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Blogfest 2005 - Aug 15, 2005 - Printable Version
- "What's Wrong With This Picture?" or "Gas Prices Set Record High.....Win A Free Hummer!"
by Mark Faulk
(Editor's note: This is the first in what could unfortunately be a long series of articles based on the popular theme "Greed is Good"....Sorry about that, America. Look for the stock market scandal segment of this series later this week.) The headlines say it all:
LOS ANGELES (Aug. 14) - Retail gas prices hit another record high over the past three weeks, mirroring a rapid increase in the cost of crude oil, according to a nationwide survey released Sunday.
The average price for all three grades rose nearly 20 cents to $2.53 in the three weeks ending Aug. 12, said Trilby Lundberg, who publishes the semimonthly Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country. The figures were not adjusted for inflation.
Retail prices have risen an average of 70 cents since the beginning of the year and are up 62.7 cents from last August, Lundberg said.
"I'm feeling it," said driver Adolfo Fernandez, a Los Angeles resident who was filling his BMW Sunday with premium unleaded at a cost of $2.97 per gallon. "I feel sorry for the people who really feel it and can't afford it.
Poll Finds Growing Concern Over Fuel Costs
WASHINGTON (Aug. 12) - More people are feeling that record-high gas prices soon will have their wallets running on empty.
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed for an AP-AOL poll expect fuel costs will cause them financial hardship in coming months. That's sharply higher than in April, when about half felt that way.
And costs are expected to keep rising: Prices for crude oil reached a record of more than $66 a barrel Friday. That's almost 50 percent higher than a year ago.
Those most likely to be worried are people with low incomes, the unemployed and minorities. However, the level of concern was rising fastest among women, retirees, married people and those living in the suburbs.
"If it gets any higher, I won't be able to drive," said Lois Zumm, a semiretired library worker from Fox Lake, Wis. "I live off my Social Security mostly. And I've got to save something for winter because the heating costs are going to be out of this world."
"It cost $65 last week for a fill-up of our Expedition," said Carla Woyden, a mother of four from the Philadelphia area who works part-time. "My husband travels a lot for his job. If he has to drive that (car) around to every corner of the East coast, we're in a lot of trouble."
DALLAS (Aug. 12) - Higher air fares looked more likely Friday as American Airlines, Northwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways went along with competitors' increases that the companies said were necessary to offset rising fuel prices.
Airlines have already raised prices several times this year. The latest round of increases began Wednesday night with United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp., Delta Air Lines Inc. and Continental Airlines Inc. They were followed Thursday by US Airways Group Inc.
Asked why Northwest was raising fares, Ebenhoch answered: "Fuel."
But along with the tales of woe from consumers, truckers, airlines, and everything else in the entire world that depends on gasoline, came another type of headline:
Consumer Pay More at the Pump, While Firms See Billions in Added Profits
Aug. 11, 2005 — As American consumers increasingly feel the pinch at the pump, oil companies have watched their profits soar.
The newest numbers from the second quarter of this year show Exxon Mobil with a 32 percent increase in earnings over this time last year — that's more than $7.6 billion.
BP saw a profit increase of 38 percent, totaling $6.7 billion, while Conoco Phillips — the third largest oil company in the country — recorded a 56 percent increase in profit, more than $3 billion.
"The huge profits are enormous because the public is drastically overpaying what it costs to produce," said Joan Claybrook, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Many of these companies long ago bought oil reserves at prices of $10 to $25 a barrel. With prices peaking near the $67 mark, the profit margin has been enormous.
Even more eye-opening is the profit in Saudi Arabia. Saudis are making an average of $208 million more each day since the increase in crude oil prices first began in December 2003.
Consumer advocates say Congress is doing nothing to speed up the process, instead passing an energy bill that gives tax breaks to the oil industry.
"They [the oil industry] got $6 billion in the energy bill over 10 years. That's a huge, huge amount of money," said Claybrook. "And you'd think with the price of oil at $65 a barrel, they didn't need any new incentives."
ConocoPhillips blew away Wall Street's expectations Wednesday.
Houston's largest company announced a record profit thanks to high oil and natural gas prices, big refining margins and lucrative deals in Russia and Asia that are beginning to pay off.
