Feeding the Oil Barons

S.S. Condoleeza Rice



The Viscount has already begun the tear regarding the all-time-highest-ever-profit-ever-posted-by-any-company-ever recently reported by Exxon/Mobil.

I'm not against company profits. Nosiree. I got a company. I work in a company, too. I'm a big fan of company profits.

What I'm not a big fan of is astronomical profits taken by the very rich off the backs of the poor and middle class in times of economic stress with the help and collusion of the US government. As a matter of fact, I fucking hate that.

So someone needs to please explain to me this:

How is it that increases in product COSTS translates to increases in company PROFIT for gas and oil suppliers?

In my business, when my costs go up, my profits go down, unless I increase my prices HIGHER than the increase in costs.

So in this case, the American people are scrounging to pay for oil and gas amidst rapidly rising prices, while the gas and oil suppliers are increasing their profits at the same time. Which means they are ripping us off.

But wait. It gets worse.

The US government, in the meantime continues to subsidize oil companies for drilling and exploration and in the meantime said oil companies continue to cut jobs.

The subsidies, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, undermine other efforts to promote cleaner, more efficient forms of energy.

So when I have conversations with right-wing apologists who advocate that we should "let the market drive new energy sources", I bite back the urge to rip their heads off and spit down their necks. This is a direct result of my Bhuddist tendencies and Zen meditation training and should be commended. Instead, I simply remind them that they are full of shit because the market is RIGGED.

In fact, I can remember exactly when and how it was rigged - how about you?

Once upon a time, Dick Cheney convened a group of oil barons in a room and had an energy policy meeting. Remember what they talked about?

Of course you don't. It was and always will be a secret to everyone except Cheney and the oil barons. Members of Congress then approached the supreme court to get Cheney to release the transcripts of the meeting discussions. Cheney took his good buddy (and presiding judge for the case) Antonin Scalia on a really cool hunting trip which Scalia arrogantly assured us was NOT a conflict of interest. By the grace of God, Cheney won the case in the Supreme Court, flipped Congress the bird and embarked on our new energy policy which can be summarized as follows:

Exxon overcharges us for oil.
Exxon also gets our tax money.
We have little in the way of non-oil related alternatives, so Exxon posts record profits.
Exxon cuts jobs.
Buncha rich people get richer
Buncha not-so-rich people get poorer.

That's part of what we get when we vote oil barons into public office.

This is the other part: