A Step in the Right Direction

[etaco]

[quote]orion wrote:
wirewound wrote:
orion wrote:
wirewound wrote:

Look up the terms, please. Though you may consider it evil, and it looks like contempt for morality - amorality is not contempt for morality, it is the complete absence of morality in the decision-making process.

Then corporations are not amoral entities, because they need to take into consideration the mores of their customers.

That those customers are not the enlightened beings they claim to be in sunday sermons is hardly the fault of corporations.

Sigh. Corporations often ignore the morals of their customers. Do customers REALLY morally agree with child slave labor, for instance? No, but corporations downplay their connections to such practices, for instance.

sigh if they downplay it, they most certainly do not ignore their customers wishes.

Whether child labor is actually morally wrong is yet another issue.

What if companies shy away from using child labor because their customers demands it and then those children starve or prostitute themselves?

That would be one of the many instances where taking the ever changing “mores” of the unwashed masses into account could actually be a bad thing.

So, sometimes ignoring your customers mores might be the right thing to do.

Which would still not be amoral.

Anyway, my first post was the more important one.

How is the freedom to buy stupid shit not freedom?

If I have never bought useless shit how do I learn what is good or bad for me?

How is it not elitist and authoritarian to take away people money and spend it for them?

How does that not take away their freedom?

What special powers have been bestowed unto you to know better than me what I might need or not?

[/quote]

Making a decision on a moral matter based on how customers will respond is amoral. The corporation exists to maximize returns to the shareholders. Any behavior that appears moral or immoral is, or at least should be, that which is calculated to maximize financial returns, though this generally means not appearing like sociopaths to customers. If shareholders demand a “return” in morality itself independent of and possibly even exclusive to some of the financial sort, then the issue is slightly different.

[orion]

[quote]etaco wrote:
orion wrote:
wirewound wrote:
orion wrote:
wirewound wrote:

Look up the terms, please. Though you may consider it evil, and it looks like contempt for morality - amorality is not contempt for morality, it is the complete absence of morality in the decision-making process.

Then corporations are not amoral entities, because they need to take into consideration the mores of their customers.

That those customers are not the enlightened beings they claim to be in sunday sermons is hardly the fault of corporations.

Sigh. Corporations often ignore the morals of their customers. Do customers REALLY morally agree with child slave labor, for instance? No, but corporations downplay their connections to such practices, for instance.

sigh if they downplay it, they most certainly do not ignore their customers wishes.

Whether child labor is actually morally wrong is yet another issue.

What if companies shy away from using child labor because their customers demands it and then those children starve or prostitute themselves?

That would be one of the many instances where taking the ever changing “mores” of the unwashed masses into account could actually be a bad thing.

So, sometimes ignoring your customers mores might be the right thing to do.

Which would still not be amoral.

Anyway, my first post was the more important one.

How is the freedom to buy stupid shit not freedom?

If I have never bought useless shit how do I learn what is good or bad for me?

How is it not elitist and authoritarian to take away people money and spend it for them?

How does that not take away their freedom?

What special powers have been bestowed unto you to know better than me what I might need or not?

Making a decision on a moral matter based on how customers will respond is amoral. The corporation exists to maximize returns to the shareholders. Any behavior that appears moral or immoral is, or at least should be, that which is calculated to maximize financial returns, though this generally means not appearing like sociopaths to customers. If shareholders demand a “return” in morality itself independent of and possibly even exclusive to some of the financial sort, then the issue is slightly different.[/quote]

That was his definition of “amoral”:

[quote]
Look up the terms, please. Though you may consider it evil, and it looks like contempt for morality - amorality is not contempt for morality, it is the complete absence of morality in the decision-making process. [/quote]

If you use that definition, corporations are not immoral.

You are free to use another one.

[etaco]

Here’s an interesting consequence of high oil prices. The blurb unfortunately doesn’t provide any indication of the scale of the effect.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5235731

Oil Price Fallout: Jobs Coming Home?
As shipping costs rise, businesses jump ship.
By SHARON ALFONSI

June 24, 2008 �??

As the cost of shipping continues to soar along with fuel prices, homegrown manufacturing jobs are making a comeback after decades of decline.

While it once cost $3,000 to ship a container from a city like Shanghai to New York, it now costs $8,000, prompting some businesses to look closer to home for manufacturing needs.

Watch “World News” tonight at 6:30 p.m. EST for the full report.

Furniture designer Carol Gregg used to have her signature Chinese chests assembled in China, but such a luxury no longer seems viable, considering that some of her pieces now cost five times more to ship.

So now Gregg is having the chests made in North Carolina, simply because its cheaper.

Some large companies like Crown Battery are cutting expenses by moving jobs from Mexico to Ohio. And hair care company Farouk Systems plans to shift all of its production from China to Houston this summer bringing with it 1,000 jobs.

Globalization, in Reverse

The rise in transportation costs are fueling what some economists are calling “reverse globalization.” For instance, DESA, a company that makes heaters to keep football players warm, is moving all its production back to Kentucky after years of having them made in China.

“Cheap labor in China doesn’t help you when you gotta pay so much to bring the goods over,” says economist Jeff Rubin.

Some local manufacturers have suddenly found themselves in the thick of boom times.

“In December, we had three employees here. We were just getting set up. Now it’s 14,” says Casey Hearn, who owns a furniture manufacturing business in North Carolina.

Other sectors of U.S. manufacturing may see a boost in jobs as well. Rubin says the U.S. steel industry is poised to reap benefits.

“It’s not just about labor costs anymore,” says Rubin. “Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour.”

And after decades of watching manufacturing roll out of North Carolina, Hearn feels encouraged by the trend.

“If the price of oil goes up, then I think we’ll get more and more calls,” says Hearn.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

[bigflamer]

[quote]100meters wrote:
bigflamer wrote:

Your ignoring the point I’ve already made, in that the price of gasoline is HIGHLY speculative, and that even the greatest of market prognosticators could never accurately predict what effect the increased domestic drilling will have. If you’re having trouble latching onto that idea, just keep re reading that part until it sinks in.

Now, instead of fishing for silly apologies, why don’t you tell everyone why you are opposed to increasing domestic oil production, while we as a nation pursue alternative energies. And again, nobody wants to hear you whine about how long it would take to extract those resources. I already addressed that issue when I wrote this:

Bigflamer wrote:

"And don’t give me that whiny bullshit about “It’ll take soooo long to get going and get the oil”. You sound like my eight year old when he comes to me crying about how loooong it’s gonna take to pick up the dog shit in the backyard.

Boo fucking hoo. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get there. If we would have started ten years ago, we’d be ten years ahead of where we are now, now wouldn’t we."

So your position is “I don’t know how much, and when, and at what savings, or at what costs, but lets do it.”???

But the title says: “A step in the Right Direction”, but how on earth would you know?[/quote]

Again, you’re sounding like like a child.

Wrap your liberal head around this; the whole damn thing is speculative, and based on research, development, and risk. All on the behalf of the oil companies. Based on their research, they can assume X amount of oil is available. Now, there might not be as much as they had predicted, but there may also be a shit ton more! We won’t know with any amount of certainty until we drill!!

Do you just not understand the whole business end of this? I guess that it’s possible considering that in your world, all great things emanate from the great collective; government, and that all private companies making a profit are eeeeevil. You seem to want me to post that we will drill for X amount of oil at Y percent efficiency per day and extract Z amount of total oil. At which point, which was predicted at the very beginning of the whole operation, the exact amount of oil that was predicted to be there, will dry up. And we will all die of an oil addicted catastrophe. Probably in your magical year of 2030.

Good grief.

They call it the law of supply and demand because it is a constant. You simply can’t get around it. Period. You know as well as any thinking person, that adding more supply into the whole equation will improve the situation. We are finding more and more oil supplies in the world that are now recoverable thanks to improvements in technologies, and now profitable to go after. Do you realize that the Chinese will be drilling approximately 70 miles off the coast of Florida for…wait for it…OIL!!

The world drills for more oil, and seeks to improve their energy future, while we in the US wring our hands and piss our pants wondering what to do. Fuck it pisses me off.

