• Alec Baldwin: "Put the oil companies out of business!"
    127 replies, posted
[img]http://i.somethingawful.com/u/Viconia/baldwin/SRM___watchmen_baldwin.jpg[/img] Who watches the Baldwin?
[QUOTE=CriticalI;19639479]Who watches the Baldwin?[/QUOTE] Nobody, that's why NBC is tanking in ratings.
[QUOTE=Splurgy;19630719]"I'm an actor! My opinions are more valid than yours!" I wish celebrities who clearly know nothing would shut up. Between this guy, Jim Carey telling everyone that MMR is dangerous despite not understanding the very basic problem of sampling bias and the need for epidemiology, and Bono and Bob Geldof's "Poor people in Africa guilt" circle jerk, I rage.[/QUOTE] They have money, they do this shit, watch their movies, sit down and shut the fuck up. I'm fine, me me me, haaahahahahahhahamuhahhahahahhahaa.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;19631936]IMO, even though this will never happen, we should just nationalize all the oil companies. Remove the profit, remove the lobbying, and remove the massive manipulation conducted by the oil industry to keep things the way they are. Then, under big bad evil socialist government control, we phase out fossil fuels without having to fight the oil industry tooth and nail for every inch. Make no mistake, they are the single biggest obstacle to renewable energy progress in this country... ....My basic point here is that I'm willing to take the chance of government incompetence or corruption over the certainty of corporate exploitation. Corporations have a duty to their shareholders to wring the public for every dime the market can give, which is fine and that's how capitalism works, but I'm opposed to them being able to do that with essential commodities like oil and healthcare. Utility rates (power, water, etc) are heavily regulated by the government, often to the point of being essentially socialized non-profits. [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Utility_District[/URL] Nobody seems to have a problem with getting their electricity from a publicly owned or heavily regulated supplier. For the most part we pay affordable rates for these services thanks to this regulation. Oil is essential to most people's lives in this country, we can't get to work or go to the store or take our kids to school without it. So, why the hell do we let them mercilessly gouge us instead of treating them like utility companies?[/QUOTE] It will be [U]impossible[/U] to completely phase out oil until deep into the 21st century. Our dependence on it for not only fuel but practically everything else. Depending on the condition of the oil, only 50% of a barrel of oil is used in gasoline. About 10% is used in diesel. The rest is used in everything from plastics to explosives to paints to asphalt pavements to even aspirin and nearly everything in between. To attempt to regulate every single aspect of this massive market would require more than government are capable of. Oil is far from being simple fuel and would be an impossibility for our government to 100% regulate it. That means you're not only regulating oil, but you're regulating plastics industry as well, potentially along with every other industry that depends on oil and oil byproducts to produce their products/services. And to think that the government is capable of that much regulation is being unrealistic. All that bureaucratic mess that currently exists in the government would increase ten fold and we may see even higher and higher prices than what the oil business knows its capable of getting away with on its own. This is not to suggest no regulation at all, but limited regulation. Enough to keep the businesses in check but not so much as to hinder their growth. Your best way to eliminate oil is to replace it. We may also depend on these oil businesses and their massive resources to fund and develop alternative fuels. These oil businesses would simply adapt and change to these alternative fuels, although they may shrink and be replaced by many smaller businesses if the replacements become too diverse to handle. Its impossible to predict that far into the future.
I'll setting for regulating the energy portion of the oil industry, then. Phasing that out seems a lot more doable in the foreseeable future than chasing down and replacing every other oil-based product. Replacing gasoline/diesel removes 60% of the demand on our dwindling oil supplies, giving the rest of the oil industry 60% more time to come up with an alternative for their various products. It's definitely more accurate to state that the burning of oil as fuel, not processing for plastics and whatnot, is the problem that needs solving in the immediate future.
[QUOTE=CivilProtection;19635751]Alec Baldwin is about as biased and stupid as Michael Moore. Why should anyone listen to him?[/QUOTE] The latter tends to have a coherent point
[QUOTE=Conscript;19648942]The latter tends to have a coherent point[/QUOTE] Michael Moore? That lard-eating failure at making movies? Surely you jest.
[QUOTE=Splode a Pinga;19649865]Michael Moore? That lard-eating failure at making movies? Surely you jest.[/QUOTE] Which movies of his have you watched?
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