Obama and his Gas Problem

I was watching Barack Obama talk at the Jefferson Jackson dinner and he stated something that is nothing new from him, or most Democrats and honestly, a growing number of conservatives. "You suffer and the oil companies put record profits in their pockets!" The correction that should be made to this complaint would be this: oil companies put record profits in YOUR pockets. While you may or may not own stocks or have investment portfolios, your parents, or your grandparents who have retirement accounts or investment portfolios most likely have oil company stock. Exxon Mobile posted a 10.9 BILLION dollar profit this last week and people were livid. "Gas prices are so high and they're making money!" the average consumer complains. But what that consumer, and evidently Obama doesn't know or doesn't want YOU to know that every day Americans get those profits. There isn't a man swimming in his pool filled with 10.9 billion dollar bills, every share in the company earned $2.03. Now unless we have decided that it is wrong for a company to earn money, unless we have decided that we no longer want to have a free economy, unless we have decided that a company who earns a profit should be taxed and punished for their success, oil companies should not be seen as villains. It's easy to blame the big guy when you’re not happy, but if you are really upset about oil prices, drive your car less, drive slower, decrease DEMAND for gasoline and the SUPPLY will rise and PRICES will decrease. Rather than complaining about a company being successful and making YOU, the public shareholder, money point the blame finger elsewhere.

By the way:
Exxon Mobile makes a profit of about 9 cents a gallon.

Should we start punishing other companies who make 9 cents profit per item? The only reason Exxon has such high profits is because of the massive volumes of gasoline sold. If a shoe maker sold his shoes for a $10 per shoe profit, and he sold $1 million shoes, would we be outraged that they made $1o million dollars in profits?

The real thieves here aren’t the gas companies, and John McCain wants to do something about it:

The US government takes 14.5 cents a gallon. Washington State takes 28 cents a gallon.

--Michael Hilburn