They shouldn’t
be outraged because ExxonMobil and other oil companies have a
responsibility to their
employees and shareholders to make a profit and maintain
corporate stability. Oil companies need profits so they can invest
in finding and producing more oil.
Neither do the
media focus on taxes paid by oil companies. Exxon paid $105 billion
in taxes in 2007, Walton said, more than two-and-a-half times as
much as it made in profit.
CNBC’s Jim
Cramer was one of only two journalists to stand up for oil companies
since 2007, pointed out that oil companies have “been through bad
times and now this is just a great time for them. I don’t hold it
against them.”
And the media
don’t look at profits versus expenditures in context. Over the last
25 years, ExxonMobil, for one, has reported profits of $331 billion.
It has invested $355 billion back into its business over the same
time period, according to spokesman Gantt Walton.
“We’ve
invested more in the business than we’ve earned,” Walton said.
clipped from: www.businessandmedia.org