Exxon’s $10.9 Billion profit insults our intelligence
Yesterday Exxon announced that it raked in $10.9 billion in profits for the first three months of 2008. 10.9 BILLION DOLLARS in only THREE months? Something is wrong here.
Don’t get me wrong; I have no problem with companies making profits. But Exxon is making obscene profits from the pockets of Americans who are now having trouble buying food to feed their kids.
I’m no economist but my understanding is that a profit occurs when a product is sold for more than it is acquired for. How does Exxon get away with selling gas for $4 a gallon then boast to us about the billions they made off of us without the American public storming their corporate headquarters?
What will happen next?
Will Exxon suddenly decide to sell gas for $2 a gallon and make a meager $5 billion over the next three months? NO! They don’t care what we have to sacrifice to obtain their product. They know they can charge whatever they want and the demand for their product will not lessen…they do it everyday.
This is an insult to our intelligence and the solution must come from Washington. No, not in the form of a suspension of the federal gas tax over the summer, which is only 18 cents a gallon is not even likely to lower the over price of gas. There must be laws put into place that tax oil companies profits. This would be common sense don’t you think?
Why haven’t these taxes been put into place yet? My guess is that the oil companies and their billions of dollars (unfortunately) are very persuasive to the people we elect to make laws.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I’m sorry but I don’t see how taxing the profits of the oil companies will provide consumers with any relief. What’s to prevent them from just passing the taxes on in the cost at pump?
This same argument is even used by Obama against the temporary gas tax relief touted by Hillary and McCain. He says the oil companies will just raise the prices to make up for the difference. I have to agree, prices seem to go up much easier than they go down for obvious reasons.
Leveling more government taxes has been the cry of the lefties forever and it continues to fail in solving any of our problems. This isn’t a tax or profit problem, it’s a supply problem. Who can we blame for that: Al Gore and his cruisade to save the world!!!
May 5th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Todd you blame al gore bringing awareness to climate change for the lack of oil?
May 6th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Yep, beginning with his congressional hearings on global climate change in the late ’70’s Al Gore and his buddies at the Sierra Club have helped to prevent the US from becoming energy independant. They have successfully prevented opening any new refineries or drilling for oil on our own soil not to mention what they did to the nuclear power industry. He has been at this for over 30 years and now Al Gore’s chickens have come home to roost…
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 am
Something you are ALL missing…
We now have more oil than we know what to do with…
Profiteering is against this background. I talk to people in the Seismic survey side of oil exploration all the time. In Australia there is a LOT of undeveloped oil reserves. This is something companies like EXXON don’t want you to know….The laws of supply and demand are exposed by the oil industry for the fiction they really are. When you all wake up to this simple fact, then you can start kegislating. Until then, you are at the mercy of companies like Exxon. Australia has much oil, so does the Arctic. When this oil is developed, it will drop the price down so far that companies like Exxon may well not be profitable anymore…And your economy goes down the tube with them.
Face facts….without big profits by oil companies, our Capitalist economy is a “no-go”.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:09 am
As for climate change, I don’t think we have been gathering data on the Earth’s climate sufficient to go making grand pronouncements about it. Give it another 100 years or so and we may know exactly what we are dealing with.
What if climate change is a load of baloney?