Two weeks ago, I criticized Seattle Times Olympia reporter Joseph O’Sullivan for reporting irrelevant spin about Republican Jinyoung Lee Englund’s position on climate change, while entirely ignoring the actual impact of an Englund win on state climate policy. So it’s only fair to point out that he did a much better job in a followup article that is formally about fundraising ($).
Suffice it to say that fossil fuel interests are not confused at all about the climate change stakes in this race:
In recent years, the GOP-held Senate has made sure that such Inslee proposals as a carbon cap-and-trade scheme and low-carbon fuel standards went nowhere. Inslee, meanwhile, has opposed a proposed Tesoro oil terminal in Vancouver, Washington.
Phillips 66, which owns a refinery in Ferndale, Whatcom County, has given $250,000 to a spending group supporting Englund called Citizens For Progress Enterprise Washington. A handful of oil companies have also contributed to Enterprise Washington’s Jobs PAC.
Andeavor, which owns the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, has given $290,000, which was split between Enterprise Washington’s Jobs PAC and The Leadership Council.
Anyhow, credit where credit is due. O’Sullivan did a great job laying out the stakes in this election in Saturday’s piece.
It’s helpful to remember that firms such as Andover are not in the business of creating jobs, although they sell their preferred policies on that basis. If Andover could fire every single worker in Washington state tomorrow they’d swiftly move to do so. “ANDV” is a publicly traded corporation and hence pretty much required to fire any and all possible employees as quickly as they become useless to shareholder value.
So could we please stop with the bogus “we create jobs” claim? Jobs are defect of running a business, not an objective.
I do agree that a lot of companies are crap and would fire all the people they could if possible, but long term shareholder value depends on having good employees around. There’s too much short-term thinking in business and it shows these days in their balance sheets.
Question, A. Can we also define share-holders as people whose business plan emphatically does not require support from strangers who can pull out anytime they want? In average person’s income bracket called “self employed.” Or, “A Cooperative.”
Pretty sickening how many people treat the dominance of the extremely rich, corporate and human, as natural as gravity. Truly exact equivalent of The Divine Right of Kings.
One thing “Good” about previous Old Days, was amount of resistance there was to “Plutocracy”. Pluto was the ancient god of Hell. A corporate charter used to be granted sparingly, and conditioned on benefit to society as well as shareholders.
Remember, one of incorporation’s main features, and purposes, is to limit (meaning of LLC) shareholders’ liabilty to amount they’ve got invested in the corporation. Leaving personal funds by law untouchable.
Somebody once said that “The trouble with Socialism is it takes too many evenings.” My parents- very active in cooperatives, including credit unions, also told me that most of co-op stores’ customers would shop next door to pay one less penny.
Help me out, 587. What’s average attendance at membership meetings? Main attraction of dictatorship is how little time and responsibility it asks of people. Often think that the epitaph of the United States will read: “Never did a system give so much to its people, and ask so little out of them?” As world economy grows, leave country name a blank to fill in.
But like for people themselves, condition of health changes, better and worse. Right now our country is literally dying of deferred maintenance. Luckily, not for lack of people who can fix things if somebody, like their fellow citizens, will pay them to do it. I like what I see that’s sixteen years old.
Also, glad to finally see the words “Balance Sheet.” Don’t know which damage our country worse, the people who lie through their teeth about reading a balance sheet, or the ones who never call them on it.
Say I’ve got a machine shop. And a long business relationship with my banker. I need to upgrade. He’s already got the papers ready to sign when I walk into his office. He knows me and my company well enough to know what I’ll need. And that I’ll start repaying the loan with interest before my signature dries.
Of course the red numbers will outweigh the black ones at first. But soon as I put the borrowed money to work, the more the balance. and the sheet describing it, will go steadily positive.
Making a visible liar out of somebody screaming at me about The Deficit!
Alternate scene. My banker sees me driving a beat up truck into his lot, dripping oil and dropping steel to ruin his own tires. I point proudly to the ton of greasy scrap metal on the bed and show him my maintenance records. “Hardly a dime! Responsibility, right? Gimme my loan!”
Substitute “Country.”
Other party ought to run Anthony Hopkins for President. Silence of the…well, lambs are sheep too!
Mark
Thanks, Doug. Good comeback is, “Why are you ragging on Government for doing the same thing? And over-matching your count by a million miles! And since Ours the People’s business plan doesn’t require a profit, what are you crying about if you lose?”
Illustrating itself perfectly in national health care. I get wheeled into Emergency, airway blocked, arterial bleeding, and currently on fire. Where on my medical team do I need an insurance company executive?
If the government, or a cooperative I belong to, can dispense with the executive’s expected salary while they keep me from burning down the rest of the hospital… what’s your kick? Also, government or co-op, I’m part owner. Meaning hiring decision should be partly mine too.
“Job Creator” has now joined “Higher Education” in the current repeal of The Age of Enlightenment- which among other radical things, gave birth to our country.
Predictable historic pattern. “Duke” (not John Wayne) and “Earl” (the Vikings said “Yarrl) started out title combat officers, whose trade was protecting farmers and trades people.
But as developing economies made commercial arrangements better defense than axes, people eventually noticed that while shrewdness and bravery aren’t hereditary, stupidity is. Main reason for the American Revolution.
Out of pity and to keep them out of the way of commerce and government….tourists just love meeting the Earl of wherever. And the Earl’s own countrymen grateful they’ll never meet his savage murdering brave business-plan averse ancestor. And the jobs he’d create like headsman and grave digger.
So now we could take a leaf from history. A nice and only slightly rundown McMansion for His Excellency the Fifth Employer of Anacortesland. Also, a grand office with a suit of armor for a lamp for His Lordship and High Department Chairman of Collegiate Lower Southern Oregionia. Twice Removed.
While We the People rediscover the Age of Reason (and its actual take on citizen firearms) and realize that our Government is really supposed to be the instrument with which we cooperate to “employ” ourselves and each other for the work we need done.
Requiring an education system that from kindergarten gives us the knowledge and attitudes to see, and run, our government as skilled owners and operators, not enrollees or customers. It’s not supposed to be a Consumer Shopping Network.
However: Northern England has one excellent surviving example of actual nobility and its outlook and skills.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/7813389/The-Duchess-of-Northumberland-and-her-world-famous-Poison-Garden.html
Lady Jane is also the Lord Lieutenant of Northumberland, in which capacity she recently brought cage-boxing to her domain. Though in historic fact, most common way for a King to die in Shakespeare’s time was to be poisoned by his own brother.
Dare you, Tesoro. Employ her. Or even better, put her on the Board.
Mark Dublin