My Permian reflections after spending a week in Midland, Texas. First Quarter 2022 net profits of Exxon Mobile $5.5 billion. First Quarter 2022 net profits of Apple $25.0 billion. Big Tech leads Big Oil in net profits. Go research for your self to check me on this one. Inflation spreads across every sector of our economy. Apple has the ability to reduce prices on its products tomorrow and still earn massive profits. Same with Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon. I’m no lackey for Big Oil but Exxon Mobile and the others are still subject to global oil market prices. All of them are reporting increased production investments as well as bringing back Pandemic idled refining capacity. It will take a year for these investments to begin to have an impact on supply and prices. One last rant here - suspending the federal gas tax is a stupid idea that will give consumers about $2.40 cents relief on a $75.00 fill up while robbing transportation of needed funds for aging infrastructure. As a former member of my state’s Transportation Commission, I will tell you that robbing Peter to pay Paul robs every state of desperately needed funding just for maintenance and upkeep. Increased fuel efficiency in our vehicles has drastically reduced revenue. I’m typical here - my 2019 Honda CRV gets 30 mpg. Ten years ago not near 30 mpg. Rant over. Fire away.
