Did you all see this? The same congressmen who have stood in the way of oil exploration and production in this country railed again on the executives in the oil industry. For apparently the first time, oil execs are fighting back
Profits have been huge “in absolute terms,” conceded J. Stephen Simon… but they “must be viewed in the context of the massive scale of our industry.” And high earnings “in the current up cycle” are needed for investments in the long term, including when profits will be down
“The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work,” said John Hofmeister, chairman of Shell Oil Co., acknowledging it is something the oil industry has been saying for some time and that the explanation may sound “repetitive and uninteresting.”
Bravo! Who would have thought that supply and demand could affect price!? Apparrently, this didn’t sit well with the congressmen who then started leveling personal attacks on the executives themselves… having the audacity to grill them about their personal compensation
Simon was asked what his total compensation was at Exxon, a company that made $40.6 billion last year. Simon replied it was $12.5 million…. Peter Robertson, vice chairman of Chevron Corp. Hofmeister said his was “about $2.2 million” but was not among the top five salaries at his company’s international parent. Robert Malone, chairman of BP America Inc., put his “in excess of $2 million.”
The question therefore arises: how does the payment out of profits have anything to do with how big the profits were? Perhaps congress would have liked to hear a higher figure than 12 mil because that would have meant lower profits for Exxon.??? Sounds reasonable.
You have “just a litany of complaints that you’re all just hapless victims of a system,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the executives. “Yet you rack up record profits … quarter after quarter after quarter.”
O Diane, if you only had a clue about how supply and demand works…. if you only had a clue about what makes america work… if you only had a clue how much better off most americans are when American businesses profit instead of go bankrupt… if you only had a clue.