Other countries have nationalized oil industries and they get quite wealthy when energy is expensive and profitable. We do not have such a system.
Despite a drop in its fourth-quarter earnings and collapsing oil prices, Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, still managed to set a record as the most profitable American corporation ever last year.
As oil prices rose to a record before having their steepest-ever drop, Exxon earned a $45.2 billion in 2008, up from $40.6 billion in 2007. The profit for the full-year came even as Exxon said Friday that its fourth-quarter income fell 33 percent as oil prices declined.
A $45.2 billion profit in a cratering economy? Well, a truly radical left-wing government would seize their profits and use it to help pay for pressing national needs. But, remember, we made the Communist Party effectively illegal in this country and we do not allow even the whiff of debate about such things as the people having an ownership stake in the country’s natural resources (except in Alaska, where it is seen as just fine). I’m no communist, but there is a price to pay when one side of the political spectrum is illegal and the other end is firmly entrenched in power. Whether it is the radical Jacobin-Republicans in Congress or it is Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, the whacko right-wing has influence while the whacko left-wing is so marginalized that it doesn’t even have a face.
