Long story brings this up at my house. But how do you feel about exxon having such huge profits this past year?

I will say I guess it doesn't bother me. We live in the land of free trade and we are all out trying to make a buck. Do I wish more of those fell into my hands..well yeah! But I think there is a natural ebb and flow to who makes money and who doesn't.

Just curious...

By Vicki on Thursday, August 21, 2008 - 09:09 am:

I guess it bothers me in the sense that we are paying so much for it, but there is no law on how much money you can make! If they want to say how much the oil companies can make, than they should be going after Bill Gates and all the other top earners in our country! It is what it is.....supply and demand plain and simple. They have the supply and we need the demand.

As long as we are dependent on anyone for our oil, we have zero control over any of it. I just think it is sad that the United States of America is dependent on anyone for anything! There is NO reason we can't be self sufficient!

By Tarable on Thursday, August 21, 2008 - 11:31 am:

I think you really have to look at not the $$ of profit but the percentage. Yes they had a very large $ amount but when you look at what the percentage was it is nothing compared to other companies like the Pfizer and Microsoft. Exxon only has about a 8% profit margin and those other companies have 20+% profit margins. I think gas is too high (yes and no) I think this is the only way that we are going to ever try to use anything else and since oil will eventually run out and we need to find something cost effective that we can use instead.

My dh and I have started carpooling since the gas prices went up so much and we have been looking at getting a hybrid car but you can't find them anywhere and I don't want to wait 6 months to get one so we are just waiting until we pay off my car and then we will look again. So in our own way we are conserving gas but not a lot since we work only 5 miles from our house.

I personally think it is about time that we do something about our dependence on oil and high gas prices seem to be the only way we are going to do that.

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, August 21, 2008 - 12:36 pm:

I've had mixed feelings about this. I agree with Tara - you have to look at the profit percentage. But I get furious when I hear commercials on my local radio station urging me to write to my congressman to support offshore drilling - those ads are paid for in pre-tax dollars. That is, advertising is a business expense and is deducted from taxable income, and reduces the profit percentage.

I've talked with my middle son, who works in finance at a reasonably high level, and based on what he says and what I've read, I think a big part of the high price of gasoline (and heating oil) has been the dollar/euro ratio. The "value" of the dollar has been down, making everything we import cost more, and that includes oil. A large part of the recent drop in the price of gas can, I think, be attributed to the increase in the "value" of the dollar vs. the euro.

The credit crunch hasn't helped, because that is part of what caused the value of the US dollar to drop.

I also agree with Tara that as a nation we have to reduce our dependence on oil - not just imported oil. Oil is, after all, a finite thing - there is only so much oil out there, and at some point we will have used it up. Cutting back on gas usage is a start, and high gas prices encourage that (but what happens when prices drop??) We need to develop alternative energy sources, and alternatives for a lot of the things we use oil for. For example, isn't oil used in making plastics? And oil is, of course, a major lubricant - can we develop alternatives?