Thursday, October 27, 2005

"Peak oil" determined to strike inside U.S.: Yet another memo that Bush didn't read

Today is one of those days -- everybody has a conspiracy theory. Lots o' people in the blogosphere speculating that the Miers withdrawal was timed to take the media off the trail of the likely indictments of key White House staffers. We don't agree, but there is actually one story out there that the adminstration doesn't want you to hear. Actually, two stories -- but like everything else with Bushco., it's all connected.

And since they don't want you to hear about it, we'll have to tell you.

It's all about oil.

With all the Miers/Rove/Libby/Wilma clutter, you probably only heard in passing, if at all, that the world's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, announced its third quarter results today. They did pretty good:

NEW YORK, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices.

Record profits for Big Oil at a time when consumers are paying sky-high prices for gasoline have brought calls for a windfall profits tax or other penalties on oil companies.

The companies have been enjoying an unusually rosy environment for months. In the third quarter, oil prices and refining margins rose sharply after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ripped through the Gulf of Mexico, disrupting energy operations in the region.

Exxon Mobil made an extra $4 billion -- give or take -- over last year's third quarter without really lifting a finger. It's because the world oil supply is tight, and traders bid up the price. And so all that extra money came from us, money that we used to spend on, say, dinner or a movie, but now disappears every week at the gas station.

The people who run Exxon Mobil didn't invent a new product, or discover a major oil field, or even come up with a brilliant new marketing scheme. They simple used the basic laws of supply and demand to take billions of dollars of your money and stuffed it into their own pockets