While looking for some pictures of our current house (which is for sale, by the way, and a great deal - bbcostarica.com ) I came across a breakdown of some of the things that ExxxonMobil has been up to this year. Here's a little chart showing various oil companies' lobbying efforts from 1998-2005. That's a lot of money to spend on just trying to convince congress to pass laws in your favor. Seems like a good investment for them, according to this site, the oil industry receives about $113 billion dollars in subsidies every year. Whoa, that's a big number.
302,655,254 That's another big number. It represents the value on the Population Clock of the US Census bureau on the 20th of August, 2007 at about 3pm (gmt -06:00).
Based on those two numbers, it appears that the Oil and Gas industry receives somewhere around $375 per year from EVERY single person in the USA. That's in addition to the money that they receive at the pump and elsewhere.
Where does that subsidy money go? Well.... Exxon Mobil did post a $39.5 billion profit in 2006. That's the most profit EVER made by ANY US corporation. Ever. That's over $75,000 every MINUTE of every day for 2006. Yep, even while they sleep. Can you imagine? To put this into another perspective, we all "know" that Bill Gates is filthy rich, right? Well, the total amount of money represented by Bill Gates' stock holding at Microsoft as of 20 August 2007 are..... $24 Billion. Yup. Good old Bill's total net worth is pretty close to half of what Exxon made in profit in 2006. One year.

Now, don't get me wrong. I use fuel. I like using it. I drive a big, heavy SUV. I'm guilty, to some extent, of the rampant excess of petroleum use in the world. But something strikes me as funny. Not "ha, ha!" funny, but more like the smell in the car that was parked in the sun all month with somebodies food under the seat "that's a funny smell" funny. The thing that seems funny to me is that despite the fact we have spent over $450 Billion on a war that is certainly related to oil in some way, the government on of the USA is also shelling out over $375 per person to oil companies in subsidies. Why?!?!? What the heck is happening here folks? Airlines.... Ok, I get it, they are all declaring bankruptcy all over the place. Banks? Maybe, if they need it, to prevent us all from losing our life savings. Hospitals? Sure! Who is against hospitals?
But for crying out loud, they are GIVING free money to the industry dominated by the most profitable company that has ever existed in the history of the USA!!

I wish I could wrap this little rant up with some sage advice on how we can all make it all better. I can't. All I can do is suggest that next time you fill up the tank and it hurts, you might consider alternatives. You might consider a bicycle. You might consider carpooling. Or, perhaps, you might consider driving over to Shell, where they have invested $1.5 Billion into alternative fuels since 1999*. You might drive over to BP, where they have invested $500 million into Solar Power and have formed BP Alternative Energy with an $8 Billion budget over the next 10 years.
Personally, I prefer my fuel dollar to go towards companies investing in the future instead of going into pushing their profit margin even higher into the stratosphere.

*Some Exxon facts