Consumer spending up but much of gain reflects higher prices

Why does everyone refuse to discuss that oil company revenues are contributing to economic slump in a huge way?

From CNN 4/30 -- Shell's Hofmeister

ROBERTS: Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to slap you with a 50 percent tax on what she calls windfall profit, profit above a certain level. Is that a good idea?

HOFMEISTER: Look at our revenues and our income for the last quarter. If we had made $7.8 million on $114 million of revenue, nobody would call that excessive, because that's 7½ percent. We made $7.8 billion profit on $114 billion revenue -- same 7½ percent. So to me that is not an excessive number when banks and pharmaceuticals and IT companies earn a whole lot more.

Hofmeister's right. 7.5% profit is not excessive but this is such a contrived answer. I do not understand why the interviewer let him get away with it. The amount of profit is not the problem. It's the amount of revenue the oil companies are raking in.

I don't understand why the airlines don't go to Congress and demand intervention.

I don't understand why the automakers don't do the same (although having made their own bed they hardly have the right to complain).

I don't understand why the trucking companies don't yell bloody murder, or the grocery stores, or the big home improvement firms whose sales are way down, and the list goes on and on.

Are we all going to sit like bumps on a log and let the oil companies ruin our way of life?

Oh! I forgot to mention -- Hofmeister is retiring later this year. I guess maybe he finally actually made enough money to be satisfied. You think?

I do think we need to start weaning ourselves off oil and look to viable alternative energy sources.

I agree Shaun...it's something we should have started a long time ago. I think part of the problem is the oil companies do have some politicians in the pockets. We waste so much, no one thinks about being frugal. I hate waste, to me, it seems pointless, why not just take some cash and put it through the shredded?

Until we stand up, put our foot down and say "no more," the prices on everything will continue to rise. We're seeing companies like Sharper Image and LNT filing for bankruptcy protection, so perhaps this is a sign that people are starting to be a little smarter about how and where to spend their hard earned $$.

I don't really think there's a viable reason oil prices rise every single day, but if people pay them, the oil companies will continue to increase them. The fact that the oil companies are showing record profits, while people are losing their jobs and homes, should be a major concern to our government, and while the government appears to be putting some kind of effort into finding an answer to their record profits, I don't believe it's sincere, but more that it's to say to us "Look, we're looking it it for you."

TAB~