Windfalls
Updated – see below.
Betsy has a post up on windfall profits and what exactly constitutes a windfall profit.
Exxon Mobil posted record profits in the 2nd quarter of 2008. Chris Krasowski at iStockAnalyst reports:
A record profit for Exxon Mobil (XOM), but nonetheless an increase year-over-year that was smaller than expected by analysts. Smaller?!? The company made just shy of $11.7Billion in profit on $138Billion in Revenue. Both all-time highs, not only for Exxon but for any company in America’s history!
Then General Motors posted a loss for the 2nd quarter of 2008. Edmunds reports:
General Motors Friday reported a $15.5-billion loss for the second quarter, a loss that was far beyond analysts’ wildest expectations.
So, profits of $11.7 billion are windfall profits and too much for any company to make, but losses of $15.5 billion are just fine for a company to lose.
Barack Obama speaking in Lansing, Michigan today (his 47th birthday) once again said (transcribed off TiVo):
I believe we should give every working family in America a $1,000 energy rebate and we should pay for it with part of the record profits that the oil companies are making right now.
He wants to rob Peter to pay Peter. He’ll give us a thousand stinking dollars to offset our fuel needs and charge the oil companies for it. The oil companies will turn around and charge us more for our fuel needs. And what do you want to bet that Obama’s administration would take far more from the oil companies than they’d “give” to us? Costing us far more than the $1,000 “gift” we’ll get.
He said that if we drill on “every inch” of our soil and offshore we’d only have 3% of the world’s oil supply and that the United States uses 25% of the world’s oil.
Nasty, greedy Americans, using 25% of the world’s oil supply and we don’t account for 25% of the population and, if you believe what Obama just said, 3% of the supply is in our control. What no one seems to consider, however, is what percentage of world production of just about everything is American? Which country has produced more inventions? Developed new technologies in just about any industry one can think of? Which country has greater productivity? We don’t take the month of August off, we have many industries that run 24/7 including retail. Run out of toilet paper in the middle of the night? Chances are there’s somewhere close by that’s open so you can go buy some more.
That 25% goes to far more than greedy SUV and soccer mom van driving Americans. It goes to far more than keeping someone cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
He’s talking about stopping our dependence on oil. But as I noted in an earlier post, oil is in almost everything we use.
Update: Over at Patterico’s DRJ has a great post on Obama’s energy policy speech in Lansing today.
I also had a few more thoughts on us “greedy Americans”. We give the lion’s share of foreign aid especially in emergency response situations. We pay what percent of the UN’s budget? How much of the world’s food supply is from the United States?
