Quoted from JoAnn

Sounds like the Exxon Mobil executives have made their money. I will not and have not purchased gas from Mobil in over 6 months.

Quoted from Kevin March

I probably own some that I don't know about.  I have a 401K, and I hope that it's strong into these companies.  I have recently changed my mind on my feelings towards Exxon Mobil.  They have a product people want.  They've found the (current) price that people will pay.  It's all economics.

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Dear Fellow Conservative,
Do you know which special interest has given more money to the Obama and Clinton campaigns than any other?
If you guessed "trial lawyers" -- well, okay, that's too easy. But can you guess which special interest came in second?
Labor unions? Nope. The Green Lobby? Nope. AARP? Wrong, again. NEA? Nyet.
Give up? Okay, here's the answer: Wall Street.
That's right. According to CNNMoney.com, Wall Street securities and investment firms have given over $35 million to Democratic candidates this election cycle. And the amount they've given to the Clinton and Obama campaigns is nearly five times the amount they've given to McCain.
If you've been wondering why the financial industry has been in meltdown -- and taking your 401(k) or investment portfolio down with it -- now you know.
Let's face it: The former frat boys who populate Wall Street today understand economics about as well as the pinko professors whose courses they snored through.
That's why betting their entire industry on "subprime" loans to people with no jobs and no collateral made sense to them -- and why betting the entire U.S. economy on the likes of Hillary and Obama makes sense to them now.
These jokers don't even know what's in their own self-interest, much less yours. Trusting them with your money is like trusting Bill Clinton to babysit your underage niece.

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Why are taxpayers the only ones having to make sacrifices?

    I found Norman Perazzo’s June 8 article, “Changing the way you live,” very interesting. The points about National Grid’s billing, traffic lights that exacerbate congestion and pollution rather than alleviating them, and other ideas of dealing with energy issues on a large scale are quite reasonable. I admire his efforts to make lifestyle changes that will help him, us and the environment.
    There is a point that many people seem to be ignoring: While oil companies are seeing profits of tens of billion of dollars, consumers are being told to tighten their belts and make lifestyle changes similar to Mr. Perazzo’s.
    Does anyone see something amiss? The whole point of developing new technologies is to provide a more comfortable way of life for everybody. Oil companies aren’t investing huge amounts of their profits to develop alternative energy sources for the day the oil runs out — they are making it while they can and leaving the future to those who will live in it. Speculators in the stock market are driving up oil prices — they can smell the riches to be made. The oil supply has not suddenly dwindled from last year; imports are nearly the same. So, who is using all this oil and creating a shortage that is driving up prices at an incredible rate?
    Is anybody (who doesn’t own oil shares) living better than a year ago? Of course not. The economy is battered and nobody in government seems to have a coherent solution. But consumers are paying more for everything, can’t afford to buy as much as last year and are being given tips about conserving, giving up some of the better living we’ve gained over the centuries.
    Has President Bush refused his salary, to make a token contribution? How about Congress or the states’ governors? Who has given anything up? Taxpayers!
    I’m forced to join with Mr. Perazzo in finding ways to conserve because it’s costing so much more for everything. I resent doing so, because I pay people (public servants) to find solutions and because I see people becoming wealthy from the very cause of my difficulties.
    Mr. Perazzo, and other readers, join with me in urging, no, requiring our representatives to find real solutions. They are accepting our money and (I’m sure) not compromising their lifestyles; let’s make them earn their salaries. Oh, and don’t forget this is an election year — let them hear our voices!
    DAVID MEARNS
    Glenville     

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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
What to do when the oil runs out?
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

    If I understand geology correctly the oil that gets pumped out of the earth comes from vegetation that rotted millions of years ago, and no more of it is being created.
    If I understand economic propaganda correctly, whether from oil companies or environmentalists, there might be a lot of oil still pooled away just waiting to be discovered, or there might be not much at all, but in any case the supply is finite. One day, sooner or later, it will be gone. Or it will be so scant and so hard to get at that it might as well be gone.
    Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer, has maybe 80 years worth left. Canada, the second largest producer, has maybe 150. Mexico, the sixth largest producer, has maybe 10.
    So you would think the world would be in a lather to find some other way of powering our industry, our airplanes and our automobiles, just so we can make an orderly transition and not find ourselves in an absolute crisis 10 or 50 or 100 years from now.
    But you would be wrong. What got us where we are, after all, is thinking short-term, no farther ahead than the next harvest, the next rut or, in modern terms, the next quarter.
    As an example, I offer you the bill that was just blocked by the Republicans in Congress. Not the bill that you heard so much about, which would have imposed a so-called “windfall” tax on the recent huge profits of oil companies, but the other one, the one that would have extended tax breaks for companies that develop alternative sources of energy, like wind and solar.
    Yes, the same Republicans who blocked the windfall-profits tax also blocked tax breaks for the development of alternatives to oil.
    I don’t know why. Maybe because they are starry-eyed about oil companies like Exxon Mobil, which made an $11 billion profit in the fi rst quarter of this year, and figure it would be unpatriotic to promote anything but more of what those companies already do.
    Even the windfall-profit taxes wouldn’t have been absolute, let’s remember. Companies could have avoided them by investing some of their stupendous profits in the development of alternative energy sources, but Republicans wouldn’t hear of that either.
    There is something unmanly, it seems, about windmills and such. Remember, one of the first acts of Ronald Reagan as president was to remove the solar panels from the White House. He was not going to live like some lotus-eating New Ager even if his wife did have regular consultations with an astrologer. What would be next — Birkenstock sandals?
    So no sappy alternatives. “We need to allow domestic oil production in environmentally sensitive ways,” the White House declared in response to these recently proposed bills, which, if you’re up on Republican code, meant, we need to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
    So what is supposed to happen when the oil wells do eventually run dry? I have no idea. Presumably the people who run Exxon Mobil will think of some other way to make $11 billion a quarter.
    The term “windfall taxes,” by the way, is a media construct. What Democrats in Congress proposed was a tax on “unreasonable” profits, and that was clearly not a good idea, since to free marketers there is no such thing as unreasonable profits.
    As for the underlying question of whether such a tax would have depressed the production of oil, as Republicans claimed, citing the experience of a similar tax imposed in 1980, I am not the one to decide. The dismal science, as Thomas Carlyle called economics, has always been a dark and gloomy area to me.

