As an aside to this discussion, why are people not rioting in the streets about the 70% margin that Microsoft makes on most of their products vs. the single-digit margins that most oil companies make???
The banking industry on average rakes in 15-20% margins, so just because it's not a horribly capital-intensive industry, they get a pass and energy companies do not? It doesn't take a fraction of the sunk costs or capital to run the largest bank in the world vs. the largest oil company, so due to the "nature of the beast" the oil companies are labeled "evil"?
Come on, folks. This is BASIC economics here; there's some smoke and mirrors in the mix, but the US consumer is NOT getting arbitrarily gouged at the pump. The CEO of Exxon doesn't have a "screw the consumer" lever at his desk that he pulls when he thinks he should be getting more dinero out of us...
Congress isn't the smartest bunch on the planet, but after a numebr of sessions that eyed the profits that oil companies have made in the past year, you'd think they would have dug up something incriminating, right?
If you want to control the price of gas, write your Congressman and tell him you want curbs put on energy futures...
