Big Oil and the XL pipeline

Hi Folks, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here but life happened, for better and worse and Facebook has filled my random need to rant every now and again. The issue of this post has been bugging me for quite some time now and I need to get it out of me. Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts regarding the XL pipeline and how much good it would do for America, create jobs, drive the cost of fuel down, eliminate our energy dependence on foreign oil and so on. Before you run away thinking this is another tree hugger rant please bare with me for a minute. The environmentalists certainty have a legitimate bitch but this post will not focus on that.

The picture is Vladimir Putin and Rex Tillerson(CEO of Exxon-Mobil) and was taken in April of last year, given the recent developments in the oil rich Ukraine I think it speaks for itself. Let me start with a number. 40 billion. Put a dollar sign in front of that number and you have the annual profits of Exxon-Mobil, notice I said profits, not sales, that number is after all salaries, expenses and operating costs. Let's break it down. 40 billion dollars a year, big number but it's just a number right? Here's what it looks like- 40,000,000,000 -ok, let's do some math... divide by 365 for the days in a year and we get 109.6 million per day, divide again by 24 and we get 4.56 million per hour, what the hell, let's do 60 again for minutes, 76,100. That's $76,100 dollars per minute...profit...keep going? ok, one more 76,100/60 = 1268.33 WOW $1,268.33 dollars per fucking second, did I mention this is profit, take home, what they clear every second of every damn day. Moving on, Canadian Tar Sands. Listening to Main Stream Media - especially the right leaning ones - you would get the impression that all this job making, economy saving, independence giving oil is just sitting there in the ground waiting for someone to build a pipeline that would solve all our energy/economic problems. Got news for you, it's already being pumped out of the ground and is making its way south via railcar and truck to the refineries in the gulf of mexico, besides those refineries in the Gulf there are also shipping ports capable of handling really big ships that carry.... petroleum, hmmm... more on that later. So, why don't we build this pipeline, think of all the jobs it would create...for what, 18-24 months till the pipe is run...then what? What happens to all the truck drivers and rail workers who have been working overtime for a few years hauling the crude south? How about the workers building the tanker cars and trailers? Yeah, one big problem the oil companies face right now? They have to pay PEOPLE to get the oil to the refineries, sucks to be you huh? Gotta pay for new rail cars, tank trucks, drivers, production workers, skilled tradesman, upkeep on roads and railways - cutting into your razor thin margins? Just build a pipe line. Create some short term temp jobs and then eliminate all the behind the scenes/low profile, long term jobs that are helping people make a decent living! Brilliant! Profits go up, investors are happy, we get some good media coverage and put 100,000 money grubbing middle class peasants out of work, who can now find a part time job at our convenience store and work below the poverty line getting subsidised health insurance and food stamps putting more stress on the government and reducing the income taxes they were paying that we don't pay to begin with. Fuckin'-A. All we need to do is line the pockets of a few key politicians, write some "news" stories that the media outlets and political pundits we own will feed to the masses. Why stop there, once the crude is in the gulf it seems silly to pay those union guys top dollar to refine it especially since we have all those empty tankers that just off-loaded all that easy to refine crude from the middle east - let's fill em up with tar sand crude and send them to our South American refineries where those poor bastards only make 16 bucks a month working 80 hours a week. Damn, Son! I'm getting a hard-on thinking about all that money. Whoa there big guy, let's think about this. If we build a couple refineries up north in say...oh I don't know, Detroit? They are hurting for work right now. It's right across the border, only need a couple hundred miles of pipe, then we can put a lot of people to work in the refineries and create even more jobs hauling the refined gas all over the country on roads/rails that already exist. It would be good for the country, create long term/good paying jobs, increase the tax base, keep the greenies happy(no pipeline through the heartland) and it would only reduce your un-godly profits to $1000.00 per second.....nah fuck that, it might scare the investors away.