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The Saudis are concerned that sustained high oil prices will eventually slacken the world's appetite for oil, affecting them in the long run.

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Why are taxpayers the only ones having to make sacrifices?

    I found Norman Perazzo’s June 8 article, “Changing the way you live,” very interesting. The points about National Grid’s billing, traffic lights that exacerbate congestion and pollution rather than alleviating them, and other ideas of dealing with energy issues on a large scale are quite reasonable. I admire his efforts to make lifestyle changes that will help him, us and the environment.
    There is a point that many people seem to be ignoring: While oil companies are seeing profits of tens of billion of dollars, consumers are being told to tighten their belts and make lifestyle changes similar to Mr. Perazzo’s.
    Does anyone see something amiss? The whole point of developing new technologies is to provide a more comfortable way of life for everybody. Oil companies aren’t investing huge amounts of their profits to develop alternative energy sources for the day the oil runs out — they are making it while they can and leaving the future to those who will live in it. Speculators in the stock market are driving up oil prices — they can smell the riches to be made. The oil supply has not suddenly dwindled from last year; imports are nearly the same. So, who is using all this oil and creating a shortage that is driving up prices at an incredible rate?
    Is anybody (who doesn’t own oil shares) living better than a year ago? Of course not. The economy is battered and nobody in government seems to have a coherent solution. But consumers are paying more for everything, can’t afford to buy as much as last year and are being given tips about conserving, giving up some of the better living we’ve gained over the centuries.
    Has President Bush refused his salary, to make a token contribution? How about Congress or the states’ governors? Who has given anything up? Taxpayers!
    I’m forced to join with Mr. Perazzo in finding ways to conserve because it’s costing so much more for everything. I resent doing so, because I pay people (public servants) to find solutions and because I see people becoming wealthy from the very cause of my difficulties.
    Mr. Perazzo, and other readers, join with me in urging, no, requiring our representatives to find real solutions. They are accepting our money and (I’m sure) not compromising their lifestyles; let’s make them earn their salaries. Oh, and don’t forget this is an election year — let them hear our voices!
    DAVID MEARNS
    Glenville    

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Saudis to hike output of oil Boost of 200,000 barrels a day slated
The Associated Press

    RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200,000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom’s oil minister told U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, according to Ban’s spokesman.
    The U.N. secretary-general met with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi in the port city of Jiddah during a one-day trip to the world’s largest oil producer.
    Farhan Haq, a spokesman who is traveling with Ban, said in an e-mail that the U.N. chief said al-Naimi told him Saudi Arabia would increase oil production by 200,000 barrels a day from June to July. In May, the kingdom increased its production by 300,000.
    By July, production should be at 9.7 million barrels a day, Haq said.
    Ban also said Saudi Arabia understands that the current price of oil, which topped $139 per barrel earlier this month, is not normal, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.
    “The king believes that the current oil prices are abnormally high, and he is ready to restore prices to their appropriate levels,” SPA quoted Ban as telling reporters in Jiddah. The report carried by SPA was in Arabic, and it did not say what language Ban spoke in.
    Saudi Arabia is concerned that sustained high oil prices will eventually slacken the world’s appetite for oil, affecting the kingdom in the long run.
    The 200,000-barrel-a-day boost is not insignificant — it will raise Saudi Arabia’s daily production by about 2 percent. But to a market that has been sending oil prices soaring to record heights due in part to strong global demand, the move might be seen as marginal.
    The oil market largely ignored Saudi Ara- bia’s 300,000-barrel-a-day output increase last month.
    In electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange late Sunday, crude oil futures were down 54 cents at $134.32 a barrel.
    The kingdom has called for a meeting of oil producing and consuming countries on June 22 in Jiddah to discuss ways of dealing with soaring energy prices.
    The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing unnamed analysts and oil traders briefed by Saudi officials, that a production increase of about 500,000 barrels per day was to be announced following the meeting.
    On Saturday, al-Naim’s adviser told The Associated Press that the minister would address the production increase reports the next day. But on Sunday, the adviser, Ibrahim al-Muhanna, said there was no meeting to address the reports scheduled.
    Further attempts to reach al-Muhanna by phone later Sunday went unanswered.