A lot of memes jumped on yesterday’s oil pipeline fire in the Gulf blaming things like capitalism or Exxon lobbyists. But the gas leak was from Pemex, the Mexican state-owned oil company. Pemex is an example of actual socialism in practice, not capitalism.
▪️Pemex says it took more than 5 hours to put out, but the fire now appears to be extinguished. Pemex blamed a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze, although the Mexican oil regulators claimed the incident “did not generate a spill.” No injuries were reported.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/fire-offshore-pemex-platform-gulf-mexico-under-control-2021-07-02/
▪️Pemex was created in 1938 when the Mexican President signed an order expropriating the assets of foreign oil companies (mostly British and American) and barred any foreign oil companies from operating in Mexico. In other words, their government stole the equipment and effort of those companies and socialized their oil industry, much like other Middle Eastern nations and Venezuela did.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/mexican-oil
▪️Pemex has a long record of major accidents in its facilities and a terrible track record on pollution.
🔹In 1979, an explosion at their Ixtop well in the Gulf near the Texas coast was the largest oil spill at the time. Oil spilled for months. At the beginning, 30K barrels/day spilled into the Gulf. Pemex then pumped mud into their pipes, which only reduced it to 20K barrels/day. Relief wells were eventually drilled, reducing it to 10K/day, which was still catastrophic. 71,500 barrels washed up on US shores, polluting 162 miles of waterfront. This devastated the sea turtles in that region, taking decades to recover.
🔹In 1984, their poorly managed facility in Mexico City went up in flames, setting off a series of massive explosions killing more than 500 people. Another 200 were killed in an explosion in Guadalajara in 1992.
🔹Unguarded pipelines were attacked by Mexican terrorists in 2007, causing leaks and explosions. Later that year one of their rigs also collided with a drilling platform, killing 22 workers.
🔹Pemex dumped chemicals into the Coatzacoalcos River killing most of the fish and bankrupting local fishermen. During the worst periods, the river would catch fire every couple months. Nearby groundwater was also poisoned, leaving residents without drinking water or irrigation for farms.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ko_mAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&lpg=PA139&dq=pemex+socialized&source=bl&ots=OQrxdohzx5&sig=ACfU3U2IqLuNdEkzOvI1Imzm3aDiLzgsMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV85DjnsfxAhVKkWoFHTfRCaQQ6AEwEXoECBgQAw#v=onepage&q=pemex%20socialized&f=false
▪️When private companies have spills, they are generally held accountable for damages and reparations. For example, BP put aside $20B within weeks during their Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. In contrast, Pemex invoked sovereign immunity and refused to pay almost anything in their Gulf spill.
▪️Similar stories occur with many state-run and socialized oil companies. There is seldom accountability, because it requires the government to punish itself. Good luck getting China to pony up money for damages if a SinoPec spill causes damage to your property or nation.
▪️But yet the belief still exists that it’s capitalism which is the source of pollution in the world. This sometimes reaches absurd evasions as with Chinese Communist Party officials who long claimed that pollution couldn’t exist in socialist countries because it was an “evil inherent in capitalism” even as they saw environmental devastation before them on a massive scale.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
