Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Where's the outpouring of sympathy?

While driving back from our Rumba lesson Linda and I noticed that gas prices at WAWA are down to $2.97 per gallon. A couple of months ago the prices were up at near $4.00 per gallon.

So the oil companies have suffered a 33% decline in the amount they're getting for their gasoline!

Yet I haven't heard a word of sympathy from all of the politicians and commentators who were screaming for mobs to lynch the oil executives only a few months ago when prices rose.

If a rise in gas prices is evil price gouging, why isn't a huge fall in gas prices a tragedy for the poor oil companies?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most articles that you read either discuss the total price of a gallon of gas or make reference to gross profits. They generally do not discuss the cost of crude oil or the amount of taxes collected by state and federal governments.

Over time, I have seen a number of articles that compare oil company profits to other industries, and the oil companies tend to fall somewhere in the middle of the pack.

If I can find a current comparison chart, I'll post the link here.

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Sully said...

Exxon has been a very profitable company, but the shareholders earn far less than the taxes the company pays if you include the end point gasoline taxes.