Here’s the deal; we’re at an impasse with this, you and I. I believe that we as a nation need to drill and expand our domestic energy supply, while at the same time, pursuing alternative energy supplies. You seem to think that we should not expand our domestic energy supply and pursue alternative energies only. I obviously, think this is foolish. As I stated before, if we had started this whole operation fifteen years ago, we would be fifteen years ahead of where we are now. So, let’s get started already.

Even if our pursuit of increased domestic energy supplies stabilized energy prices only, wouldn’t that be worth it while we pursue the alternative energy sources of the future? Think about it.

In the meantime, some light reading for your enjoyment…

The Bakken oil field
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/bakken-oil-formation/578

~From the American Thinker
Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development

Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development

In an interview several years ago, then Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, indicated that [u]they don’t even attempt price forecasts when they make multi-decade future investment plans.[/u]

~Also from The American Thinker. 100m, you REALLy need to read this…
Thank you, Big Oil

Thank you, Big Oil

Interior’s Energy Inventory: Abundant Domestic Supplies Off-Limits
[i]The more we look for oil and natural gas in the United States, the more we find…

…DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently published its Scientific Inventory of Onshore Federal Lands’ Oil and Gas Resources and the Extent and Nature of Restrictions or Impediments to Their Development. The report concludes that onshore federal lands are “estimated to contain 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil, which represents 76 percent of onshore Federal oil and gas resources.” That 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to supply all of America’s households for 39 years, and 21 billion barrels of oil represents over 30 years’ worth of current imports from Saudi Arabia.[/i]

Americans for American Energy
http://www.americansforamericanenergy.com/Places/OCS/tabid/933/Default.aspx
[i]There are 635 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable resources on federal offshore lands, and 102 billion barrels of oil.

There’s enough natural gas to heat more than 60 million homes for 100 years, and enough oil to fuel almost 60 million cars for 30 years…[/i]

The U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve
http://www.americansforamericanenergy.com/Default.aspx?tabid=927
Political activists who don’t want to see America produce more American energy have launched an attack against an environmentally sensitive plan to harvest some of the American natural gas that lies beneath in the U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve, a small patch of land in Western Colorado (on the Roan Plateau)…
…Two small areas of land owned by the federal government in western Colorado, created originally as U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserves 1 and 3, contains a huge amount of clean-burning, American natural gas – up to 6 trillion cubic feet. To give you an idea of just how much clean-burning natural gas that is: one trillion cubic feet of gas can heat 460,000 homes for 20 years. If the Roan contains 6 trillion cubic feet of gas - a conservative estimate – that would be enough to heat about four million homes for 20 years.

[100meters]

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
100meters wrote:
bigflamer wrote:

Your ignoring the point I’ve already made, in that the price of gasoline is HIGHLY speculative, and that even the greatest of market prognosticators could never accurately predict what effect the increased domestic drilling will have. If you’re having trouble latching onto that idea, just keep re reading that part until it sinks in.

Now, instead of fishing for silly apologies, why don’t you tell everyone why you are opposed to increasing domestic oil production, while we as a nation pursue alternative energies. And again, nobody wants to hear you whine about how long it would take to extract those resources. I already addressed that issue when I wrote this:

Bigflamer wrote:

"And don’t give me that whiny bullshit about “It’ll take soooo long to get going and get the oil”. You sound like my eight year old when he comes to me crying about how loooong it’s gonna take to pick up the dog shit in the backyard.

Boo fucking hoo. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get there. If we would have started ten years ago, we’d be ten years ahead of where we are now, now wouldn’t we."

So your position is “I don’t know how much, and when, and at what savings, or at what costs, but lets do it.”???

But the title says: “A step in the Right Direction”, but how on earth would you know?

Again, you’re sounding like like a child.

Wrap your liberal head around this; the whole damn thing is speculative, and based on research, development, and risk. All on the behalf of the oil companies. Based on their research, they can assume X amount of oil is available. Now, there might not be as much as they had predicted, but there may also be a shit ton more! We won’t know with any amount of certainty until we drill!!

