Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Oil companies' reason for being

Woo-hoo. We used to have a "quote of the week" feature here at PWW but gave it up because of space limitations and frequent lack of good punchy quotes. Well, here's one:

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions noted that “the world market for oil is not a free market.”

He also pointed out that oil companies “don’t exist to produce the lowest possible price of fuel for our constituents. They exist to maximize their profits for their shareholders.”


Sessions said this at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where top oil execs had been summoned to explain why they're making exorbitant profits.

For some real insights into why, see here and here.


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2 comments:

Nicole said...

What is the point of those judiciary committees? They don't make the oil execs swear in, they can refuse to answer questions, and there is no outcome. Just a bunch of senators, pretending they have power.
Want to really exercise some legislative muscle? Tax the hell out of them. Or maybe just repeal some of the current corporate welfare laws.

Matt Parker said...

Word up Nicole! At best those committees are a PR stunt, at worst it's just demoralizing.