| Profit Pump |
| In the time that you've been viewing this web page, The Exxon / Mobil corporation has accumulated this much money in pure profit. |
That's "billion" with a "B". That's PROFIT, not revenue. One company, in three months, cleared $10,000,000,000.00.
Let's say you make really good money: $100,000/year. If you work 30 years, you would earn a total of 3 million bucks. You would have to work 100,000 years to make $10 billion. Now, let's take way 30% for taxes, and 50% of what's left (conservatively) just to put groceries on the table and pay the Exxon/Mobil credit card bill, pay the mortgage or rent, etc. That means you "profit" about $35,000/year. So now you have to work about 286,000 years to bring home $10 billion. These robber barons did it in 3 MONTHS. They make your measly salary in a total of about 80 seconds.
They say they need those profits because they need to increase domestic production, and that's expensive to do. But why would they invest that money in increasing domestic production? If they did, well, first of all they wouldn't have that money anymore, then oil prices would go down, and their profits for the next quarter would go down. What incentive do they have to do that?
The problem is, demand remains basically flat as price increases. That's why I don't buy the "it's just supply and demand" argument. Other than saying "we won't go on vacation this year", you still need to get to work, you still need to buy groceries, etc. You really can't control your demand that much. So don't wave "free market" at me on this issue, oil company. You're holding me hostage - you have a gun to my head, you've been pistol-whipping me with it, and now all I can do is hope you won't pull the trigger.
With just about everything else that ISN'T regulated already (so lets exclude natural gas, electric, sewer, and water), if something gets too expensive, I stop buying it. Cable TV, cell phone service, guitar lessons - hey, they got too expensive. Hey, I just stopped buying them. Now gas is too expensive, but I'm screwed, aren't I? I still gotta make that Camry go.
I'll tell you this - we Americans have to figure out a way to get off of this addiction that we have with the automobile. Between gas prices, the insanity that is the Middle East, and global warming, not to mention urban sprawl, car payments, auto insurance, traffic, road rage... The car is becoming the root of all evil. In this day and age of telecommunications, why do we need to drive more than once or twice a week, anyway?
Why the hell am I paying $300/month for gasoline when I work only 8 miles from home?!?!?!? And since my salary has basically lost ground over the last 5 years, with 2% raises which can't hope to keep up with inflation and the erosion of benefits I've seen in the form of increased employee contributions, deductibles, and copays for health insurance, man I can't even afford to eat lunch anymore! This is crazy.
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