Misery for workers, profits for the rich

Originally published in Socialist Worker.

August 8, 2008

CHECKING THE news today I noticed two headlines that made my blood boil and reminded me why I'm a socialist.

ExxonMobil posted the highest quarterly profits in U.S. history, making $11.68 billion from April through June. That works out to almost $1,500 per second, $90,000 per minute, or $5.4 million dollars per hour--about 190,000 times the average hourly compensation for a worker in the U.S. during the same time period.

In other news, CNN reported that unemployment rose to a four-year high of 5.7 percent as job losses continued to mount for the seventh month in a row in July. So far, the U.S. economy has shed 463,000 jobs this year, 165,000 during the three months ExxonMobil made their record profits (ExxonMobil could use their quarterly profits to pay those laid-off workers $70,000 each).

CNN also pointed out that the 5.7 percent figure "doesn't include those who have become discouraged from looking for work, or those who have accepted part-time jobs when they want to be working full time." When those workers are included, the number of unemployed and under-employed rises to 10.3 percent.

Exxon Mobil is literally making a killing. People in Haiti, Africa, and Asia and elsewhere are starving to death because they're too poor to buy food since skyrocketing fuel prices have contributed to similarly massive increases in food prices.

As Socialist Worker has reported, with workers struggling to afford $4 per gallon gas and sky-high prices for staple foods, demand at food pantries in the U.S. is up 15-20 percent and the number of people on food stamps is up almost 6 percent over the past year.

On top of that, ExxonMobil submitted a no-bid contract in May to have access to Iraqi oil, showing they're not above profiting from the destruction of a nation and the slaughter of over a million people.

According to the UN, it would only take $20 billion per year to end world hunger. That's six months of ExxonMobil's blood money to feed everyone who is hungry.

A handful of people, already some of the richest in the history of the world (ExxonMobil made some $40 billion in profits last year, another record), are getting even richer by an amount that could end hunger. Think about how absolutely vile and disgusting that is.

There was a great talk at the Socialism 2007 conference in Chicago called "You're not crazy: It's sexism," which exposed the rampant sexism in our society and called for a renewed struggle against it.

We should reach out to those around us who are enraged by news like ExxonMobil's record profits in the midst of hard times for working people like us, let them know they're not alone, and tell them: "You're not crazy, it's capitalism."

We need to organize and raise demands like a cap on gas prices, the idea that food is a human right, and a call for no blood for oil--while posing a socialist alternative to this insane system. We have a world to win.

Gary Lapon, Northampton, Mass.