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Exxon is a huge corporation so of course their total profits are huge. When they lose money, as they have done with a lot less fanfare, their loses are huge too. But, since the US based oil companies are publicly traded corporations the recipients of those profits are people who own stock and mutual funds that invest in them.
This red herring is the current excuse for windfall profiteering. Oil companies are only a small percentage of any mutual fund holding and while the oil companies are posting a nice profit the root of that profit is draining the net profits other 90% of the companies the mutuals hold.
Bottom line is that even the most difficult to extract barrel of oil is only running around $60 per barrel while rampant speculation has driven the per unit sales price to $134 (fluctuating daily due to speculation). Even if you plugged 50% of that into R&D it's still a tidy profit.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)
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