What’s Wrong with ExxonMobil? Absolutely Nothing.

This isn’t a political blog so I’m not going to go into detail about the political primary scene taking place across the country. You can read about that elsewhere. But one thing has really struck me about the recent speeches and debates and it has to do with American companies.

Specifically, former Senator John Edwards attacks on ExxonMobil. He keeps saying that it is wrong that ExxonMobil made $40 billion last year. Somehow this is immoral when there are people without health insurance or food in our country and when average Americans can’t pay their rising heating bills. From the Edwards campaign:

“New England families are facing skyrocketing home heating oil and gasoline prices – all to fuel massive profits for Big Oil,” said Edwards. “As home heating oil prices are approaching a record-high, today families in New Hampshire are paying nearly three times as much as they did in 2000 for heating oil. Meanwhile, the top six oil companies have collected over $477 billion in profits over the past six years. Exxon Mobil, for example, earned $40 billion last year, the largest annual corporate profit in history.

$40 billion is such a huge number it’s easy to throw out there in a speech in order to illict a reaction in people.

How dare that evil oil company make all those profits! What is wrong with this country?

Yet- isn’t ExxonMobil’s success exactly what is right with America?

What do we want to have happen to our companies- that they all become like General Motors? Aka, losing money and losing in the fight against the foreign competition?

ExxonMobil is one kick*ss company. Yeah, they’re making gobs of money. But good for them. When crude was at $10 a barrel ten years ago, they were hardly making any profit and were eating into cash reserves. Where were the critics then? Did anyone feel sorry for them then?

It’s not every oil company that is making $40 billion a year. ChevronTexaco isn’t. BP Amoco certainly isn’t. Neither is PetroChina.

What’s wrong with ExxonMobil being #1 in its industry?

And if you want to tax ExxonMobil for its excessive profits then you’d better tax other companies that are making the same. That would include:

1. Microsoft
With at least $18 billion cash on hand and several billion in profits every quarter

2. Cisco
With at least $25 billion cash on hand and several billion in profits every quarter

3. Apple
They have $15 billion cash on hand. They are making money hand over fist right now

4. Hewlett Packard
They have about $14 billion cash on hand. They’ve struggled in recent years but what the heck, let’s tax them too because why do they have all that cash?

5. Berkshire Hathaway
Let’s not forget Warren Buffett. He is sitting on $40 billion in cash. Now THAT’S some cash. His sale of PetroChina stock netted at least $3 billion in profit last year. Why aren’t we taxing that?

You can see how absurd it becomes. Yes, it’s easy to single out the evil oil company. But technology is pretty darn “evil” too (if holding cash and making money is considered “evil.”) And all of this despite Google’s mantra to “do no evil.”

Hey- speaking of which, what about Google?

Their cash hoard is $13 billion and growing. They are making gobs of money every quarter.

When I look at this list I can’t help but think “wow.” That is American ingenuity and success. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s what makes this country great.

ExxonMobil is one of America’s great companies. Someone is going to make profits off of the spiking oil price. It might as well be an American company.

To ExxonMobil: Keep kicking some *ss. I salute you.