mind-boggling, ain't it?

i logged on just to write a quick email to my friend ted, who lives in princeton, to ask him about the best method for transfering money back home (from UK to US). a couple years ago he was just launching a company to help folks repatriate dough back to their families, their homeland. i haven't spoken with ted in a long time, so don't actually know how he got on with his business venture. i was a little skeptical, as he was talking about going up against western union... but i'll tell you: that man teddy rock is truly amazing, so ya never know.....

but i got sucked into the news, as my home page is nytimes.com.

tonight's news is typically grim: bombings in the middle east. picture of a (presumably) dead man, lying bloody on the front page.

judith miller, a times reporter for 28 years, leaves the paper after a row with her editors, publishers, congress, and seemingly everyone else.

and a headline that really got my goat:

Oil Executives Defend Profits Before a Critical Congress (link will probably be good for a week, then the Times will likely archive it and charge you to read it.)

here is a picture of some of the chief execs testifying before congress:





what REALLY astounded me was that exxon's profits alone were nearly $10 BILLION!! that's almost as big as the entire music industry...! and this at a time when the nation has been reeling and recovering from the hurricane. as the times says: exxon's chief, lee raymond (looking just a shade too smug), noted that their "industry's profits measured as a percent of revenue were no greater than other industries." (shouldn't it be "...were no greater than other industry's"?)

"We are in line with the average of all U.S. industry," he said. "Our numbers are huge because the scale of our industry is huge. How are these earnings used? We invest to run our global operations, to develop future supply, to advance energy-producing and saving technologies, and to meet our obligations to millions of our shareholders."

admittedly, i am woefully out of touch with figures for the profits of US companies as measured as a percent of revenue. but i find raymond's assertion as hard to swallow as one of those evil 63 white sausages that poor Catalina Sandino Moreno had to stomach in "maria full of grace" (a rather disturbing but very moving film).

the times article also states that "There has not been a new refinery built in the United States since 1976." holy crap. add to this the fact that gas (um, petrol) was over $3/gallon, and it's not hard to see why profits were so mind-bogglingly high.

makes it really hard not to invest in mutual funds that don't invest in oil co's.

at least some of the senators are doing their bit to question these corporate dudes (who between their salaries, bonuses and stock awards are raking in millions), and making some recommendations as to how the system could create a measure of fairness for consumers.