Envy and Oil Profits

The recent profits by the oil industry has created a hue and cry to tax "excess profits". This is and example of envy, one of the seven deadly sins. Envy interferes with the flow of justice and rational action. When someone is on trial for a crime the jury is influenced by their feelings of envy or sympathy for the defendant. These emotions are always affecting the jury in all of us as we go about our daily lives. We seldom make rational decisions because of emotions.

If one desires to be in a position of wealth and power that will make one envied, then that person should become unknown. If they must be known, they should be very humble.

I am retired and living on a fixed income. In January 2001 I bought shares of Chevron Oil because it had a history of raising dividends, which would help me fight inflation. Two years later I sold the stock at a loss. I now own Conoco Phillips for the same reason. I have made some money on Conoco because of the profits. Now you want to take some of my profits and pay for a war I was against. A war which has seen the price of oil go from $30 at the beginning of the war to the doubled prices of today. Iraq today produces less oil than at the start of the war.

High oil prices will cause less driving. Less driving means fewer highway injuries and fatalities (and better profits for auto insurance companies). It also means less pollution. Higher oil prices will mean alternate fuels can become competitive with oil. Higher oil prices means less driving for the poor, but they will choose to buy fuel instead of cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets, or they will move to locations where they can take government transportation, or they will car pool. If oil prices stay high I suspect some of the hundred pound people will stop driving three thousand pound SUVs twenty miles to go shopping. High oil prices means millions of people who own shares in the oil industry companies will become better off. In a free market high oil prices means more people searching for more oil. I realize the oil industry is regulated so much and receives favorable tax treatments so it, and no other industry, operates in a pure free market in the United States.

Profits are a good thing for people like me who risk their capital for a better material life. To improve our lives is not just the pursuit of material things, it is a spiritual quest for a better life.



Bilbo Baggins