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I heard that the "windfall" profits of the recent gas price surge amount to about ten cents a gallon TOTAL profit to the oil company. Their bottom line is about a 9% margin, and that's not much compared to (let's say) a carpet or furniture store.
That's hardly rampant gouging, even if it does translate to a huge pile of money.
To keep that in perspective, the tax on a gallon of gas is about 46 cents (fed, state and all combined). So if you look at it in pure financial terms, the government is getting almost five times more than the oil companies from each gallon - and the governments did NOTHING to find that oil, drill it, transport it, refine it, distribute it or sell it.
So who's the gouger in the oil business? Uncle Sugar, that's who.
Who demands that "Big Oil" further reduce its prices? Who investigates how much these PRIVATE companies are earning? Who regulates every aspect of what they can and cannot do? And who never even mentions the idea of reducing its OWN take from the sale of oil?
Yup, that's who.
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