• TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    some notes, the 2Bil may be misinformation, but I will instead ignore that and just use the subsidies to the oil industry.

    We could give every single human living in the US (even babies) that $1500 and it would be 130b cheaper than oil subsidies according to forbes.

    We could give every household in the US (127,482,865 according to US census) $5,100 for what we spend on oil subsidies yearly.

    Please note those numbers are from 2015 so its likely much higher now, but a quick google didn’t give me exact numbers for the US and I’m too lazy to go into that. (it would likely be closer to $7000 per household)

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Goober Nation has no problems with “socialism” when those government handouts benefit a billionaire.

    Maybe when 80% of this nation is living in Trumpville tent cities, people will finally stop voting for, “Punch me in the dick repeatedly.”

  • kibiz0r@midwest.social
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    2 days ago

    Right, but Shell spends that money and that stimulates the economy.

    Bob sticks those food stamps in his investment account and sits on them until one of his execs gets caught doing something highly illegal and needs a $100mil early retirement package.

    Selfish Bob.

    Edit: /s in case it’s not obvious that I swapped the names “Bob” and “Shell”

  • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Extend this to climate change:

    Bob is responsible for .00000015% of emissions.

    Shell is responsible for 5%.

    But 95% of marketing for a more climate-friendly lifestyles is aimed at Bob.

    Or to put it another way, Bob will emit roughly 15 metric tons of CO2 in his lifetime.

    Shell emitted roughly 50 million tons in 2023 alone.

    But let’s tel Bob he needs to change his lifestyle.

    • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      While all true, if Bob drives a gigantic pickup, Bob can fuck right off too

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I mean, yeah, I get the sentiment. But continuing to fight amongst ourselves and excluding potential intraclass members from the fight before we fight the ruling class is truly a self defeating tactic.

        Look at the trump movement. There are so many potential comrades. His entire lie that got people on bird was “fighting the elite.” Too many people fell for that that could truly be on our side if we tried.

        I dunno. I harbor those same feelings, so I’m not trying to high road you, but we were talking about class solidarity, I just feel like we need to extend that to the rest of the people in our class that we’ve been artificially pitted against and manipulated into fighting.

    • TheSlad@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      All of that “climate friendly lifestyle” marketing at bob is done by oil and gas companies. Are you tired of hearing about your “carbon footprint”? Good, cause its bullshit propaganda made up by big oil and gas.

      There was a huge campaign to shift the blame to consumers so that people would be too busy scrutinizing themselves to scrutinize the oil and gas industry. The sad part is that it fucking worked because people are dumb.

  • HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    but they could pay thier workers and stimulate the economy, I mean that’s why they get the money, it’s called trickle down economics.

    Do they do that, no.

    Does it work…no.

    (Sarcasm)

    It went from bribery to “trickle down economics” and now I think they call it the cost of keeping business.

  • JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    It would take 1.33 million bobs to equal the same cost that shell takes in. Each bob has a family of roughly 4 including bob, feeding 5.33 million people. The kids in the family are able to pay attention in school bc they are well fed and bob is able to hunt for a better job since he doesn’t have two jobs to make sure his family doesn’t starve.

    Shell is definitely worth the expense, plus Exxon, and even non oil companies like spaceX/Tesla subsidies that are rarely generating value for the taxpayers who funded it.

    • lyricanna@ttrpg.network
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      2 days ago

      Its 1.7 billion in tax exceptions. Given how much politicians love to argue tax deductions and negative tax rates are handouts to normal folks, I’ll count those as handouts to oil companies.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          It says exactly what they claim it does:

          Good Jobs First, among other things, serves as a watchdog for government subsidies, and maintains a database of subsidies and tax bonuses awarded to companies. Of note is the page for Royal Dutch Shell…The value presented on the page for RDS is $1.725 Billion…

          • Gloomy
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            2 days ago

            Why stop the quote there?

            $1.65 Billion, or 95.7%, comes from a single deal with the state of Pennsylvania for a tax-credit to build a massive petrochemical plant there.

            The tax subsidies are a summation of all subsidies since 2003, not per year as the image claims.

            The image tries to link federal SNAP benefits to total tax benefits for RDS. Of the $1.725 Billion listed on the page for RDS, total federal tax benefits account for $4.9 Million, or 0.2% of all total tax benefits.

            • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Why stop the quote there?

              Because none of that information contradicts the statement, “Its 1.7 billion in tax exceptions,” so the rest of the quote was irrelevant information.

    • Ziglin (they/them)@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Most of the data seems to be accurate but there are so many links in there that don’t exist anymore (at least in the top reply).

  • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    If we assume that every unemployed person in the US gets 1.5k per year in food from the government, then it’s about 8,400,000,000$.

    So, just the food stamps for all unemployed would cost 4 times of those shell subsidies. And you could argue you’re feeding lazy with that money, while shell subsidies help you stay competitive in a global energy market.

    Your argument is both logically flawed, and politically unconvincing. It’s no surprise your conservative uncle will never listen to your argument. Maybe he’s simply dumb and that’s why he votes for trump, but if he wasn’t, he’d quickly figure out that you’re dumb and for sure never spend any more of his time seriously listening to your political arguments.

    When you feel like the other side “simply won’t listen”. Look at your pathetic whining. You look like a child who sees an adult eating an ice-cream and throws a tantrum. At no point can you elaborate on either why this is an unfair situation or why would you deserve one.


    p.s. I spent the last 3 months blocking communities and individual posters splattering US politics all over lemmy, but it seems even the “queer memes” community is not a safe place from this plague.

    So take this well-deserved beating, and please repost it into all other places where you spread your nonsense. I know it feels like everyone agrees with you all the time. But the reason for that is that lemmy is an insane echo-chamber and even the stupidest thing that says “capitalism/republicans bad” is being upvoted to a degree where all other content drowns.