Do you just not understand the whole business end of this? I guess that it’s possible considering that in your world, all great things emanate from the great collective; government, and that all private companies making a profit are eeeeevil. You seem to want me to post that we will drill for X amount of oil at Y percent efficiency per day and extract Z amount of total oil. At which point, which was predicted at the very beginning of the whole operation, the exact amount of oil that was predicted to be there, will dry up. And we will all die of an oil addicted catastrophe. Probably in your magical year of 2030.

Good grief.

They call it the law of supply and demand because it is a constant. You simply can’t get around it. Period. You know as well as any thinking person, that adding more supply into the whole equation will improve the situation. We are finding more and more oil supplies in the world that are now recoverable thanks to improvements in technologies, and now profitable to go after. Do you realize that the Chinese will be drilling approximately 70 miles off the coast of Florida for…wait for it…OIL!!

The world drills for more oil, and seeks to improve their energy future, while we in the US wring our hands and piss our pants wondering what to do. Fuck it pisses me off.

Here’s the deal; we’re at an impasse with this, you and I. I believe that we as a nation need to drill and expand our domestic energy supply, while at the same time, pursuing alternative energy supplies. You seem to think that we should not expand our domestic energy supply and pursue alternative energies only. I obviously, think this is foolish. As I stated before, if we had started this whole operation fifteen years ago, we would be fifteen years ahead of where we are now. So, let’s get started already.

Even if our pursuit of increased domestic energy supplies stabilized energy prices only, wouldn’t that be worth it while we pursue the alternative energy sources of the future? Think about it.

In the meantime, some light reading for your enjoyment…

The Bakken oil field
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/bakken-oil-formation/578

~From the American Thinker
Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development

Oil companies spend more on taxes than on oil supply development

In an interview several years ago, then Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, indicated that [u]they don’t even attempt price forecasts when they make multi-decade future investment plans.[/u]

~Also from The American Thinker. 100m, you REALLy need to read this…
Thank you, Big Oil

Thank you, Big Oil

Interior’s Energy Inventory: Abundant Domestic Supplies Off-Limits
[i]The more we look for oil and natural gas in the United States, the more we find…

…DOI’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently published its Scientific Inventory of Onshore Federal Lands’ Oil and Gas Resources and the Extent and Nature of Restrictions or Impediments to Their Development. The report concludes that onshore federal lands are “estimated to contain 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 21 billion barrels of oil, which represents 76 percent of onshore Federal oil and gas resources.” That 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to supply all of America’s households for 39 years, and 21 billion barrels of oil represents over 30 years’ worth of current imports from Saudi Arabia.[/i]

Americans for American Energy
http://www.americansforamericanenergy.com/Places/OCS/tabid/933/Default.aspx
[i]There are 635 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable resources on federal offshore lands, and 102 billion barrels of oil.

There’s enough natural gas to heat more than 60 million homes for 100 years, and enough oil to fuel almost 60 million cars for 30 years…[/i]

The U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve
http://www.americansforamericanenergy.com/Default.aspx?tabid=927
Political activists who don’t want to see America produce more American energy have launched an attack against an environmentally sensitive plan to harvest some of the American natural gas that lies beneath in the U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserve, a small patch of land in Western Colorado (on the Roan Plateau)…
…Two small areas of land owned by the federal government in western Colorado, created originally as U.S. Naval Oil Shale Reserves 1 and 3, contains a huge amount of clean-burning, American natural gas – up to 6 trillion cubic feet. To give you an idea of just how much clean-burning natural gas that is: one trillion cubic feet of gas can heat 460,000 homes for 20 years. If the Roan contains 6 trillion cubic feet of gas - a conservative estimate – that would be enough to heat about four million homes for 20 years.

[/quote]
Damn! You gave me homework.

[bigflamer]

[quote]100meters wrote:
Damn! You gave me homework. [/quote]

Honestly 100m, I think our differences here are probably smaller than our desire to argue. I still think that the US needs to aggressively pursue other energy sources. I just think that we need to pursue increased domestic energy supplies while we do that.

Probably the proper function of federal government here is to assist in that pursuit with significant incentives for their development. A dedication on par with what we had when we wanted to go to the moon, ya know.