Big oil's bigtime looting

[GonzoLays]

Big oil's bigtime looting
By Derrick Z. Jackson | September 2, 2005

PRESIDENT BUSH yesterday told ABC-TV, ''there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."


We are not referring to the people you currently see in endless footage, crashing through storefronts and wading through chest-high water with clothes, food, and pharmaceuticals. Some folks are disgusting in their thuggishness, but a great many others are simply desperate, having now gone three days without food or water. The latter are living out one of the most famous hypothetical problems in moral reasoning -- should a husband steal a cancer drug he cannot afford for his dying wife?

No such sympathy is to be extended to big oil. The nation has on its hands a disaster so profound that we have not even begun to seriously count the bodies in the floodwaters. It brings us as close as we may get in our lifetime to places like Bangladesh.

New Orleans is under martial law and will not return to normal for years. Members of the Red Cross, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, police agencies, and firefighters are sacrificing time and risking lives to save lives. Texas is opening up its school systems for homeless Louisiana children. Generous food wholesalers are giving away their stocks to passersby. The Astrodome is taking in the refugees of the Superdome.

In the midst of this charity, big oil looted the nation. The pumps instantly shot past $3 a gallon, with $4 a gallon well in sight.

In a thinly disguised attempt to act as if it cared about the people wading in the water, Chevron has pledged $5 million to relief efforts. ExxonMobil and Shell have pledged $2 million apiece. British Petroleum and Citgo have pledged $1 million each.

This is nothing next to their wealth. Of the world's seven most profitable corporations, four are ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Chevron. ExxonMobil is the world's most profitable company, making $25.3 billion last year. It and the other three corporations had combined profits last year of $72.8 billion. ExxonMobil is also the world's most valuable company, with a market value, according to Forbes magazine, of $405 billion. The combined market value of ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Chevron is nearly $1 trillion.

And that was last year. A month ago, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips announced record second-quarter profits of $7.6 billion, $3.7 billion, and $3.1 billion, respectively. Royal Dutch Shell's quarterly profits of $5.2 billion were up by 34 percent over the same period last year. Other well-known companies like Sunoco also had record second-quarter earnings.

If ExxonMobil were to maintain its current pace of profits, it would cross the $30 billion barrier for 2005. The company's chief financial officer, Henry Hubble, bragged in classic corporatese, ''Our disciplined project management and operating practices deliver the benefits of strong industry conditions to our shareholders."

Those disciplined operating practices are hardly confined to the oil fields. Everyone knows that Bush does not really mean what he says about price-gouging at the pump, since he just gave energy companies the bulk of $14.5 billion in tax breaks in the new energy bill. Surprise, surprise. In Bush's two elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans 79 percent of their $61.5 million in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

If Bush really meant what he said, he would call for a freeze or cap on gasoline prices, especially in the regions affected most dramatically by Katrina. He would challenge big oil to come up with a much more meaningful contribution to relief efforts.

Insurance companies are expecting up to $25 billion in claims from Katrina. For ExxonMobil, which is headed to $30 billion in profits, to jack up prices at the pump and then only throw $2 million at relief efforts is unconscionable.

Stay fixated, if you wish, on the thieves and desperate families who are so much easier to catch on camera than comptrollers electronically stealing your cash. It is not pleasant to see anyone loot a store. But ExxonMobil and big oil are looting the nation, and no one declaring martial law on them.

[GonzoLays]

Everyone knows that Bush does not really mean what he says about price-gouging at the pump, since he just gave energy companies the bulk of $14.5 billion in tax breaks in the new energy bill. Surprise, surprise. In Bush's two elections, oil and gas companies gave Republicans 79 percent of their $61.5 million in campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

This is what your conservative President is all about. How can anyone deny what he is doing? Big oil put him in office, and he is doing what Big oil wants him to do. Can any single Bush supporter deny this? Can they spin it?

He is not here to save fetuses from abortion; he is not in office to preserve moral values; he is office to make money for himself and his big oil friends.

Anyone who buys that bullsh*t that he is good man with moral causes, should be tied to a gas pump for ten days and watch the prices go up.

[Rohirrim]

This is one of those things where I really shake my head at the Right Wing. They say that they believe in laissez faire capitalism, allowing the market to decide, allowing the laws of supply and demand to control the marketplace, and yet when massive corporations collude to limit supply in order to drive up demand - purely for artificially created profit (ie; greed), they don't make a squeak.

