Exxon has set another record for profitability, with $45.2 billion in 2008, up from $40.6 billion in 2007. As prices fell in the fourth quarter, however, Exxon’s income fell 33 percent. [NYT]
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You know, if Exxon simply decided to lower the price of their gas to 75 cents/gallon, they would have earned like $40 billion instead of $45 billion. Greedy bastards.
@techstar25: Since Exxon is trying to reduce the number of gas stations that it owns to zero that wouldn’t do much. Besides, they make a majority of their profit upstream, not downstream.
Hey I want some of that! No, I won’t buy their stock or work for them in order to get it. Gimme!
Fun fact: ExxonMobil is one of only four companies to have a worse image to consumers than Comcast.
WORSE THAN COMCAST!
@Parapraxis:
Only because people are dumb.
Never had and exon gas failure, if I put it in my car it works, works so well, I dont think people have to call CS all the time.
Is amazing they can provide billions of gallons of gas, from tens of thosands of miles. Yet Comcast cant provide cable for more then ~50miles.
Sigh. Is this a surprise? They process and sell the world’s most desirable product. Demand has been increasing for the last decade. Of course they’re going to make more profit. Maybe if we built more than one refinery every 30 years, we’d have a greater supply of refined oil and prices would go down.
Company deals in record volume, has record profits. In more news, people surprised by found “dumb” by scientific study, while people upset by this news found to have a disturbing amount of entitlement.
Hey, my XOM stock is up! Yay for the 401K and mutual fund.
My best friend works for Exxon and I almost went to work there as well. I just couldn’t do it due to my own personal ethics and feelings about “Big Oil.” What’s fun is to hear his propaganda about how they really don’t make money from gasoline and are one of the biggest investors in alternate fuel technologies etc etc…
It’s fun.
Before the apologists start mentioning the sliver of the distribution take that oil companies receive, keep in mind that the bulk of the expense (and profit) comes from exploration and extraction, around 60%. And who takes a lion’s share of the that? Exxon.
Didn’t someone somewhere suggest that it be left to the oil companies bailout the auto industry?
@LostAngeles: Huh. There’s a good idea.
Large American corporation makes record profits selling a consumer commodity that is high in demand worldwide? Great job! Stockholders should enjoy the dividends. Keep up the good work!
and i hope exxon continues to do good, my work’s retirement plan invests heavily into exxon
They also paid $120 Billion in taxes last year. But no one is screaming that the Govt. should cut taxes to help the consumer.
I started working at Exxon in the last year, as a contractor. There is a lot of garbage that goes on there, just like most huge companies/the government, and there are a lot of people working there who couldn’t hold a job at a fast food restaurant otherwise, and Exxon does feed those people a LOT of propaganda.
On the other hand, they pay their people very well, the benefits are very good, and the working conditions are not bad at all. And yes, the main focus of the business right now is exploration and chemicals and cleaner fuels. They’re not stupid – they know that that’s where the money is going to be. There’s not much actual profit in retail gasoline sales.