If Oil Companies Were Non Profit Corporations

Could Gas Be Significantly Reduced If Oil Companies Were Required To Be Non Profit Corporations?

Annual U.S. Oil Company profits currently run about $84 billion per year. Yeah, profit. Imagine that, a company in the U. S. that's profitable. Yet, the U. S. Government continues to give these profitable oil companies $30 billion in subsidies. Supposedly these subsidies are to be directed into alternate energy projects. Let's do some math. U. S. consumption gasoline alone is 388.6 million gallons/day, or a whopping 141.8 trillion gallons per year. At $3.30 per gallon, this level of consumption gives the oil companies gross annual revenues of approximately $468 trillion. Interestingly enough, 84 billion [ whici is actually .084 trillion] divided by 468 trillion gives the poor oil companies their $82 billion profit at a meager .0002% profit margin. Ahhhhh.

So, what if oil companies were required to be Non Profit companies? Well, unknown to most is the fact that any profit made by non profit corporations gets dumped in the form of executive director salaries. So much for the noble charities we seem to idolize when we hear those magic words "non profit". They are actually "diverted profit" corporations.

I remember reading once that if an individual had $1 billion dollars that he would not be able to spend it. It would acrue interest faster than it could be spent. Imagine what that $82 billion per year per year is doing. No, that is not a typo... 82 billion/year/year. That is how interest compound.

Nw consider that Exxon Oil's Chairman Lee Raymond just got a retirement package worth nearly $400 million for being a long term advocate for their profits. In a way, this is pretty consistent with non profit "profit dumps" but with the exception that the U. S. public doesn't get to write off fuel cost as a charitable expense.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future