I have to admit that the numbers are staggering; I'll never see anywhere near this much money in a lifetime, much less in 3 months of a single year.
The quarterly reports for the world's petroleum companies are in. Total profits among the top five companies: $38,000,000,000. Yes, sports fans...that's thirty-eight billion and no/100 dollars (thank you, Mrs. Sparks!)
In three months, mind you.
To bring it on down, that's $422 million each day, $17,592,592 every hour, $293,201 every minute...or a cool $4,887 every second you and I are pumping $4 gas into our tanks!
(See the chart for yourself here.)
And, to top it all off (pun intended)...we are also subsidizing their profits (at least those who do "bidness" in America) to the tune of around $20 billion in tax breaks, credits, etc., each year. Because it's awfully expensive to drill, baby, drill, don't ya' know?
Now, I'm all for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the whole American way of life thing. Grab all the gusto you can, my friend...if you can dream it, you can do it...and all that jazz.
But, dang...we're hanging on by a thread here, people; couldn't you cut us just a little slack on the need for greed? I don't own any Exxon Mobil stock (ticker XOM, if you're interested) -- and maybe if I did I'd see it a little differently. But when is enough, enough?
Oh, the REAL kicker here? British Petroleum...remember that little oil-spill thingy in the Gulf? BP, who can't seem to find the money to pay out the claims they promised (or even just own up to the truth, which is free) -- bless their little corporate hearts, their earnings were down by nearly $120 million compared to the quarter before the spill. They only cranked out $5,480,000,000 in PROFITS this quarter! And that's after writing off nearly $6 billion in "expenses" related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
I guess times are tough all over.
So, the next time you hear one of your elected representatives standing up for the honor of Big Oil and droning on about their right to earn a decent living -- let me invite you to join me in the universal salute that tells them exactly what we think of that.
You'll need the middle finger of either hand, by the way.