ConocoPhillips earned $3.1 billion on revenue of $46.6 billion in the second quarter.
To give some perspective, in 2002 after the merger of Conoco and Phillips Petroleum, the combined company's profit for the entire year totaled $1.5 billion. Today, the company earned twice that much in just one quarter.
"If you're an oil company and you're not producing record profits in this environment, then something has to be really wrong," William Andrews, who helps manage $4 billion at C.S. McKee & Co. in Pittsburgh, told Bloomberg News.
NEW YORK - In the headlines this afternoon, it's been a record quarter and year for Exxon Mobil.
The oil giant raked in $8.42 billion in the fourth quarter and more than $25 billion for all of 2004, both record-high profits in its history. Exxon Mobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ) blew away Wall Street forecasts, as higher oil and natural-gas prices offset a slight dip in production.
And it wasn't just the past few months. Exxon (and nearly every other oil compay in America and around the world) had record profits in 2003, again in 2004, and is setting new records again this year. In fact, Exxon has so much money lying around that they're spending $5 BILLION dollars to buy back their own stock in the next quarter.
And what is our President and Congress doing to help us in this time of financial crisis? They're giving over $6 billion in tax breaks to the same oil companies that are gouging Americans at the gas pump every day, and adding huge cash giveaways to Halliburton in our energy bill by dead of night....Cheney's old company, located in House Leader Tom DeLay's district. That's right, you've been Dicked by Cheney yet again, and DeLay double-teamed you this time.
Again, the headlines say it all:
In a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Rep. Henry Waxman writes that after the energy legislation was closed to further amendment in the recently concluded conference, a $1.5 billion provision benefiting oil and gas companies, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas, was mysteriously inserted in the text.
WASHINGTON -- A top House Democrat is accusing GOP leaders of slipping a provision into a sprawling energy bill to give hundreds of millions of dollars to a private energy consortium in the suburban Houston hometown of House majority leader Tom DeLay -- a consortium that includes energy giant Halliburton Inc. as one of its most prominent members.
The final draft of the energy bill produced by House and Senate negotiators early Tuesday includes a 10-year, roughly $500 million research program for ''ultradeep drilling" of oil and gas from beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
The provision directs that 75 percent of that money be administered by a nonprofit ''corporation that is constructed as a consortium." Henry A. Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said the provision was worded to ensure that the contract will go to the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, a nonprofit energy consortium based in Sugar Land, Texas, DeLay's hometown.
''At its essence, this provision is a . . . giveaway to the oil industry, Halliburton, and Sugar Land, Texas," Waxman, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter sent yesterday to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. ''[It] is an indefensible giveaway to one of the most profitable industries in America."
So there you have it. While Americans scrimp and scrounge just to find enough money to get themselves to work and back, our "representatives" in Washington are busy giving away our tax dollars to the same crooks who are raping us at the pump every day. Oh wait....they're not crooks if it's legal, they're just heartless, greedy bastards. That makes it all okay.
And it's not just Republicans. Many Democrats are selling out our country's future (and their souls) for a slew of pork barrel projects that are leading us into financial ruin.
As for me....I've decided to do something that I never dreamed that I'd do. Next week, I'm buying just enough gas for my car to make one more trip. I'm driving down to my county election board, and after 27 years as a registered Democrat, I'm changing my party affiliation....to Independent. And in the next election, I'll be marking my ballot for "Anyone But The Incumbent."
Oh.....one more thing. Along side all of the AOL headlines about record gas prices, rising airline costs, and financial woes brought about by price gouging at the pump, they had a contest:
Win A Hummer From AOL!
That's right, you too can win a 6,400 pound, 10 mile per gallon Hummer H2, and for only $90, you can even fill up the 32 gallon gas tank! And if you don't win, don't despair. Call yourself a small business owner, and Bush will give you a $58,000 tax break just for buying this little gas guzzler.
And THAT'S the Faulking Truth.
(Editor's note: This is an entry from The Faulking Truth blog, ingeniously entitled "Blogfest 2005". If you'd like to spend more of your valuable time blogging, go to www.faulkingtruth.com/blog/ )
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