As promised I knew it was only a matter of time before someone would be railing against the Oil Companies again. Lo and behold it is our own Governor! (link)

Today Doyle is outraged because he read a report (link) generated by his Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) that states, “Staff analysis of oil company financial statements indicate that the five major oil companies earned $113.33 billion in 2006” and that “These excessive profits are more than the top four companies in the pharmaceutical, retailer, and industrial/agriculture combined.”

So Doyle is calling for the federal government to repeal the “big tax breaks” that the oil companies get (see my last blog about profits and taxes of oil companies here) and “to cap oil company profits and to force the oil companies to provide a refund to the American people from the windfall they have reaped since Hurricane Katrina.”

DATCP talks about the net income (profit) but never mentions the profit margin. For those of you that are not very business savvy, Profit Margin is an indicator of a businesses ability to control their costs. If Oil Companies were really out to hurt the consumers then you would see that their profit margins would be HUGE but that is not the case. In fact Microsoft and Coca-Cola have a substatially higher profit margin but no one is calling for them to reduce their prices!! (link)

Here is the Chart DATCP is boasting:



Here is a graph of the Profit Margins of the companies they looked at when they “analyzed” the oil company’s profits.


Ultimately what this boils down to is that we are heavily dependant on oil…the more we buy the more these companies make. End of story.

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