This is getting old...

Once again… I ask you to show me where I have said I want price controls, or where I have supported Clinton’s “windfall profit tax” as even a possible solution to the problem ANYWHERE in the last 110 posts made here.

I have advocated the regulation of the industry as VITAL to national security, and as such, that industry should have all the same oversight AND benefits that other SECURITY REGULATED industries in this nation have.

Once again, let me give you an example of what I am saying… then see if what I am saying is that DIFFERENT than what your vaunted “Big Oil” patriot has stated.

General Dynamics Corporation has manufactured nearly 9,000 M1 Abrams MBTs for the US military, and each and every one was designed, constructed, tested and deployed with the US Federal Government watching over everything. Each unit costs between $2 million and $5 million dollars. That’s between $18 billion and $45 billion in sales that nets them an average corporate profit of $12 billion a year. These tanks could undoubtedly be manufactured far cheaper if the Feds didn’t have their fingers in the process from start to finish… but I have the end results of 3 combat engagements that prove the process has delivered 9,000 of the finest weapon platforms ever created by man and have made the US armored combat forces of the Army and Marine Corps the most feared on the globe. My source is HERE.

This is an example of GOVERNMENT and INDUSTRY working together through a REGULATED process of manufacture and procurement that has provided the military with the finest fighting machine on the planet while also providing the shareholders a very comfortable return on their investment.

No one is saying that $12 billion is too much profit, and that General Dynamics Corp. should cut the price down so that tax payers can see some relief. No one is saying that the regulations within the process don’t drive UP costs, either… but the results speak for themselves: we have a damn fine tank there.

I know that in the very recent past, I suggested that instead of suspending the Federal Gas Tax (currently $.18/gallon), use that money to promote alternative fuel resources domestically, rather than simply putting it in the general fund. Having now watched the interview you suggested, I will change that to the suggestion of spending it on a partnership program of new refineries and production facilities to both refine crude and implement sugar-bio fuel production alongside the petroleum production. THIS is a tax I will willingly pay, knowing it is actually going to accomplish something in the long term.

Why is this so difficult to grasp for you? Is it simply because it is coming from my mouth, and not the mouth of some former Exxon executive? If I were more of an investor (other than my meager 401k contributions) and held hundreds of shares of Shell or Amoco stocks… would my concerns and ideas have any greater weight?

I simply cannot see leaving an industry as vital to American security as the oil industry is to the whims and wiles of pure free-market pricing… whether that pricing is from the barrel or from the pump. Too much of our society depends on this commodity.

Now, as far as my critical comments about “Big Oil” in general…

I too have seen the reports for the annual profits of the major players. Chevron made $18.7 billion last year… that’s an increase in profits of 9.4% over the same period the year before. I have no problem with that news, until I find out that the rate of gasoline consumption in this country FELL over the same period of time (read the proof HERE).

So, if Chevron is only increasing the price of gas it is refining to reflect the increased cost of crude oil, then the profits shown over the same fiscal period should very nearly mirror the amount of gasoline consumed, correct? If Chevron was making $1 million in profits from the sale of 100 million gallons of gas (for ease of math, lets say the gas costs $1/gallon) when the price of oil was $50 a barrel, then watching the price of crude double, while the consumption rate stays the same (100 million gallons of gas), we would expect the same profit margin only if the price per gallon went to $2 a gallon… $1 million in profits of sales of 100 million gallons.

That’s not what we are seeing though… we are seeing increased profits (9%+ for Chevron) with decreased consumption (which I am equating to decreased pump sales… unless the stuff is evaporating into thin air). Not illegal, mind you. There is no law that says you can’t increase the price of a manufactured item at will, as long as people will pay it.

But it hardly shows the kind of “American spirit” I would expect of an industry that gains while the rest of us simply tread water… if we’re lucky. It certainly doesn’t show the kind of “American determination” to join together and make the sacrifices that must be made to win a war in which the greatest threat to the nation is the removal of an item we cannot supply sufficiently ourselves.

It certainly does show that the “American Dream” is alive and well in corporate “Big Oil” though… profits, profits, profits.