Quote Originally Posted by Ohnooze View Post
Well of course greed is bad. But there seems to be a growing group of people who believe that successful companies are all evil empires that don't have a productive place in our economy. For example the large oil companies....everyone loves to demonize them because they make so much money. The thing is they do employ a crap ton of people and the more money they make the more people they employ. I know this because I'm in the oil, gas and petrochemical engineering business. I make good money but I'm not wealthy. Thing is there are tons of people who depend on these companies....everyone from the people in reproduction making copies to the people answering phones to the guys working in the plants and refineries to the guy who delivers paper and office supplies to the companies and the list goes on. Sure some of these big wigs make a ridiculous amount of money that really no one person needs. So when I see people say things about the evil big companies yet I see first hand all the people they support.....I don't know, just doesn't seem right. I have seen so many people lose their jobs when the oil companies starting hurting like they are now. And people think yea hit the oil companies super hard with taxes....yea that's a terrible idea because the harder you hit them with taxes and regulations the less people they employ. That's said, you specifically said the fat cats and to some degree i would agree with you but I don't care for demonizing people for being successful. Besides I don't know how much these fat cats donate so I try not to judge them.

Also people tend to forget the massive amount of money they spend on expansion and upkeep.....it's a crap ton.

Typing on my tablet so sorry if my spelling is all off.
I work in education. In PA where there's been a gas boom for a while. The thing is and I think you kinda touch on it is some people benefit a little, some a lot and others not at all, but everyone is harmed by environmental and infrastructure damage. Land made useless, roads ruined, etc. During most of the years of the recent "gas boom" in education every year there has been cuts but the oil / gas industry is hardly taxed. The problem isn't that the taxes and regulations demand they employ less people... but they would make less money and really, they should. This is the crux of the biggest economic problems we face. The when the big guys need to take a hit they use the working folks as their ropes in their financial rope-a-dope, letting furloughs take the hit. This isn't demonetization, this is reality. They could still be rich, they'd just be less rich The people who work in the field earn their cash, it's often dangerous and arguably very necessary work but the guys in charge profit off of everyone else and the extent to which they do makes them pretty good bad guy foder.

Once again, it's worth noting that some of Olies best friends hold vastly different view-points and Olie is notably not always right but he is very passionate and his heart is in the right place.