Thursday, November 10, 2005

Keeping It In Perspective

A lot has been made of the $9.9 billion profit Exxon reported for the third quarter of 2005. That certainly seems like an outrageous amount, and someone has to be held responsible for it.

Exxon is the largest corporation in the world in terms of revenue. In that same three months it took in a total of $100 billion. Translation: Their profit for every dollar of revenue was less than a dime. By comparison, Citigroup Inc. (a financial services company) made 15.7 cents on the dollar last year. Altria Group, which manufactures Marlboro cigarettes, made 22 cents for every dollar it took in. And pharmaceutical giant Merck's profit was over 25 cents on the dollar.

Even more stunning: In 2004 Exxon was ranked number 157 on the Fortune 500's list of the most profitable companies.

Exxon has the world's consumers by the doo-dads, and the best it can do is #157?!?!?

Yes, that $9.8 billion is an outrage: Outrageously low! Someone should be fired for it.


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