Oil Company Profits
Jul 31st, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
Amoung all the news about record proffits for the oil companies, let us remember that they are nothing compared to those made by banks and pharmaceutical companies when speaking in terms of profit per dollar of sale. Banks lead the way, thanks mostly due to overly high fees, and double fees (out of network fees charged by both banks), followed closely by the drug companies. You then have a long gap where you hit major software & services companies, then another large gap, household/personal products and real estate, then energy companies.
Now the fact they are that far behind the others doesn’t excuse the profits. Part of the reason they are so far behind others is there are often times periods where they make no where near the kind of money they did last quarter. Still, to hit as high of profits as they did does get on the verge of inexcusable.
So talk now in Washington is to pass a windfall tax against the oil companies. Which would almost be fine, except nobody is talking about charging banks or drug companies windfall taxes. Heck, in the case of drug companies there are people who want to give the drug companies billions in tax dollars. And why not? They sell one antinausea pill for $300 a pill to chemotherapy patients… never mind there is a far more effective and natural solution that would cost less then that a month, of course that solution is illegal in order to protect drug company profits.
So the question then becomes, why are oil companies considered so evil in Washington and drug companies so good when the profit earned per dollar is so much higher for dug companies?
