New Clear Vision

Or, Why the Poor Gamble…

by Mary Sojourner

“Pin your ear to the wisdom post; Pin your eye to the line; Never let the weeds get higher; Than the garden…” — Tom Waits, “Get Behind the Mule”

Four years ago, I was meeting the moving guy to bring my seven pieces of furniture from Twentynine Palms to my new one-room cabin in Yucca Valley, California.  I’d been renting a 16’ x 10’ jackrabbit homestead. Sharing a kitchen and bath, one mid-May day of 111-degree heat and one day of 50 mph winds that ripped a window off proved me to be the Hippie American Princess I had always suspected I was.

I pulled into the cheapest gas station to fill up.  The cheapest gas in the cheapest gas station was $4.15 a gallon.  I shoved my credit card (SHOVED is the operative term) into the slot and watched the numbers launch. (more…)

Stopping The Oil Company Gusher

by Robert Reich

Exxon-Mobil’s first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That’s the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.

This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the U.S. government, at a time when we’re cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.

It’s especially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.

Exxon-Mobil’s Vice President asks that we look past the “inevitable headlines” and remember the company’s investments in renewable energy. What investments, exactly? Last time I looked Exxon-Mobil was devoting a smaller percentage of its earnings to renewables than most other oil companies, including the errant BP. (more…)