2443 What profits and price gouging?

You can read the whole piece over at Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog, as reported by Peyton Knight, and this actually records a higher amount for profits than I've seen at other sites--9.7 cents per dollar of sales:

According to Ken Cohen, vice president of ExxonMobil, ". . . in the first quarter of 2006, ExxonMobil made $8.4 billion in total profits. Profits in the U.S. accounted for $2.3 billion of that total. And what did ExxonMobil pay in total government taxes in the U.S. in this first quarter? $3.7 billion. The company paid $1.4 billion more in taxes than it took in profits.

In fact, Mr. Cohen says, from 2001 to 2005, ExxonMobil's total U.S. tax bill was $57.1 billion, and its total earnings in the country were $34.9 billion. This means that over the most recent five-year period, the company paid $22.2 billion more in taxes than it earned in profits.

In 2005, he says, ExxonMobil earned 9.7 cents per dollar of sales in the U.S. To put this in perspective, he notes that pharmaceutical companies earned 17.6 cents per dollar, banks earned 19.1 cents, and household and personal products firms earned 10.9 cents.

"We are the most heavily regulated industry in the country," said Cohen. "The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has a special branch that does nothing but regulate energy companies."

"With regard to the current climate," he noted, "We are in an election year and it appears that the candidates are more interested in running against us than running against an opponent."

When asked about his thoughts on a possible "windfall profits tax" on the oil industry, Cohen points out that "there is a history we can refer people to... it's been tried before... it really impacted citizens in the country negatively, and did not have the desired impact."

Full account here.