Exxon and the rest of us

I got two electronic alerts via e-mail this morning, both advising that Exxon had reported $10 billion profit in the 4th quarter, exceeding it’s own record profit of $9.2 billion in the 3rd quarter. These profits are from record high oil prices and come at a time when people everywhere, faced with higher heating oil and gasoline prices, struggle to make ends meet. In Massachusetts and a congressional district in the Bronx in New York, a non-profit organization and a Bronx Congressman cut deals with Venezuela’s anti-American leader, Hugo Chavez, to furnish heating oil at reduced rates to the poorest of the poor. What kind of national nonsense is this when the Emperor sits in Washington, his buddies in the oil business reap these kinds of profits, American communities everywhere suffer and an oil-rich dictator thumbs his nose at the U.S. and reaps favorable headlines? Something is wrong with this picture!