November 12, 2005
Case in point
The recent record oil-company profits are entirely reasonable, and reflect no predatory pricing or unfair competative practices. I can say this with certainty because though companies like Exxon-Mobil posted a profit of $9.9 billion last quarter, they did so on revenues of around $100 billion. That's a 10% profit margin. It's a healthy, reasonable, desirable margin.
Now moonbats, malcontents, and the ignorant are talking about a "windfall tax". There is no windfall. The company is making a solid return on it's investment. When you invest, you expect to see a profit commensurate with the scale of your investment. Large-scale investment yields large-scale profit.
But that doesn't seem to matter to the envious, craven, demanding, ignorant American public. Apparently, no one is allowed to actually make money anymore. Everything has to be given over to satsifying the hunger of the ignorant. We encourage companies to invest their money wisely and make a solid return on their investments, and then we... penalize them for doing so?
To make matters worse, Exxon is currently able to charge a lot for gasoline because they followed the dictates of Congress and haven't built a new refinery in 25 years. Why? Because eco-freaks lobbied Congress to now allow the construction of any new refineries, or, at the very least, to make the construction of such facilities so arduous as to be not worth the time and money. Now Exxon is being criticized for artifically restricting their refining capacity. That is a charge of which they are 100% guilty, but it's because we told them to.
So one day Americans wake up and find that they can't have cheap energy and restrict the ability of oil companies to provide cheap energy. Cry me a river.
