Ben Stein wonders why anyone would be "angry" at oil companies for making money for a change. Case in point: Exxon-Mobil.
Are we angry at them for high oil profits? If so, why? All they are doing is providing us with our energy and our heat and our locomotion as well as they can at reasonable pay.I have spent some time in this space talking about executives who reap millions from their companies while their employees suffer. That is not the case at oil companies, or at least not at Exxon Mobil. Its executives pay employees decently, take care of their medical bills even in retirement and do not drain hundreds of millions of dollars out of employee pay to make themselves rich. If the executives of Exxon Mobil become rich (and some do), they do it through long years of making the company profitable, not through vampirizing their employees.
Are we angry, then, at the owners of the oil companies? Maybe, but then it's self-hatred. Roughly 41 percent of Exxon Mobil stock is owned by retirement funds, private, public (federal, state and local) and individual retirement accounts. In other words, by us.
It is demonstrable that many retirement funds hold a great deal of oil stocks, including Exxon Mobil. Of the other owners, the largest holdings by far are at mutual funds and exchange-traded funds — generally vehicles for middle-class investors and retirees.
No individuals own more than 1 percent of the stock, and the largest single personal holding, representing far less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the company, is owned by Lee R. Raymond, the retired chief executive, who took the company through some very rough sailing to arrive at its present, fairly secure position.
One of the largest holders is the College Retirement Equities Fund, for higher-education teachers and others. Are we angry at them? If teachers get a bigger retirement because oil company profits are up, are we sad?
So, when gasoline and heating oil prices go up — prices that are set by the markets, not in the Exxon Mobil boardroom in Irving, Tex. — why are we angry at the schoolteachers and retired police officers who own Exxon Mobil and who can now buy new golf clubs?
The answer is obvious: it's about pandering politics and the need for a public whipping boy.
Posted by Alan at March 4, 2006 10:32 AM