Steve Forbes: the Folly of Forcing Exxon to "Go Green"

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Rockefellers have decided to pressure ExxonMobil's (NYSE:XOM) (Irving, Texas) board of directors to make them more responsive to social policy: to force them to spend stockholder money to develop alternative forms of "green" energy. BizRadio's on-air think tank gets a visit from financial and publishing giant, Steve Forbes, who reveals the skinny: good or bad deal?

Mr. Forbes: "Exxon has got a certain expertise in gas and exploration, oil and exploration, refining -- and to think that they are going to lead the charge in coming up with alternative energies just goes against the whole history of entrepreneurship. Big breakthroughs in the industries come not from incumbents but from outsiders. Even IBM, which was at the forefront of the PC, did not realize the significance of it. Others, like Microsoft, did and Dell and others, HP, and they ran with it."

Dan Frishberg: "So, first of all, Steve, you're saying essentially that it wasn't the horse guys who invented cars or the railroads who invented airplanes, it was entrepreneurs taking a chance, not established businesses."

Arthur Laffer: "You know the stockholders own the company, and whatever the stockholders want to be done with the corporate resources, it is their right to do it, whether they make a mistake or not. I think sometimes these people come in and really screw things up, but it is their company after all."

Mr. Frishberg: "Personally, that would make me sell the company if they were going to do that stuff in a big way."

Dr. Laffer: "If I owned it and these guys were going to take over and do this silliness, I would sell my stock."

Mr. Forbes: "In the case of Exxon, I think that if those proposals go on the ballot, I think they are going to be overwhelmingly rejected, including by members of unions who don't want their workers' pensions put at risk by a company they thought was in a fairly mature business. If you want to go in venture capital, by all means do it. "

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