The Cost of Doing Business

What is the cost of production? Is it labor + materials + safety + environmental regulation?

Free trade is not really free unless all countries competing have the same requirements. So buying a cheap bracelet from China, where underage workers toil with toxic chemicals working 12 hour days in factories separated from their families, while the back of the plant jettisons leftovers from the manufacturing process into streams that may flow into the Yangzte River..

Compare this with an American jewelry shop paying its workers a fair minimum wage with benefits who are able to go home at night to their families, protected from toxics by an environmental health & safety regime who can show up unannounced and inspect factory conditions and fine and regulate and even shut down unsafe plants. A factory that is required to follow environmental regulations regarding safe disposal of toxic waste products. And who faces penalties likewise for failure to adhere to the regulation.

What about the oil companies of the world?

Of the 4 costs of production, which have they had to pay? OK - cost of labor, ok cost of materials for production. But what about all the tax writeoffs they receive to "write off" their expensive exploration costs. Then there are the other two factors, that one would assume an American (or a British) company would be obligated by: safety, environmental laws.

I think we can say safety was not Job 1 (or even Job 27) when witnessing the continued unfolding of the BP Gulf disaster. Environmental regulation - when their "backup plan" was a cut and paste including protection of marine life including walruses (thank you Senator Markey for stating this to the American public).

In Oregon I thought we were going to get tough on prosecuting environmental crimes. OK so the Gulf is not Oregon, and our Attorney General's tough environmental lawyer flamed out. Well there are laws - and maybe if I can't send email to my friend in the Louisiana bayou cause he is out trying to get berm to protect the shoreline, maybe I have a personal right of action here. Isn't that possible under the Clean Water Act?

What if the citizens of the U.S. all got together and filed a class action lawsuit. If one of our membership is harmed, isn't that an affront to all of us?

It is time for oil companies to pay their full cost of doing business. They have gotten away with cutting out 2 or more of the costs of production for far too long, and now the planet will suffer the consequences.