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The Standard Oil Monopoly

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Kind: captions
Language: en

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cars are a big part of American culture
00:00:03.280 00:00:03.290 there is different as the people who
00:00:05.570 00:00:05.580 make up our country and when it comes to
00:00:08.000 00:00:08.010 choosing a car the options are pretty
00:00:11.299 00:00:11.309 much limitless but cars aren't the only
00:00:15.560 00:00:15.570 thing we have unlimited choice in
00:00:18.340 00:00:18.350 Americans have incredible choice in the
00:00:21.890 00:00:21.900 electronic devices that they use they
00:00:24.410 00:00:24.420 have incredible choice in the clothes
00:00:26.060 00:00:26.070 that they wear they have incredible
00:00:27.890 00:00:27.900 choice of the restaurants that they go
00:00:30.529 00:00:30.539 to incredible choice in grocery stores
00:00:33.639 00:00:33.649 incredible choice and religious
00:00:35.600 00:00:35.610 denominations that they want to practice
00:00:38.020 00:00:38.030 but in the United States for most of the
00:00:41.000 00:00:41.010 last 100 years Americans have had no
00:00:44.060 00:00:44.070 fuel choice when it comes to one of our
00:00:48.049 00:00:48.059 most important needs
00:00:50.959 00:00:50.969 boil our lack of choice has serious
00:00:55.009 00:00:55.019 consequences
00:00:59.670 00:00:59.680 this monopoly on our fuel supply is
00:01:03.630 00:01:03.640 hurting us much worse than we realize
00:01:08.280 00:01:08.290 this is the story of oil and how we can
00:01:12.940 00:01:12.950 finally break the monopoly and end our
00:01:17.020 00:01:17.030 oil addiction when oil was first
00:01:27.070 00:01:27.080 discovered it was refined into kerosene
00:01:29.170 00:01:29.180 for lamps it was used for illumination
00:01:32.170 00:01:32.180 not transportation a young Cleveland
00:01:36.730 00:01:36.740 businessman saw great potential
00:01:38.920 00:01:38.930 he realized that drilling for oil was
00:01:41.320 00:01:41.330 risky but refining oil was steady money
00:01:44.590 00:01:44.600 so he built his first refinery his name
00:01:48.190 00:01:48.200 was john d rockefeller his company
00:01:51.730 00:01:51.740 became known as Standard Oil by 1880
00:01:56.109 00:01:56.119 rockefeller-controlled over 90% of the
00:01:58.840 00:01:58.850 US oil business Standard Oil became a
00:02:02.260 00:02:02.270 monopoly the charged exorbitant prices
00:02:04.300 00:02:04.310 and eventually the public got fed up
00:02:08.169 00:02:08.179 they demanded that President Theodore
00:02:10.719 00:02:10.729 Roosevelt take action he announced
00:02:13.510 00:02:13.520 antitrust indictments against Standard
00:02:15.850 00:02:15.860 Oil and in 1911 the US Supreme Court
00:02:19.090 00:02:19.100 found the Standard Oil Company guilty of
00:02:21.600 00:02:21.610 monopolizing the fuel market
00:02:26.050 00:02:26.060 the ruling splintered it into 34
00:02:28.960 00:02:28.970 powerful independent oil companies
00:02:33.980 00:02:33.990 and Rockefeller who had stock in all the
00:02:36.950 00:02:36.960 newly-formed oil companies became the
00:02:41.120 00:02:41.130 richest man of the modern age much has
00:02:50.510 00:02:50.520 changed since the breakup of the
00:02:51.830 00:02:51.840 Standard Oil monopoly but much remains
00:02:53.930 00:02:53.940 the same Americans still have no choice
00:02:58.220 00:02:58.230 in fuel and the companies that supply
00:03:01.370 00:03:01.380 that fuel have immense power over our
00:03:04.640 00:03:04.650 lives when I was president of Shell Oil
00:03:09.260 00:03:09.270 Company I would often get asked the
00:03:10.850 00:03:10.860 question how do you live in your skin
00:03:13.930 00:03:13.940 the American people don't like oil
00:03:17.090 00:03:17.100 companies and they don't like the
00:03:19.520 00:03:19.530 executives who run oil companies who
00:03:21.290 00:03:21.300 they don't even know in a public that so
00:03:24.080 00:03:24.090 relies upon transportation as a way of
00:03:26.780 00:03:26.790 life the main suppliers of that
00:03:29.510 00:03:29.520 transportation meaning the oil companies
00:03:31.610 00:03:31.620 are really not favored at all there's a
00:03:35.360 00:03:35.370 hostility that exists between oil
00:03:38.060 00:03:38.070 companies and consumers I can remember
00:03:40.400 00:03:40.410 one of the senators looking over his
00:03:41.990 00:03:42.000 glasses at me and questioning how I
00:03:44.600 00:03:44.610 slept at night whether I had any moral
00:03:47.360 00:03:47.370 fiber in my body for the extortionate
00:03:50.240 00:03:50.250 prices that I was charging his
00:03:52.250 00:03:52.260 constituents first time first question
00:03:55.010 00:03:55.020 to me on Meet the Press do you know how
00:03:57.590 00:03:57.600 much people in this country hates you

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