Radio Smart Talk for Monday, August 15:
Why We Hate the Oil Companies is not the kind of book title one would expect to be written by the former president of one of the world's largest oil companies. But John Hofmeister doesn't say the kind of things one would expect of the former president of Shell Oil Company. Hofmeister not only authored Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider last year, but he also left Shell to found Citizens for Affordable Energy, which advocates for nonpartisan, affordable energy solutions.
For example, Hofmeister says politicans in Washington are the least equipped people to make energy policy because they are constantly looking toward the next election. Hofmeister says political time is a two year cycle while energy companies have to be thinking ten to twenty and maybe even fifty years down the road. He also is critical of the energy companies for not being transparent and providing straight talk about energy challenges to the public. Hofmeister claims the U.S. will go through an "energy abyss" by the year 2020 unless everyone comes together for a pragmatic solution to the nation's and the world's energy issues. Hofmeister says global warming is not the problem but that unless the world makes an effort to clean up gaseous waste, human health will suffer before the seas have a chance to rise.
Hofmeister will speak in the midstate later this fall and has agreed to join us on Radio Smart Talk to discuss his group's pragmatic solutions to the nation's energy challenges.
What questions do you have for Hofmeister?
LISTEN TO PROGRAM:
comments
In short, after years of lies from the industry he represented, how does this man expect us to treat him as a credible speaker...?
It's like listening in 1890 to an ex-Indian fighter explaining to us after the genocidal extermination of Native People how valuable the Indians are to our American heritage . . .
Sheer Hypocrisy.
Mr. Hoffmeister should be commended for sharing his wealth but the point is that no one deserves/needs even $500,000 a year to live well in this country AND more important, he is not required to share it and most do not. Many people work just as hard/smart every day and barely get by. This is not a fair system.
How can oil companies blame 'other people' (such as green horn futures traders)
for these prices when they themselves are obviously raking in so much money (What was it - $8 Billion last quarter?)
On top of stopping this price gouging immediately -
I WANT THEM ALL (including those who jumped ship and retired with all their stolen money) TO GIVE US OUR MONEY BACK - NOW
- NOT after the perpetrators are dead and gone.
Please ask Mr. Hoffmeister how much money he took with him when he left Shell Oil,
in the form of bonuses & stock options - for doing what he had to do to gouge the public in the name of profits for the "shareholders".
The taxes they "pay" are so much below what they should be - and that's due to the politicians they own.
NOW (?) he's interested in affordable energy for citizens?
Part of the problem is that oil companies are making so much money, that even after hiding most of that with huge salaries, and huge investments in land and office buildings, their record taxable profits don't justify the tax breaks and incentives which they have been getting for decades. I have NO pity for oil companies, who have blocked solar energy development for decades because they saw it as a threat to their profit stream. They fight gasoline taxes which could fund mass transit and a comprehensive energy policy, because it would reduce their profit.
Mr. Hofmeister holds himself out as a selfless man of high integrity. Yet I cannot believe that he presented a complete and accurate picture of his total annual compensation package from Shell, including bonuses and stock. If his package was ten times $900,000, it would probably be low relative to what the CEOs of giant oil companies typically receive.
I cannot trust the motives and message of a leader who lies and deceives. We get too much of that from political and corporate leaders, from whom Mr. Hofmeister purports to separate himself.
Remember too that the API, Am. Petroleum
Institute, bought large daily advertising space on the opinion pages in national newspapers during the nineties and beyond to oppose the envirornmental message, while making the ads look like expert opinion. The API may be continuing the practice, I don't know,I have not seen any national newspapers lately. The API represents and is funded by big oil. Mr. Hofmeister's presentation raised my suspicions about the true intent of his message.
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