Since I’ve talked about it before, a number of times, here’s the latest:
Guess what company showed a record profit for 2008, despite the economy, despite the bank crash in the forth quarter, despite the decline in gas prices in the second half (and especially the fourth quarter). Go on, guess.
Yes, that’s right! It’s Exxon Mobil, and it wasn’t a very hard question.
Despite collapsing oil prices in recent months, Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, still managed to set a record for last year as the most profitable American corporation ever.Exxon earned $45.2 billion in 2008, beating the record it set in 2007 for most profitable corporation, at $40.6 billion. That came despite a fourth quarter in which income fell 33 percent, owing to the steepest drop ever in oil prices, as the economy went into a tailspin.
I just feel ill. I should create a new category, “UnmitigatedGreed”.
3 comments:
"UnmitigatedGreed".
aka
"Free Market Capitalism".
I was working for Celanese Chemical Company in 1978, and attending SMU B School. I remember a discussion with some other grad students and and a professor on the unassailable business position of IBM. Profits, market share, everything was rolling IBM's way. I believe the term we used back then was Juggernaut. Seven years later, I was working for a little company named Intel in their Fishkill, NY, selling processors to IBM purchasing and spending lots of time in Sommers NY, Austin TX and Rochester MN.
The point of my post? Things change. Just give it time. Exxon looks good today. In time, they'll be the goat. Most of all, it's not really evil, just looks that way at the moment.
Slightly off topic but "Unmitigated Greed" would be a pretty good name for a band. And yeah.. big surprise.
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