Friday, February 1, 2008

Economy in the Tank; Big Oil Laughs All the Way to the Bank

The latest economic data shows the US lost 17,000 last month. Home foreclosures were much higher than expected lasted year. Inflation at the wholesale level is the highest its been in decades. Personal debt is on the rise. About 1.2 million people actively sought work beyond the expiration of their unemployment benefits, and didn't find any.

But today, reports the New York Times, ExxonMobil earned its highest profits on record. $40.6 billion. Their total sales of "$404 billion, exceeded the gross domestic product of 120 countries." Additionally, "Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, said Friday that its profits rose 9 percent to $18.7 billion last year; Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday reported net income for 2007 of $31 billion, up 23 percent."

War and huge tax loopholes have sure been good for big oil (friends of Bush and the Republicans), but not for the rest of us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Why is there no movement to remove the profit from the war? All these
gigantic earnings should bedrained off, whether from corporations or wealthy individuals. All we hear are "tax cuts, tax cuts," with little or no indication we should take this loot to retire the war debt and make some effort to repair as much of its damage as we
can. This money does not stimulate creation of jobs, as the whiners claim. It is just the outward symbol of the accumulation of political power, which is the real object of their struggles.