For decades now, fossil fuel company executives and D.C. politicians have worked together to ensure that coal and oil prices stay low enough to keep the American people hooked. In his new book Greedy Bastards, Dylan Ratigan explains how “vampire industries” like oil and coal have forged “an unholy alliance with government based not just on the money that they contribute to political campaigns and spend on lobbying but on their ability to hypnotize us with false prices.”
Industry gets tax breaks, subsidies, military support in volatile regions, the right to use our air and water like a sewer, and assurance that the government will clean up its environmental messes. Politicians get campaign contributions, a steady flow of dirty energy, and a talking point to brandish about how they kept gas affordable.
But the American public just gets screwed.
Read the rest here.
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I just think radigan is full of hogwash. Twisted thinking leads to twisted conclusions. The pollution of the 1960’s and earlier is 99% cleaned up. The transformation is really quite amazing. One would think the Saudi’s are part of the conspiracy to keep oil prices low and so us hooked on cheap energy. As if cheap energy is a bad thing and a high standard of living is evil.
Yallo, did you read this part? “…electricity generated from coal actually does more damage to the economy than the electricity is worth.”
LMAO. Yeah, because the economy would be doing so well right now with NO energy OR energy generated entirely from petroleum.