Way back when, before I started college and actually took economics and business courses, I often wondered why companies didn’t need to bear the full costs of their production.
For example: Energy.Power companies polluted water, air, and soil for DECADES and NEVER had to account for it, in many cases.
They produced a product and made a profit because they didn’t have to bear the costs that were undeniably borne by society.
In large part, they still haven’t paid the full cost of production.
Not to mention NEVER having fully paid for the benefits they receive from society in terms of infrastructure.
Imagine an oil & gas company who had to make their own roads and bridges…to get their product to market.
I really HATE that nobody ever talks about this.
Same goes for “EV” companies like Tesla. All that battery power doesn’t come from magic.
Depending on where you are, your electricity may come from…OIL.
And producing the batteries and then disposing of them…all of that has costs that is NEVER paid by the producing company.
HELL, they don’t even have to pass those costs onto the consumers of their product because they are never held accountable for those “hidden-in-plain-sight costs.”
Oil Companies make out like Bandits.
They make Billions per year from their Products, get Heavily Subsidized, them leave behind A hell Scape that the American Taxpayer then foots the bill for clean up.
Any drilling permit need to have Attachments to them.
Requiring they clean up at their own expense or lose their Company to Government seizure & Resale to Pay for the Clean up.
As for Batteries, newer Batteries, close to production, are said to last 15 years or longer and once pulled from the vehicles are supposed to retain enough usefulness to be used for solar storage systems for several years after that.
Some are said to be constructed from materials readily reputable, keeping them out of land fills . We’ll see how much truth there is to these claims.