| By Bob Weaver
While working families in rural West Virginia are robbing their piggy banks to put gasoline in their cars, maxing out their credit cards to heat their homes, and trying to get health insurance, it is noteworthy to consider the distribution of wealth, as they go broke.
Exxon Mobil Corp. just had a quarter for the record books.
The world's
largest publicly traded oil company said yesterday high oil and
natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge by 75
percent to $9.92 billion.
It was the largest quarterly profit for a U.S.
company ever, ever, ever.
It was the first company to ever, ever, ever ring up more than $100 billion in
quarterly sales.
It is an embarrassment of riches, a trial put upon the working poor of America, let alone a pending tax cut of another $70 billion tax giveaway for the affluent and a reduction in Medicaid health care for the lowest-income, aged and disabled citizens in the country.
Democrats and some Republicans in congress are making charges of price gouging over energy costs.
Exxon-Mobil's net income ballooned to $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, from $5.68
billion, or 88 cents per share, a year ago.
Excluding certain items, earnings were $8.3 billion, or $1.32 per share,
versus $6.23 billion, or 96 cents per share, in the 2004 quarter.
Even embattled Republican leader Bill Frist said "If there are those who abuse the free enterprise system to advantage themselves and their businesses at the expense of all Americans, they ought to be exposed, and they ought to be ashamed."
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called on the companies to spend more to build refineries and boost production to help "ease the pain" of high energy prices.
Both Frist and Hastert could be poster boys for corporate America.
At the same time, the Bush administration is cocked to give the oil industry $12 billion to help them through tough times, since new oil production facilities have not been put on line, others are outdated, and the hurricanes slashed Exxon Mobil's U.S. production volumes by 50,000
barrels of oil equivalent per day, down nearly 5 percent year-over-year.
It cost the company $45 million before taxes.
The company said total
daily production slipped to 2.45 million barrels of oil equivalent from
2.51 million barrels.
"Following the hurricanes, Exxon Mobil maximized gasoline production
from all of our refineries which were operating in the U.S., and
increased imports from overseas affiliates to meet U.S. demand," said
Chairman Lee R. Raymond.
Exxon's announcement followed Royal Dutch Shell's report of its own quarterly profit of $9 billion and Wednesday's news of huge profits by other oil companies.
Some consumer advocates want Congress to mandate that a share of oil and gas earnings be plowed into alternative-energy research.
Together, the 29 major oil and gas firms in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index are expected to earn $96 billion this year, up from $68 billion last year and $43 billion in 2003.
The corporate spin regarding high gas prices: - It is a long-delayed price adjustment in the world market, that has to be adjusted for inflation, long overdue.
Here, at the bottom of the food chain, there is little wiggle room to adjust.
Faith lies with corporate government, telling us that trickle down economics will help us and save us in the end.
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