Bernie Sanders Calls For Federal Investigation Of Exxon Mobile for Lying about Climate Change - Polidicks

[QUOTE=isreal?;48967387]They also knew what they were doing was legal. The fact is, they did not break any laws. They are a law abiding company, they have the freedom to do what they wish so long as it's within the bounds of the law.[/QUOTE] You can find a law they broke, that's not hard, making it stick is the hard part. For one, campaign finance laws were different in the past, for two, they can still be held accountable even if what they did was legal at the time, plenty of companies have had that happen for other industrial accidents, but that would be much harder to quanitfy in this case Look when a company does something amoral just because it's legal doesn't protect them from liability

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48966199]Misinforming the public on a massive scale and creating an entire media circus to avoid actually doing anything beyond profit seeking I guess not technically a crime, but it fucking should be[/QUOTE] That charge could be levied against just about every member of Congress, ever.

[QUOTE=Ridge;48983501]That charge could be levied against just about every member of Congress, ever.[/QUOTE] And it probably should, but that changes absolutely nothing about how guilty exxon mobile was. Is Shell not guilty of the murder of people just because they hid it for a long time? [url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa[/url] source if you don't believe me. How the fuck you people can really honestly say "meh" about this kinda shit is infuriating.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;48983761]And it probably should, but that changes absolutely nothing about how guilty exxon mobile was. Is Shell not guilty of the murder of people just because they hid it for a long time? [url]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/08/nigeria-usa[/url] source if you don't believe me. How the fuck you people can really honestly say "meh" about this kinda shit is infuriating.[/QUOTE] So why isn't Bernie going after congressmen with the same zeal that he's going after Exxon? (The answer is that it's not as politically expedient.)

^That article is pretty fucked up and it's right that they make amends. But you can't really blame a company for not educating people. Especially when it would go against their bottom line, which they are legally bound to not act against (essentially fleecing shareholders).

[QUOTE=Ridge;48983935]^That article is pretty fucked up and it's right that they make amends. But you can't really blame a company for not educating people. Especially when it would go against their bottom line, which they are legally bound to not act against (essentially fleecing shareholders).[/QUOTE] Yes so it's always in the best interest to lie and cover these things up as hard as they can. So in a purely capitalist society without over watches, how are you ever to know you're being screwed?

We weren't being screwed. It's not like Exxon had sole knowledge of the cause that petroleum use had on the environment.

Even though they admitted to lying you still don't believe your life will be affected by climate change? Not sure what else to say. I guess we should let companies do whatever they want, you seem to be pretty sure that can't go wrong

[QUOTE=sgman91;48961083]I've talked about real analysis done by real people that has been agreed on by Sanders' team. You're the one doing "bullshit" analysis, if vague insinuations can even be called analisys.[/QUOTE] What's been agreed upon is that his healthcare plans will cost $15 trillion over the span of 10 years-- not that they will bankrupt the country or that "we can't afford it". Shit, for healthcare alone, we're projected to spend [url=http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/NationalHealthAccountsProjected.html]tens of trillions of dollars well over that amount under our current system ($30-$42 trillion), according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services[/url]. His single-payer insurance proposal would actually be a multi-trillion dollar moneysaver for us; that's what he and his team have actually agreed upon here. This is old news. People have known for years now it's more expensive collectively for a society to not provide its citizens with healthcare than it is to just provide them all with coverage of some sort, and single-payer systems have demonstrably proven they work the best-- in all of the Nordic/Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland), in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Japan... etc. Costs are not only lower overall, but quality of care is higher because of better continuity of care and quality improvement standards that it encourages (compared against our for-profit system). Overall, the total cost for his reforms is estimated at $18 trillion. Again, not actually that much money for us to spend over a span of a decade (where the $15 trillion for healthcare is concerned) considering what we already spend on just our current healthcare system, nevermind all the money we waste on our military and military contractors for example (excluding all the other areas of waste I listed off previously). The $1 trillion infrastructure proposal he's put forward as part of his running platform actually will not cover all our necessary infrastructure repairs, and it isn't exorbitant if you bother to look into what national experts have had to say about it. He's not proposing we wildly waste money, not at all. We waste a ton of money already, and if we bothered to tidy up our act (which is exactly what Sanders is proposing; some things will be newly introduced, but a lot of his plan just involves shifting how we already pay for things we already use/enjoy around), we could easily afford his plan. You really think Americans aren't aware of this? Please, they have been for years; everybody knows, if not the specific amounts being wasted, that waste is happening. And everyone also knows, again, that we could invest this wasted money into a lot of important programs for the improvement of our society. It's also ridiculous to think that Sanders hasn't reasonably considered the costs of his proposals. Yeah actually, he has. His team has as well, since you keep bringing them up. And guess what: the numbers add up. Nobody, except opponents to him, tries to deny this. What he's proposing is feasible, it's not unaffordable for us, and that's how simple it is. There's no vague insinuations here; this is how things are going at present in the United States, and that's that. [editline]28 October 2015[/editline] Seriously guys, anytime someone like ^this tries to come along and say that a veteran politician with a solid career background and well-established reputation as a reasonable figure is suddenly running on an "unaffordable" reformist platform, be extremely suspicious. Yeah, it's election season and that kind of stuff happens, but rarely does it happen with someone like this. I can't stress enough that the reason why Sanders' plans seem too good to be true doesn't actually have anything to do with how realistic or feasible they are (again, the math adds up here; we aren't going to go bankrupt or be destroyed, and what he's proposing isn't ridiculous). It's because they're such incredible deviations from the standard rhetoric which we're used to. They're ambitious and challenge the status quo, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable and other people outright angry-- especially when you get someone like this who's actually serious about fighting for them and not just talking to be appealing to voters. [editline]28th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=sgman91;48983934]So why isn't Bernie going after congressmen with the same zeal that he's going after Exxon? (The answer is that it's not as politically expedient.)[/QUOTE] Because politicians usually have less power in this country than corporations do, and Exxon spends millions in lobbying efforts to maintain its place amongst the other big oil/gas players. Why would you waste your time on the small fish when you should be going after the ones who actually have the influence behind the scenes?

I don't think you understand the $15 trillion. That's including all savings by getting rid of our current system. [editline]27th October 2015[/editline] Also, I just had to respond directly to this part because it's hilarious: [QUOTE]It's also ridiculous to think that Sanders hasn't reasonably considered the costs of his proposals. Yeah actually, he has. His team has as well, since you keep bringing them up. And guess what: the numbers add up. Nobody, except opponents to him, tries to deny this.[/QUOTE] You say this like it's a point in favor of his plan. Do you actually expect people who support him to bring up how unfeasible his plan is?