All The World's A Stage

Open Letter to the Exxon Mobil Corp Board Of Directors,

I see you posted a 36.13 billion dollar profit for the year. I'm so relieved. I'm given to understand your profit is the money you have left after all your employees and vendors are paid. I'm also told you're going to buy back some of your own stock to raise it's value. $5 billion dollars worth just this quarter. That's admirable, and I'm sure my 401K appreciates it.

I also took note of this, "The company and its peers have come under fire for posting billions in profit while consumers struggle with high gasoline prices. Exxon was quick to emphasize that such results would help it make long-term investments to meet energy demand."

And while I appeciate that, I really do, I'm having some financial concerns right now myself, caused in part by the wonderful marketplace lifting oil prices and giving you such a windfall of profit.

So, I have thought of this marvelous compromise. We'd like half. I'm sure you'll give half of that profit back to Americans, and that would be better than any tax break the government can offer me. I don't know how much in tax breaks you've gotten in the last five years, but I know my only new tax break totaled $600, which I got in a check, and used to replace my broken dishwasher.

See, if you give us half, you'll still have $18,065,000,000.00 to spend on that new research. Unless you did some funky accounting in order to include the $5,000,000,000.00 you used for buybacks as part of your profit. But even then, $13,065,000,000.00 for R&D. I'm sure you'll do fine next year too.

I did a little research to make sure this was fair. I had to use the 2000 census, because it was 11pm and I have to be up at 5:30am and I got sick of researching. I'm sure you understand.

In 2000, the population of the US over the age of 18 was 209,096,476. We'll spread this out, and assume each of these people have a car. That's 209,096,476 cars. For the sake of an equitable number, we'll say everyone drives around 60 miles a day, like I do, and that everyone's car gets at least 20 mpg, because they should. We'll spread the year out presuming driving on all 365 days of the year.

We'll use myself as an example.

That means I drove 60 *365 miles this year = 21,900 miles.
At 20 mpg, I bought 21,900/20 gallons worth of gas = 1,095 gallons.

If I take half your profit, and spread it over all these Americans (over the age of 18, sorry kids), that means I should get .0789 cents per gallon back. And so should the rest of America.

Therefore, half your profit at .0789/gallon
for 209,096,476 people
who drive one car each
60 miles a day
(12,545,788,569 miles a day)
365 days a year
(4,579,212,827,860 miles a year)
at 20 miles per gallon
(228,960,641,393 gallons per year)
at .0789 per gallon
equals the measly $18,065,000,000.00 I'm asking for.

That means you owe every American over the age of 18 $86.40 (rounding up in our favor).

I could really use my $86.40 right now to change my OIL, so think of this as yet another re-investment strategy.

Thank you for your time, patience, and consideration,

Liz.

Yes, I know, other countries buy fuel from Exxon Mobil Corp, but right now, they're part of an American Stock Exchange, and plus, it was enough of a headache doing calculations with only the US in mind.

Posted by Liz at February 1, 2006 11:03 PM