothing to do with RICO.

The NY AG is investigating whether or not Exxon harmed their stockholders by understating the risk of climate change to the future stock price for shares of EXXON.

Good point, and the thing is, new york state govt doesn't have a rico law.

So it's in the guise of "protecting shareholders" -- ludicrous on its face, one can't say both things at the same time, that Exxon was bad for the planet and its shareholders too. They were very good to their shareholders, precisely because they were bad for the planet, so how can you prosecute them for the reverse?

Seriously, NY ag is just using the shareholder law as an angle to do an ideological thing the far left wants. It's completely unfair. It's got nothing to do with stock performance, Exxon did well for its shareholders, nobody can argue with that.

Anyhow -- it should also be noted this is actually JUST a "probe" and not charges.

But at the end of the day.. "charges" are often political and ideological and maybe it's an AG that's elected and wants to make a name for himself in the Democratic Party.. a prosecutor could blame climate change on a ham sandwich.

[Sixstrings]

So---has EXXON's stock price been affected by climate change? Thats hard to judge, IMHO. However, the current price of EXXON stock probably has more to do with the ongoing oil glut then it does with climate change.

Right it's the oil glut and that they had to cancel some tar sands projects, it's the same same story with all the other companies that have bigger losses than Exxon does. (I can't recall, but I thought Exxon actually didn't post a loss but all the others did?)

Their stock performance isn't about climate change, though.

The far left may as well prosecute them for being prosecuted by the far left, it's some pretty circular logic if you ask me.

I mean seriously here -- what could POSSIBLY be the ag's argument about this? That if only Exxon had talked more about climate change, it's stock would have done even better? I don't even think that's true, their stock probably would have tanked if they'd stopped drilling oil and talked about climate change for 20 years instead, right?

This thing is just nonsense, it's like suing McDonalds for malpractice to their sharholders, because they sell hamburgers and not buritos like chipotle does.

Or, a shareholder lawsuit against mcdonalds corp because mcdonalds didn't respond enough to diabetes or something -- look folks, Exxon and McDonalds is not your mom. And they aren't your doctor, either, and they aren't the government and they aren't to blame for the planet or anyone's diabetes.