Themes

• Amazing Grace Autumn Concept BlueBlack Falling Leaves Island After Sunset Platinum Vidiyal

Tags

barack_obama beauty climate_change death_penalty earth faith follow_jesus forgiveness god grace human_dignity human_rights humility interrogation iraq jesus justice love movie nuclear_weapons peace politics poverty revenge rule_of_law stoney terrorism torture united_church_of_christ war

• Recently Written

  • at our worst … and best
  • good news: burger king changes its mind
  • going to new orleans
  • nrdc update: 37 wolves killed
  • i applaud jimmy carter
  • here!
  • justice stevens disavows the death penalty
  • disconnected faith?
  • more on jeremiah wright
  • on earth as it is in heaven

• Recent Comments

  • Paul Maurice Martin: We sure better hope corporations become socially responsible on a large scale, and fast....
  • Alfonso VanBurean: The only way well have peace in this world is through the lord Jesus… Jesus is the way war...
  • Tim: James Wall expresses similar sentiments in an editorial piece in The Christian Century: Carter’s Middle...
  • John Gibson: I find it very interesting while checking out this blog that the dealth of wolves be mentioned but...
  • San: It’s nice to see a strong poem featured here, one that is laden with meaning in an open-ended, mysterious...
  • Tim: David: I trust the Lord will treat you with considerably more charity and grace than you have treated his...
  • David F., Evanston IN: From http://www.ucctruths.com Jeremiah Wright for UCC President Wednesday, April 30, 2008...
  • Carol Graffius: The greatest warrior that ever lived in my eyes and in the eyes of the Lakotas was Crazy Horse....

• Admin

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Wordpress
  • XHTML

Subscribe

sharing the burden

Posted on October 26, 2006 | Filed Under general 

Headline: Oil industry behemoth Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday its third-quarter earnings rose to $10.49 billion, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.

I admit I know very little about the complex economic factors that produced such a record-breaking profit, and very little about the process and people that determine retail prices for oil products. I do understand that high profits are driven by high demand, that we pay more because we ask for more.

Nevertheless, I find the incongruity disturbing … that an oil company is making more money than ever, while its customers are struggling more than ever to find the money to pay the record-high prices for its products. Isn’t it true that in the end, that $10.49 billion comes out of our wallets? Exxon-Mobil makes more because it takes more … from us.

Energy is a common human need, and the increasing demand for energy coupled with a diminishing supply of non-renewable sources of energy is a common human problem. It seems to me that the burden of this problem should be shared, by consumer and producer alike.

So it would be interesting to know what Exxon-Mobil will do with its windfall profits. If the profits were to be invested in the research and production of new sources of energy, renewable sources of energy, that could be a way of sharing the burden …

Tags: energy, energy_renewable, oil_industry

Related posts

• who’s to blame? From the Los Angeles Times (Exxon Reports Record-Breaking Profits) Exxon Reports Record-Breaking Annual Profits By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer ExxonMobil Corp. today said its annual profits soared more than 40% last year ...
• thinking ahead about energy The U.S. economy depends heavily on oil, particularly in the transportation sector. World oil production has been running at near capacity to meet demand, pushing prices upward. Concerns about meeting ...
• making beauty (Originally published Saturday, December 31, 2005) I have been doing a bit of ranting lately … about the horrors of the death penalty, about the scandal of an administration that is ...
• face the facts (Originally published Wednesday, December 28, 2005) Let Them Eat Guns?, Sojourners Magazine/January 2006 World military expenditure exceeded $1 trillion in 2004. The United States accounted for 47 percent of this spending. $238 billion. ...
• as we forgive our debtors I was delighted to hear this week of the commitment of the G8 nations to forgive some $40 billion worth of debt of the eighteen poorest nations in the world. ...

Comments