The big oil companies basically
whistled and shuffled their feet when asked by the Senate to explain their record profits generated during a period of national disaster following Hurricane Katrina:
Oil profits "go up and down," Exxon Mobil Chairman Lee Raymond told the Senate the other day, explaining why the oil giants' huge post-Katrina profits were not profiteering.
Thus the $32.8 billion in profits that America's five biggest petroleum corporations reported for the July-September quarter were more like a natural occurrence -- that darned "invisible hand"! -- than a calculated effort to take advantage of a national emergency. Profits just "go up and down."
Oil executives want you to understand that their post-Katrina price gouging (which resulted in staggering profits) was really all for our own good:
But if prices were raised to cover additional costs, whence the record profits? Well, Raymond had a secondary explanation: Three-dollar-a-gallon gasoline reduced demand and helped to regulate the market. That's why you didn't see those long lines at gas stations. Reducing consumption also reduces reliance on oil imports and, though he didn't say it, probably reduces hydrocarbon emissions and slows global warming -- all good stuff.
What could be more American than the unfettered capitalism demonstrated by Big Oil? Consider this, what I think is the column's best point:
There is also another way to respond to a national disaster, and lots of individuals, organizations -- even entire towns -- found it. I mean the response of sacrifice. Americans opened their hearts, their wallets and their homes to Katrina's victims. Where is the record of Big Oil's selfless largess? As Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told the oil executives: "Your sacrifice, gentlemen, appears to be nothing." Maybe the notion of corporate sacrifice -- the very idea of the corporate citizen -- is dying, giving way to the bottom line as the only thing worthy of serious attention.
Indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment