How Big Business Robs Us With "Externalities" [View all]

[marmar]

How Big Business Robs Us With "Externalities"

Wednesday, 24 April 2013 14:08
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Show | Op-Ed


Odds are you've never heard the phrase "negative externalities." Corporations and their boards know all about them, but most Americans don't understand even the concept.

A negative externality is a cost born by all of us that was produced by a private entity and then dumped on us – externalized from that business to us. Externalities reduce the costs of business for corporations, which in turn increase their profits, while the tab is picked up by you and me, the taxpayer, the worker, and/or the citizen.

For example, air pollution is usually a negative externality.

Air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels causes damage to public health, crops, and the overall environment. But do the oil or coal or natural gas companies pay for these costs? No, of course not – they externalize them to us. You and I are forced to play for the cleanup of this pollution and the damage and cancers that it causes, while the corporations that pump it out increase their profits because we're picking up the bill for the externality of pollution. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15975-how-big-business-robs-us-with-externalities