The Oil Drum

129 comments on Record Oil Company Profits and High Gas Prices: A Connection?

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Super G on September 6, 2005 - 7:16am

I have no doubt what you say is true. But how come a CEO doesn't get fired every time a corporation donates to charitable causes? How does such an action "maximize shareholder value"?

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Stuart Staniford on September 6, 2005 - 7:21am

It has PR value, so they can do it in moderation. They tend to focus on doing things like supporting the arts (which benefits and is visible to the shareholding classes), more than doing things like helping starving kids in Africa (who are fairly invisible to the shareholding classes).

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“Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views… Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages… He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream.”

—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)