JUSIPER
Profiting from the Bush years
I guess Someone has to:
Exxon Mobil Corporation said today that its 2005 earnings totaled $36.13 billion, an increase of 42 percent from the previous year. The amount is the largest annual profit ever for an American company. [...]
The fourth-quarter performance capped a record year for oil companies driven by a surge in crude oil and gas prices. Crude oil prices rose 40 percent last year, driven by rapidly rising demand from economically rising countries like China and India and production problems in oil-producing countries like Nigeria and Iraq.
Comments (2):
The public benefits when a company profits. What's the alternative? Losses and layoffs? Anyone with an indexed mutual fund (tens of millions) will benenfit from Exxon's stock rising.
You can't have it both ways.
By 
CathedralLawn, at
11:04 AM
CathedralLawn, it's hard to count the number of straw men in your argument. I will limit myself, therefore, only to your first sentence.
1. If by "public" you mean shareholders, it's worth noting that shareholders need not belong to the country a company pretends to be based in.
2. The American "public" is, indeed, composed of many shareholders, but a good half of the nation owns no shares in anything.
3. Even shareholders need not benefit when a company profits. American oil companies benefit greatly from our dependence on foreign oil, but our troops do not. But then, I suppose few troops can afford to be part of the shareholder "public."
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