By JOHN PORRETTO, AP Business Writer Fri Aug 1, 5:11 PM ET
HOUSTON - Oil giants Chevron Corp. and Total SA wrapped up a string of gargantuan, record-breaking earnings reports Friday, a stretch in which six of the major international oil companies topped $50 billion in combined profit for the first time.
While the profits of unparalleled size have brought withering criticism from Washington and disgust from consumers across the country, very few were surprised. Crude prices during the second quarter were nearly double what they were a year ago.
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It is getting so so hard to even pretend that we live in a democracy. In what sort of democracy do its citizens allow corporations to suck us dry as they repeat the mantra of "supply and demand"? In what sort of democracy does its citizens allow a runaway, renegade, ultra-right government (which admits to hating government and wanting to privatize all) take all our tax dollars and hand them over to banks, financial "services" companies, military-industrial wacko companies like Blackwater - either when they actually blow it so badly they fail or pay off our legislators to hand them big fat no-bid contracts?
The US is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy, with manic edges of theocracy. And it is wearing me down.
I say: start doing some worse case planning.
What are you going to do with they start charging for air?
What are you going to do when the infrastructure of the country collapses (bridges, roads, etc.) and while they continue to pour our tax dollars down black holes of the War Against Extremism, they raise our taxes to theoretically repair that infrastructure (but then another suicide bombing requires another war - sorry, no infrastructure)?
What are you going to do when gas hits $10 a gallon?
If you don't plan for it now, you will be screwed, totally screwed, very soon.
And that is my mid-summer rant. See ya....
4 comments:
A long time ago in ages past, the US was a strong country. The country was full of people who wanted America to be the best. We were a prosperious country and American we happy. Everyone wanted a home, a car and a dog in the yard. BUT TODAY is another story. We, the people of the United states, have grown lazy. We want to be spoon fed our information. Pride in our country, GONE. Pride in what we produce, GONE. I dont know why, where and when this degradation of American society started but I am with you Steven; I AM TIRED. I hear one thing on my news station and go out an investigate its truth and find out what they are reporting on is pulled out of context. Another time I am watch some political waco give his version of how we got in the War with Iraq and the time line the politician is spouting is so far from the truth it isn't really funny.
Steven, that little garden and wall you worked on down south, is there another plot next to it I can buy???
Maybe the American people will wake up with all this out the window gas pricing but then again maybe they won't.
Thanks Steven for letting me rant with your rant.
"The US is not a democracy. It is a plutocracy, with manic edges of theocracy."
I also rather like "oiligarchy" and/or "petroligarchy".
You know what I love about leftists? Their arguments are SO easy to counter. "Big Oil"? How about "Big WalMart" or "Big Lowes" or "Big Hollywood"? They make rediculous profits yet nobody complains. "Big Oil" pumps billions into the federal tax base every month. "Big Oil" makes your 401k grow, makes state retirements grow, etc. The left would have you believe that "Big Oil" is 5 Daddy Warbucks types sitting in big leather chairs with fat cigars. In fact they are huge corporations answering to their board of directors and investors for profits. If you really want to lower the price of gas, how about producing more? Or maybe lowering the 16.67% tax the fed puts on the oil drilled in the US. Or maybe the 50 cents per gallon in taxes. FYI the government makes about 4 times more per gallon of gas in taxes than "Big Oil" does in profit. Since when is profit evil? Have you donated your earning from your books to charity? I doubt it.
Do you know what I love about "rightists"? They stubbornly cling to their extreme fantasies (mostly built around the obscenely non-existent "free market") and are willing to dismiss the persistently catastrophic effects of corporate greed (which means for the most part the greed of executives and large shareholders).
I don't think there's anything wrong with profits. I think there's something wrong, however, with corporations and the rich paying off our legislators so that they write the laws to fill certain (already bulging) pockets with the tax dollars of the vast majority of the citizenship of this nation.
So, Allan, enjoy your fantasies, enjoy believing that you are poking big fat holes in my "leftist" arguments. And watch the US go down, down, down as your beloved corporations abandon the US market and become "international" (ie, Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern) companies in their search for money at the expense of humanity.
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