Well, they’re good for some people:
Surging oil prices helped drive quarterly profits for US energy giant ExxonMobil to 10.36 billion dollars, the latest in a string of mammoth profit reports that have drawn fire for the industry.
The second-quarter profit was up 36 percent from a year ago and approached the company’s all-time record profit of 10.71 billion dollars that was believed to be one of the biggest for any company.Stoked by skyrocketing crude-oil prices, ExxonMobil’s net profit in the quarter to June came to 1.72 dollars per share. That handily beat Wall Street forecasts for an earnings figure of 1.64 dollars.
Total revenues in the three months rose 11.8 percent from the same quarter of 2005 to 99 billion dollars.
In Congress, Democratic lawmakers said the sky-high profits reflected misplaced policies by the adminstration of George W. Bush.
“Americans are paying near-record gas prices, oil companies are reaping billions in profits, but the response from the Oil Men in the White House and the Republicans in Congress has been billions for Big Oil and a backhand to the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Thursday.
“It would be shocking in normal times, but it is standard procedure for Republicans in Washington.”
We’re tempted to use the word “ditto..”
The soaring profits of ExxonMobil and other oil groups have generated fierce criticism about the industry profiting from consumer misery, prompting some US lawmakers to call for a “windfall” profits tax.
The oil industry has countered by saying its profit margins are lower than many other sectors, and that much of the earnings are reinvested in new production.
On the other hand, we truly feel your pain…..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.