People were rightfully in awe when they heard the number that Microsoft was throwing out there to attempt to purchase Yahoo – $44.6 billion dollars. It certainly makes their huge-at-the-time deal last year to buy aQuantive seem fairly small at only $6 billion. The thought of $40+ billion changing hands is crazy. That’s why it’s kind of shocking to me that more people aren’t really up in arms when they hear Exxon Mobil made over $40 billion dollars in profit last year alone!

Yes, on the same day that was ruled by Microsoft/Yahoo news, Exxon announced they had set new records for both quarterly and yearly profits with $11.66 and $40.61 billion dollars respectively. They made just about $1,300 every second of 2007. This just a year after they set the previous record, $39.5 billion in 2006.

While I certainly respect a companies right to make money in a capitalist society, doesn’t $40.6 billion dollars in profits for one year seem just too much? Especially when gas prices are at the highest they’ve ever been at? When one of the largest companies in the world, News Corp. can’t afford to bid by themselves on Yahoo because their total value is only around $60 billion, a company raking in $40+ billion a year in pure profit just seems a bit extreme to me.

Just as the razorblade manufacturers can get away with charging whatever they want for razorblades (seriously how much do those cost to make?), oil companies can seemingly now afford to charge whatever they want for gasoline because people are not going to stop driving, even with gas approaching $4.00 a gallon in some parts of the country.

I understand several factors play into rising gas prices, but one of the major ones is that we don’t have enough oil refineries in the United States – and that will happen when despite there being millions of more drivers, we haven’t built a new refinery since 1976! Yes, it’s difficult and very costly to build ones nowadays that will appease the EPA, but when you’re making almost $12 billion dollars in profits a quarter – and when specifically you’re making $2.27 billion dollars in profit a quarter on your refining operations alone, I think you can afford to build some new ones.

I think it’s ridiculous that everyone gets all hyped up over a potential $40+ billion dollar deal to purchase the entirety of one of largest Internet companies out there, but no one really bats an eye when another company in a different industry is making that much in profit in a single year.