Do the math

Today’s math lesson comes to us, courtesty of Daniel Froomkin at Huffington Post. As he points out:

The Big Five oil companies this week announced they had made a whopping $36 billion in profits in the second quarter of 2011.

Here’s the second-quarter profit tally:

  • ExxonMobil, $10.7 billion
  • Shell, $8.7 billion
  • Chevron, $7.7 billion
  • BP, $5.6 billion
  • Conoco Philips, $3.4 billion

These are astonishing numbers when you consider that our economy is locked in a massive stall — and it should make the folks realize that budget reform is possible and that it can come without shredding the programs and services that the poor and middle class have come to rely on.

 

What do these obscene profits have to do with the deficit discussions currently paralyzing Washington? The oil industry gets “$4 billion to $8 billion a year in deficit-increasing tax subsidies” that remain in place, as Froomkin says, “the incentives those subsidies were designed to create ceased to make economic sense.”

 

The subsidies should end — and could, given their profits, without much pain to the oil industry.

 

But that would be bad form, right, given the amount the industry spends on the political process. I mean, if you pay to get a politician elected you have every right to expect him to do your bidding. Right?

 

 

 
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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

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