The Jews have an excellent word for this sort of thing: chutzpah.
“I think that the idea that financiers would tell companies in the United States not to increase production and to buy back shares and increase dividends when the profits are at all-time highs is outrageous,” said Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s international energy envoy. “It is not only un-American, it is so unfair to the American public.
“You want to pay dividends, pay dividends. You want to pay shareholders, pay shareholders. You want to get bonuses, do that, too. You could do all of that and still invest more. We are asking you to increase production and seize the moment.”
The Biden adviser’s comments will spark a reaction in the US shale sector, which has complained about mixed signals from a White House that has called for more fossil fuel output while also talking of cutting demand and speeding up a shift away from oil and gas.
But Hochstein denied any contradiction, saying the US could “do two things at the very same time, ensuring we have enough [oil] supply for a strong global economy, while accelerating the energy transition”.
Hochstein also criticised ExxonMobil’s $50bn share buyback scheme, announced last week — a payout chief executive Darren Woods recently described as returning some money “directly to the American people”.
“The only thing worse than announcing a share buyback, is to say that is how you’re giving profits back to the American people,” Hochstein said. “If you want to give back to the American people, invest in America, its workers…increase production, [make] the United States less dependent on other countries.”
Funny, but I seem to recall the US having become effectively energy independent thanks to a certain previous President’s removal of the FederalGovCo noose from around the neck of the fossil-fuel industry, resulting in much lower gas and oil prices for ordinary Americans than they’ve suffered under ever since the Presidency was usurped—a most felicitous development that Pedo Joe undid completely, before lunchtime, on his very first disastrous day of besmirching the Oval Office. Rick Moran dispenses with this Biden-junta douchewad’s transparently self-serving codswallop.
Here’s where the lack of cognitive skills comes to the fore. In the first six months of the Biden administration, the president was running around the world gleefully telling anyone who would listen that he was going to end fossil fuel use. And yet, Amos Hochstein, President Biden’s international energy envoy and chief energy advisor, is railing against Wall Street and shale oil companies for not ignoring the president’s promise to destroy them and going ahead to drill, drill, drill, anyway.
“I think that the idea that financiers would tell companies in the United States not to increase production and to buy back shares and increase dividends when the profits are at all-time highs is outrageous,” said Hochstein. “It is not only un-American, it is so unfair to the American public.”
Said the number one cheerleader for destroying the oil and gas industry in America.
This guy can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time, and he’s telling us that the government can both destroy the fossil fuel industry and require it to do its bidding on increasing supply?
The U.S. is in the very best of hands.
For selected values of the word “best,” I suppose. Somebody needs to explain to this asshole what really IS “un-American,” what really IS “unfair to the American public.” You’d think he’d recognize those things when he sees ’em, from long familiarity and a lifetime’s experience with them. Apparently not, though.
The difficulty with oil production is that you have to keep at it just to stay in place. Then it whipsaws, and the solution for high prices is . . . high prices. Until it isn’t. Biden has celebrated an energy economy that will make us all poorer. I wonder why?
Control, I think.
“Control” likely, Socialist-Progressive takeover a la CCP, maybe?
Cheap energy leads to freedom and prosperity, something the marxists absolutely are against. It really is that simple.
In other news – fusion is in the news again. Could just be another premature announcement or perhaps the big breakthrough is real this time:
It certainly is interesting and not a little ironic that Jews have a word like chutzpah that so aptly describes so many of them….
Bottom line is that a company is free to do with its assets what it seems best for it’s shareholders.
If you penalize energy investment then they will not invest in energy.
Dividend taxes? Then they will not pay dividends.
The most tax efficient, and therefore proper, use of cash flow that cannot be reinvested for a reasonable return, it to return it via cash buybacks.
There was this dolt over at DP that insisted the government should insist cash flows via tax breaks should be forced to be reinvested. Like it’s the government’s money and corporations should be forced to do what the government wants with THEIR money.
Fascist. That’s what “Fascist” really means.
Concur.