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Exxon Rides Oil and Gas Prices to 36% Gain in Profit

NPR: Exxon's $10 Billion Profit Leads Oil Industry [ .mp3 audio, 960K ]

Royal Dutch Shell profit climbs 40%

ConocoPhillips Profit Leaps by Nearly Two-Thirds

Yay! (Guess they really DID need that $85 Billion in tax subsidies!)

". . . this quarter is the highest by any organization ever," said Fadel Gheit, an energy analyst at Oppenheimer.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil caught considerable flak from the general public for its record fourth quarter, which came soon after gasoline prices hit record highs.

Compounding matters, the company gave its outgoing CEO Lee Raymond a retirement package worth about $350 million around the same time.

That combination of events led to a public outcry calling for restrictions on CEO pay and calls from lawmakers who wanted to institute a windfall profits tax on the oil industry or even break up some of the oil giants that merged in the 1990s.

But the industry says that oil prices fluctuate widely over time and that, in the long run, it's actually less profitable than a number of other industries.

. . . . . . . .

When asked about investing in renewable energy technologies, an Exxon official said that, apart from ethanol, it's generally not part of the company's plan.

"There are very few that are economical without subsidies," said Henry Hubble, vice president for investor relations, on a conference call. "We don't think it makes sense to invest in it at this point."

[ CNN Money ]

Just think what we could do if we decided to nationalize all the oil companies. All that money, instead of benefiting huge corporations, could be used for education, health care, job training, etc. etc. etc. (Hell, if nothing else we could at least use it to pay for the stupid fucking WAR, right?)

It's been done in Venezuela (oh, how the Right hate to see a country using its own resources for its own people, rather than to profit foreign corporate investors); and now in Bolivia; and Ecuador might be moving in that direction . . . Nonetheless, the idea is, naturally, unthinkable here. We believe -- religiously -- that whatever the so-called "Free Market" brings about is inherently good, by definition; to even question this is heresy to those who worship the Almighty Dollar.

But explain to me why we should oppose nationalization? Seems to me that opposition to this means you'd prefer to support an unaccountable and hierarchical institution led by billionaires who care only about profit, rather than support the people democratically making the decisions and spreading the wealth.

—ungeziefer