This is nothing new. The British East India Company actually conquered and ran India for about 100 years . It is also widely forgotten that the East India Company was the one that precipitated the Boston Tea Party because it had secured a virtual monopoly of tea trading to the American colonies.

In fact the company flag is very similar to the USA flag today! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

Corporations are inherently evil.

had conquered the last independent native state [in India] by 1848." I am taking Western Civ III.

And I thought of Exxon when I read that. Major corporations are independent sovereignty's. During WW II Standard oil did business with both the Allies and the Germans.

Lee Raymond = former CEO of Exxon

from: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2113546,00.html?xid=gonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true

That's the legal and regulatory framework that corporate management works in.

Any solicitude for the nation, employees, customers, public, etc. is secondary and is pursued to the extent that it is consistent with benefiting the stockholders.

A sovereign excercises supreme governmental authority in a particular territory.

Exxon is a transnational corporation. It conducts business operations in multiple territories more or less in conformance with the laws of the multiple sovereigns. "More or less" because some territories may fancy that they have extraterritorial jurisdiction to impose conflicting laws on other territories, and various other territories may have relatively undeveloped legal systems.

For example, in some countries bribery is customary, yet the US attempts unilaterally to make it illegal if done by companies that also do business in the US.

From their web site:

Actually more than nations. Corporations will put themselves first almost always and they have the power. Corporations are alpha, nations beta. People don't matter, only as consumers.

If they spent the money they spent on those commercials and used it to REALLY support education, they could make a difference.

Or they could just pay their fucking taxes. That would help.

The commercials are aimed at improving their image so the public will sympathize with them if they destroy our environment. And the commercial income for the media, is plainly buying favorable media coverage.

Exxon paid $73 billion in all taxes over the last five years. That is more than most pay.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-much-do-oil-companies-really-pay-in-taxes/2011/05/11/AF7UNutG_story.html

Daniel Weiss, an energy expert at CAP, countered in an analysis that put the company’s U.S. federal income tax rate in 2010 at just 17.2 percent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-much-do-oil-companies-really-pay-in-taxes/2011/05/11/AF7UNutG_story.html

You have to be making fairly good money to be at that rate.

I just don't like falsehoods and hyperbole on the internet or anyplace else. So when someone says "Exxon does not pay anything" I am just pointing out that they are the nation's biggest taxpayer.

"The average effective federal tax rate for American taxpayers is 11%, according to an analysis of 2009 IRS data by the Tax Foundation, a non-profit research organization. For individuals with adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less, the average effective tax rate is less than 5%"

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/story/2012-01-19/romney-tax-rate/52682372/1

But as Reuters explains, the oil industry uses a different methodology to claim it pays an artificially higher tax rate to the public. The industry “lumps together U.S. and foreign taxes. It includes taxes that are deferred and thus not paid yet. U.S. companies must pay taxes on profits earned abroad, but they can defer these taxes until they bring the cash into the country.” [which then gets forgiven in future years]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/26/452213/exxon-mobils-tax-rate-drops-to-13-percent-after-making-35-percent-more-profits-in-2011/

Any corporation or individual -- not just the oil industry -- can defer taxes on money that is earned abroad. Nice try at changing the goalposts. Do you still say Exxon "pays nothing" as you put it?

a refund of $156 million. In any case they are not nearly paying the corporate rate of 35%.

It's not meaning full just to say they pay a lot. They are the most profitable corporation in history. I stand by my statement that they dont pay for the services they get from the USofA. They sure didnt in 2009.

the have the USofA military at their disposal.