weirdness on the news
Oct. 20th, 2006 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eMost afternoons I turn the radio on for a 5 minute piece called Perspective, where a variety of people give a very short talk on some topic dear to the heart. Normally I turn it off again straight afterwards because it is followed by the news and I find it too skewed and depressing these days to bother with. Today I was doing something and didn't turn it off immediately and heard a couple of gems:
"the company was remorseful"
Some guy was injured working for Energex and he took the company to court. Apparently some total knucklebrain told the court that "the company was remorseful". How unutterably stupid is that? Companies don't feel anything. They are fictitious entities, developed (as I wittily heard someone say recently) so that people can obtain profit without being held accountable. Some of the people in companies can feel remorseful, but the company definitely can't.
"oil prices have been falling for years"
This was very strange. We were told that oil prices as dollars per barrel had been falling for years(?) and that OPEC nations had decided to cut back on production to increase prices again. Huh? Maybe I misheard the timeframe. If price per barrel has been falling why have the prices we pay been going up? Or need I bother even asking? Is the term "skimming"?
"the company was remorseful"
Some guy was injured working for Energex and he took the company to court. Apparently some total knucklebrain told the court that "the company was remorseful". How unutterably stupid is that? Companies don't feel anything. They are fictitious entities, developed (as I wittily heard someone say recently) so that people can obtain profit without being held accountable. Some of the people in companies can feel remorseful, but the company definitely can't.
"oil prices have been falling for years"
This was very strange. We were told that oil prices as dollars per barrel had been falling for years(?) and that OPEC nations had decided to cut back on production to increase prices again. Huh? Maybe I misheard the timeframe. If price per barrel has been falling why have the prices we pay been going up? Or need I bother even asking? Is the term "skimming"?