Who’s To Blame, Big Oil or You?
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The money is rolling in the door and income is through the roof. Times couldn’t be better as the cash doesn’t even fit in your wallet and you just set another record in your bank account! Sound like your story? Well it could be if you were a giant oil company. Today Exxon Mobile crushed the record for earnings in a quarter coming in at $14.83 billion! I seem to recall that most of the country was falling further into debt during the last 3 months and paying record prices at the pump. Are big oil companies “fleecing” consumers or are we at fault for letting them charge high prices?
Recently I wrote an article asking if People Are Living Beyond Their Means, or Simply Living , one thing is for certain we’ve all been paying a ton of money at the pump over the past 3 years. During this same period oil companies have been racking up sky high profits and shattering income records on Wall Street. Is all of this profit at the expense of everyday working Americans, and is there a case that we have been paying unfair prices for gas? There’s no doubt that our society is addicted to oil and we love to fill our big SUV’s, boats, and ATV’s with gas on a daily basis; are we just as much to blame by willingly paying $4 bucks a gallon? I hear people blaming big oil companies for many of the problems that are facing our country and economy today. The common theme is if oil was cheaper we would all have more money to save and spend on other consumer goods. There is no doubt that our dependency on foreign oil is a major problem and prices at the pump have gotten out hand, however we need question our usage habits as well.
I’m glad to see that we’ve begun to shift our energy policy, consumption, and gas dependency to more renewable sources. Clearly we have a long way to go, but at least the shift has started. While big oil companies continue to roll in massive profits and we continue to burn up our hard earned cash by buying tank after tank, we need to ask the question who is too blame? Us the consumer or big oil companies?
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3 Comments on this post
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Aaron Wakling said:
I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
I will put your site on my blogroll.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:15 pm -
mhayes said:
BLAME comes from all angles — not just big oil. In fact, “big oil” might just be the beneficiary of the big Monopoly Game called Wall Street.
In addition, government saying (thanks Greenspan… then Congress okaying it) the “industry” would regulate itself brought the mortgage crisis. Based on a 60 minutes report Greenspan was the one that initiated the rescension of a law that had been enacted in 1900/1908 that specifically guarded against this basic legalized gambling (hey I’m taking a bet you’ll default on your mortgage) that crashed the mortgage market.
Derivatives, Futures, Speculators …. I’m always amused at the way Gas prices (heating oil, etc.) ebb and swing for essentially no good reason.
Back on subject… had anybody had any balls way back when the first electric automobile prototype was rolled out we’d be sitting here laughing at the GAS deal right now. BUSH is Texas, BIG OIL… whose he gonna ultimately look out for. If we ever got a President who said I’m looking out for the good of the country instead of the lobbyist we might move forward on this energy thing.
October 31st, 2008 at 7:00 am -
Rita012 said:
I agree. We need to take responsibility and change our own habits. Still, it makes me sick that we are in recession, and yet oil companies are cashing in.
Here’s a really great interview worth watching with the author of “The Tyranny of Oil”. She explains how the big oil companies are at the top of their financial and political power in the U.S. while at the same time, they are facing the extinction of their product. And, rather than investing in alternative energy, they are working to get their hands on as much remaining oil as possible- working with governments to accomplish this. She also talks about how we as ordinary citizens can ban together to stop this. It’s very interesting.
http://community.progressivebookclub.com/page/community/post/pbceditor/BpC
October 31st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
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