A couple of years ago, the CEO of Exxon was given a 400 million dollar retirement package (you know, just like the one we're all looking forward to at retirement). Quarterly since that time, the oil giants (real giants, unlike their automotive counterparts) have amassed record-breaking profits, with each new quarterly report touting an even more obscene figure than the last.
Now if the oil companies are making 50 or 60 billion dollars in profit every three months, why don't their friends at GM, Ford and Cerberus (you may remember them as Chrysler), go to them for an assist? I mean why destroy the wonderful symbiotic relationship they've had up to now by dragging that baneful ol' government into it?
I know we're talking bloated multinational corporate entities, but surely someone in the oil companies, perhaps even a present CEO who's counting the hours until they shovel money at him for his retirement, has some ember, some spark of gratitude for their fellow corporatistes. He must reflect on how those billions of dollars in profits were made, thanks in large part, to an industry which fought any increase in fuel efficiency with the same tenacity and ferocity the Texans employed against Santa Anna at the Alamo.
Surely his heart would warm to the nearly bankrupt purveyors of the internal combustion engine, a device essentially unchanged since its invention at the end of the 19th century. Even now, the old pals in Detroit are trying to ingratiate themselves by making an essentially electric car which will still have to be tethred to the ol' gas pump from time to time. Now that's loyalty.
So come on Exxon! Wake up, Mobil! Aux armes BP! Grab anything that will hold water and bail!
No comments:
Post a Comment