I made the mistake of watching the news for five minutes today. Here's what I learned:**Parts of Washington State are expecting 10 inches of snow today.
**Aspen, Colorado still has some slopes that will be ski-able this weekend (less than a week before the official start of summer).
**A river in Iowa is getting ready to crest at 25 feet--a mere 13 feet over what the levees can withstand.
**two eleven-year-old girls were shot on a dirt road outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.
**House republicans have blocked a bill that would tax the five major oil companies on the windfall profits that they have made by charging $4.00/gallon for gasoline. The bill would also have taken away $17 billion in tax cuts over the next 10 years for those same companies.
Here's the thing that really chaps my ass over the whole oil thing. Yes, a barrel of crude costs more than it ever has, but gas does not need to be $4.00/gallon. A barrel of oil now cost around $133. At $4.00/gallon, that brings the consumer cost for a barrel to $168. Now, $35 might not seem like all that much of a mark-up. It's about a 26% mark-up. Other things in this capitalist economy get marked up a lot more severely; however, Americans consume about 9,253,000 barrels a day. That's a total mark-up to the consumer of $323,855,000/day. I get that everyone who touches the gas has to take their share of the profits, but last quarter Exxon reported a net profit of $10.89 billion. That's a 17% increase from last year. All I'm saying is, fuck those guys.
I don't get math, and I've never taken Econ. I'm sure I've fucked up something in my rant, but still--$10.89 billion? And that's just one of the major oil companies. There are four others.
4 comments:
You could've watched Ice Road Truckers instead and watched those dudes spill diesel fuel or some Ammonium Nitrate all over the ice road.
I guess destruction of the environment equals entertainment.
Something that might help you with understanding the huge profits is the fact that oil companies, just like airlines and transportation companies, invest in oil futures... Buying/selling large quantities of oil in the past (when market prices are lower) and then banking on selling at higher current day market prices. With the way the cost per barrel has been steadily rising, it's easy to make lots of money if you a large company that bought a lot of oil at future prices from a few months ago.
Can we agree either way that the oil companies are greedy bastards who suck at life? I get it. I get it. It's capitalism at its finest.
We must have watched the news on the same day. I'm with you: big mistake.
And it cost me $150.00 to drive (drive!) to/from my parents' house last week. So yeah: Oil companies = greedy bastards = suck at life.
Glad to see you're back on the blog!
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