Big Oil's Illogical Stance

News of the latest record profits by Exxon are stunning. They broke their previous record, which was also an all time record of the biggest profit of any company in the world. They made $1,300 a second in profit. We looked up the per capita & per employee profits, which dwarf the "economic incentive" tax refund we are about to get this year. What corporate policies lead to such extreme profits? Is there a direct correlation with the secret energy task force put together by Vice President Dick Cheney in the early days of the Bush administration and the resulting deregulation surge of uncontrolled lopsided capitalism?

I listen to the talking points of the Republican Party & Far Right, courtesy their effective brainwashing of the gullible masses. I have plenty of friends, acquaintances, and associates who dutifully repeat these pearls of wisdom sent down by their corporate overlords. One of my favorites is "The LIBERALS (use your own degree of degradation and scorn here) won't let us drill for oil of the coast". Never mind disastrous oil spills and the fact that oil won't last forever, and the fact that we are polluting our planet to death - all of our problems would be solved instantly by more drilling. This would already be happening except for the fact that crazy liberals, who have nothing better to do but plot the destruction of America, have insidiously inserted OVERREGULATION into the mix in order to thwart those civic minded saints at the oil companies, who just want to be allowed to help us all, out of the goodness of their hearts.

This ignores the fact that Republicans were in charge of both houses of congress and the presidency during the time when gas was soaring over $3 a gallon and this phony argument was most often heard. It also ignores that often restrictions to oil drilling are put on the ballot and supported by popular votes. I seem to remember that they found "the biggest oil reserve ever" under the seabed off of Louisiana. This is the one place where they can and do drill without any restrictions, so I've never understood the logic behind this complaint.

Then Katrina hit, and gasoline prices surged again, and we were told that the problem was that we don't have enough refining capability. Yet, curiously, you don't hear the Oil Industry lobbying to make more refineries. If you ask about this, the response is that there is too much regulation and it's almost impossible to make more refineries. The complaint of overregulation doesn't stop the industry from lobbying to drill for more oil, only to refine it. And why is this? This is because a bottleneck of refining capability is what drives the price up.

Wake up, America. We were sold out on this one.