News-Record.com

If they're making roughly 10 or 11 billion dollars a quarter and while gas prices continue to rise. I understand that oil is super-expensive right now and that somebody here will say (or think) something about ethanol and Nancy Pelosi's 2006 commonsense plan to lower gas prices, but with record profits in dollar amounts and 4 dollar gas, something is up.

Anyway, one key to attaining energy independence and lowering fuel costs is to make sustainable lifestyle changes that conserve energy. So do it already.

Liberals and their mouthpiece, Maxine Waters, ought to LOVE GM and their record $38 Billion loss last year.

Keith,

Your comparison is much like the apples/oranges debate. In order for an accurate profit comparison to be valid, the profits of ExxonMobil should be compared to the profits of another GAS/OIL company. For example, while E/M reported profits of $10.89 billion for the first quarter, Shell reported $9.08 billion, BP reported $7.6 billion and Hess a mere $337 million.

Now, I am not the brightest bulb on the tree but I'm holding my own against some fairly bright ones. When EVERY gas/oil company is reporting record profits while the US economy is in dire straights, I'd be inclined to agree there is a correlation.

BTW, Google may take me all over the world via internet, but not even a inch if I tried to use it in my car. To be totally clear, while my life would be different without Google, it is not completely essential for me to have it. Gas is.

Jerry snow is a brain washed idiot who probably has an I.Q. around 90.

How is comparing net profits of American corporations "apples/oranges. That's why the barometer is net profit, not merely revenues. Say Exxon amde 40 billion dollars has a lot more demagogic potential than saying they made 9 percent profit!

The oil companies have not run up our 9 TRILLION dollar national debt. They do not spend 3 Trillion dollar taxpayer dollars, wasting, stealing, or losing much of it, and paying off their large donors with some of it. They are not responsible for Chicago residents paying $0.76 a gallon in taxes while senator Dickhead Durbin is asking oil company executives if the care about what "they" are doing to the American people. Insanity!

Exxon accounts for TWO percent of the world oil market. They don't set prices, as was fully explained in detailed analysis (in this paper, 5/24) by the Associated Press. I suggest some of you ill-informed sheep read the article. Though I don't believe it would change the minds of many of you, like Jerry Snow, out there. Oh, I sent Mr. Snow a copy of the article!

Everything is relative, tonymo. That is the reason I was very clear about why profits of oil/gas companies is different than the profits of companies like Google. As much as you deny the difference, you know there is a difference.

Can you put Google, Wal-Mart or any of the other top money makers in the tanks of the trucks that deliver food, milk or even the gas you buy and expect them to run on any of them? So why is Google, Wal-Mart or any other profit makers a necessity? The correct answer is, they are not. They may be very important but they are not a necessity.

I suggest you mull that over before you start calling people ill-informed.

Yvonne,

You took the words right out of my mouth. I can live without Google and cigarettes but I have to have my car (and gas) to survive. Sorry, but bikes are out at my age.

I think the oil companies are so deep in the pockets of our political 'leaders' of both parties, that the situation is pretty hopeless.

Yes Yvonne, there is a big difference between Google and oil. The industrialized world does not run on Google. If Google shut down tommorrow we would easily survive as we did for 200+ years before Google. If the oil companies shut down tommorrow so would our entire way of life. How many days do you keep your car, or cars parked? How often do you walk to work, the grocery store, the gym, to grandmother's house, etc. Own any plastic articles? How about man made fabrics?

The world produces 85 million barrels a day. The world uses 86.5 million barrel per day. Does that give you some idea as to why pirces are rising? We pay $.48 per gallon in taxes here. As said, in Chicago they pay $.76 per gallon in taxes.

If you want lower prices the answer is really quite simple. HARVEST MORE OIL! We have huge reserves on our land. Another genius, Chuck Schumer said that if Saudi Arabia would supply us another million barrels a day the price of oil would drop $25 a barrel, and a gallon of gas would drop $.60 a gallon. But wait, just two weeks prior he said that if we explored ANWAR it would drop the pice of gas by one cent. If the geologists are correct ANWAR would be providing about a million barrels a day. And you wonder why we are in the spot we're in with these idiots in charge.

Funny that you used the word 'harvest,' as it generally refers to the gathering of crops, or, you know other renewable resources.

Oil is not a renewable resource.

And it's ANWR, unless you're saying that we should drill for oil in Anwar Sadat's coffin....