Economy Failing, Exxon Making Record Profit

trickle-down-joke

Does anyone else think it’s (shameful | criminal | wrong | outrageous) for Exxon to be making record profits (10.7 billion last year) while the economy and the dollar are heading into the toilet?

That’s $1,700 a second, by the way — in profit, not earnings.

This is while the country faces an energy crisis caused by our dependence on oil and everyone with a brain understands that we need to be moving towards renewable energy. I understand free markets and all that good stuff, but this is where I differ with people like Ron Paul.

I have a feeling his answer would be “market regulation”, or something like, “If people don’t like what a company is doing they have the choice to not do business with them.” Lame.

At some point there needs to be incentive for a company to do the right thing, or at least to stop doing the wrong thing, and it may be the case that only a government can offer those incentives (negative or positive) in certain cases when the people have lost the ability to do so.

The FDA comes to mind.

I’m not sure about that position, but it certainly makes sense to me at the moment.

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