Exactly; I view them as the worst of the lot. But, like gasoline for my car and biometrics on my driver’s license and passport, I end up holding my nose because I know that - effectively - there is no clean, convenient way to circumvent them. And paypal - I use it for business transactions when I have to. Not because I like them, but because - for a business my size - there is no other way to take a payment remotely that doesn’t carry ridiculous fees and minimums.
Maybe PayPal in-house balances for payments where it’s accepted? That’s a pretty small network (by comparison) and, really, if PayPal is your least-evil option you may as well either suck off the other corporations or suffer the inconvenience of cash.
Can we add a down vote bot for bot posts?
While unpopular for American oil producers, if the US declared oil and refined petroleum products a national resource that could not be shipped overseas until the American needs were met, we (the US) would never worry about petroleum. We are not only the largest producer of oil in the world - by a margin of something like 20% over either SA or Russia - we are the largest refiner in the world, besting China by more than 10% and with almost triple the capacity of Russia. The US could fill the SPR by commandeering just three weeks of US production “in the national interest”. If the Defense Production Act can make manufacturers produce medical supplies for a pandemic, I suspect it could limit overseas sales to refill the nation’s *strategic *reserve. Now, tbf, our refinery capacity isn’t exactly aligned with our native production, but the fact remains that the US is hardly in a tight spot.
The global market really just means the West, because China, India, and the rest of the BRICS will find ways to ignore the (lets face it - voluntary) Russian limits on exports. In fact, they already have, with Russian oil prices trailing a miniscule fraction behind world markets rather than the $60/bbl international sanctions require. The tightness in the market is a product of the West allowing Russia to drag this war in Ukraine out - effectively our own damned fault. Economic crisis, my ass. - all of this is manageable. It merely requires the axle to squeak enough to get greased. And it will, far before we get to any sort of “crisis”.
countries that raise taxes on the rich
That’s Europe, right? The countries with universal healthcare, reasonably maintained infrastructure, and generally high standards of living? I don’t know, I don’t think it would work in the US. Too much Freedom™ here to overcome.
I really do boycott Exxon - at least when it’s branded. In 35 years - since the Valdez spill - I’ve bought 1 gallon of gasoline from Exxon, and that was because I needed that much to get to another station without running out of fuel. It’s a trivial exclusion, though, as their drilling and refinery operations are so large that it’s likely I’m purchasing from them, or BP, (or Chevron). I don’t know of a major supplier who isn’t tainted by some part of the process. And I’m not rich enough to have the luxury of selection most of the time.