We should not bail out oil companies. But we probably will since Trump is scrambling to do just that. As we know, the price of oil in the US fell below zero for the first time ever the other day. This plunge means that producers are paying buyers to take the oil — if that makes sense.
Crazy times!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2020
Trump’s solution? He wants to pay oil companies to leave the oil in the ground.
While we are paying people to do nothing, I would love for Trump to pay me to sleep.
What benefit do we get to give oil companies money for simply existing? And are they so financially fragile that they need that to survive? This is one of the richest industries in the history of the world, maybe the richest, and already gets trillions of dollars in subsidies around the world, and plenty of billions in the US. Why, again, do we need to give these extremely wealthy companies more money?
Not the greatest use of money
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2020
I have a better idea. Let’s take that money and use it for clean energy. We need to shift away from oil and onto electric transport, solar, and wind anyway. I mean, this is like paying a heroin addict to get heroin but not shoot up.
Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich believes that we shouldn’t bail out oil companies. “We should not try to prop up oil prices. We should not bail out oil companies. We should accelerate our shift to solar, wind, and other non-fossil fuels.”
We need to stop killing our planet, and if the coronavirus hasn’t shown us evidence of just how nice it is to have clean air for once, or proven that we can survive staying at home, then maybe the problem isn’t the coronavirus but instead policies that like to reward big corporations for destroying this planet and millions of lives. We need to do better, and bailing out oil companies is completely opposite of that. Seriously, what’s in it for us?
Photo © David Havasi
We, the American people, shouldn’t have to pay corporations to not destroy this planet. Instead, corporations that pollute, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths a year from air pollution (in the US alone), should be taxed higher. And that money should go to funding more green energy and zero-emissions transport, not the pockets of Trump’s billionaire buddies.
Bailing out oil companies is not a wise move, but if we want to crash our economy and stab the American people in the back (again), it seems Trump is all for it.
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