When mergers are jammed through without the proper oversight and approval being part of the process the worst aspects of why mergers should be blocked aren’t even looked at. Even under scrutiny the stated potential often can’t be proved as fact.
The US struggles as it is to regulate and enforce oil industry safety standards, having a party that is dead set against regulations in the first place is a big part of the problem. Russia and Exxon already tried to form a merger type deal that was properly denied, as it should have been. Exxon has Gulf leases, and we have to ask what Russia brings to the table as far as what Exxon would want that it doesn’t have?
Try deniability, try no accountability for Russia by the US, try holding Exxon accountable for billions of dollars in cleanup for spills when they shrug their shoulders and say it was Russian equipment that failed, go sue Russia.
Now here is something to keep in mind in regard to Russian accountability and how Putin rolls, and Trump seems to have an admiration for Putin’s sense of style and control. Putin created the largest oil company in the world by simply taking over oil companies. He jailed the owners and their CEO’s and took over. Trump has indicated that we should just take the oil from Iraq because we could, who could stop us if that’s what we wanted to do?
Conflicts of interest with Russia and our corporations will cause war, period. Putin has proved that he can and will take whatever he wants. He has directly been involved in several country’s elections, successfully I might add, including ours.
Russia cannot, among many reasons, be allowed to get that foothold in the Gulf of Mexico, how easy would it be for Putin to install military oriented platforms right there off of our coast? So then how easy would it be to take the next step and take over all of the oil being taken out of the Gulf? Putin obviously is a fan of taking over oil companies. How about Russian type merging with Trump’s Twit style, they simply threaten and hold oil companies hostage through fear of destroying their stock prices so as to force the sale of Gulf entities. A few terrorist extortion examples would do the trick, sell it or lose it.
We are looking at every executive branch and probably the supreme court too being under Trump loyalist control, Trump loyalty obviously extends to Putin. We are only simple steps away from previously unthinkable levels of everything we hold sacred under our democracy being overthrown by a government controlled exactly as Germany was under Hitler. All of the dynamics are in place including ignorant people who do not know what the truth is anymore, who because of that only recognize the truth as being whatever the GOP says it is.
And partnerships between Putin and our government executive branches? Putin is the man who knows better than anyone in power how to get it done in terms of controlling a country and it’s people, and Trumpy likes it, and Trump supporters will go along with and allow anything, and I do mean anything. This is more dangerous than anything can be said, it’s hard to think about the unthinkable, it’s easier to not think about it, say no way it could be as bad as that.
And that is what people said about Nazi Germany as their truth and reality was turned upside down.