But just let somebody on the Left suggest that there should be artificial controls placed on the market to ensure economic equity across a broader demographic, and you'd think they had just spit on the Holy Grail. "Our pure and holy Capitalism!" they shriek.

[Boogerboots]

I've always felt that there's a dramatic difference between Fair Capitalism and Abject Collusion. The oil industry today is nothing about "capitalism" and all about "working together to *** us over".

In most industries, if demand increases, you increase the output by building more factories and what not. But big oil has purposely produced this bottleneck where now we have declining crude oil prices and increasing gas prices. They are controlling the supply for their own gains.

If government can repeatedly lob anti-trust suits against Microsoft, well where are they now?? Pathetic!

[Hogan11]

You'll never see gas under three bucks ever again.

[TheDave]

Originally Posted by Boogerboots

If government can repeatedly lob anti-trust suits against Microsoft, well where are they now?? Pathetic!

That's another down side to you Pres being an ex-oil man... Since we know he won't do anything aboput it, it would sure be nice to see any other elected officials stand up... makes you wonder if everyones pockets are being lined...

[ant1999e]

Originally Posted by TheDave

That's another down side to you Pres being an ex-oil man... Since we know he won't do anything aboput it, it would sure be nice to see any other elected officials stand up... makes you wonder if everyones pockets are being lined...

I wouldn't be surprised. They're all crooked.

[Atlas]

I hate oil and gas. I need to buy a bike.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

This is one of those things where I really shake my head at the Right Wing. They say that they believe in laissez faire capitalism, allowing the market to decide, allowing the laws of supply and demand to control the marketplace, and yet when massive corporations collude to limit supply in order to drive up demand - purely for artificially created profit (ie; greed), they don't make a squeak.

Restricting supply doesn't increase demand - it increases prices.

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

But just let somebody on the Left suggest that there should be artificial controls placed on the market to ensure economic equity across a broader demographic, and you'd think they had just spit on the Holy Grail. "Our pure and holy Capitalism!" they shriek.

Explain how oil price controls will work better than rent price controls.

We've been getting away with subsidized oil and gas for decades - those years of living in la-la-land are finally over. Thank goodness.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by TheDave

That's another down side to you Pres being an ex-oil man... Since we know he won't do anything aboput it, it would sure be nice to see any other elected officials stand up... makes you wonder if everyones pockets are being lined...

How could so many Americans be duped into voting for this con man - twice?

It simply boggles the mind.

[ant1999e]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

How could so many Americans be duped into voting for this con man - twice?

It simply boggles the mind.

We didn't have much of a choice. Kerry sounded just like you. The war is bad. He didn't have a plan on how to fix it. Just talked about how bad bush was doing. If he had more solutions to the problems bush created, I would have voted for him. I didn't vote for Bush the first time. Voted for Gore.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by ant1999e

We didn't have much of a choice. Kerry sounded just like you. The war is bad. He didn't have a plan on how to fix it. Just talked about how bad bush was doing. If he had more solutions to the problems bush created, I would have voted for him. I didn't vote for Bush the first time. Voted for Gore.

The people who claim Kerry "didn't have a plan" are invariably the same people who look to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for this kind of information (which guarantees that all such claims will turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies.)

These are the same people who claimed they didn't know who Kerry was - even though the record of his decades of public service was an open book, and he had a website where anyone who cared to inquire could learn about his positions on the issues.

These people were duped into being distracted by the whole Swift Boat Vets hatchet job.

But, given the unprecedented disaster that is the Bush presidency, I'm stunned by the idea that anyone could believe Kerry (who punked Bush in all three debates) could possibly do worse than Bush.

[ant1999e]

So enlighten me. What was his plan?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by ant1999e

So enlighten me. What was his plan?

For starters, he wanted to create a legitimate international coalition (like the one Bush's father created for Gulf War I) to share the costs and the sacrifices.

Bush didn't want to do this because it would mean no kickbacks, no privitization, and no sweetheart deals for Halliburton, KBR, et al.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

For starters, he wanted to create a legitimate international coalition (like the one Bush's father created for Gulf War I) to share the costs and the sacrifices.

And he would have done this how?

The French, Germans, etc. would not have been nicey-nice just because Kerry was President.