This piece was originally posted in the morning of May 12, 2011, but was removed by the Blogger Website due to “technical difficulties.”
In the State of Colorado, Criminal Code §18-3-207 defines Criminal Extortion as when...the person, without legal authority and with the intent to induce another person against that other person’s will to perform an act or to refrain from performing a lawful act, makes a substantial threat to confine or restrain, cause economic hardship or bodily injury to, or damage the property or reputation of, the threatened person or another person and…the person threatens to cause the results described [above] by invoking action by a third party…whose interests are not substantially related to the interests pursued by the person making the threat.
Last year, ConocoPlillips’ Petroleum made $11.4 billion in profit and got 451 million in tax breaks from 2007-2009, alone. They did shell out $14 million last year to corporate lobbyists and $2.5 million in campaign contributions to various Washington politicians. This represented their fair share of over $21.8 million given by the five major oil companies almost exclusively to the Beltway Tea/GOP.
ConocoPhillips’ (NYSE:COP) Chairman and CEO Jim Mulva called the efforts to cut back the Depression-era tax breaks and subsidies “un-American.” These subsidies started 80-90 years ago, when oil companies were getting $17/barrel, as opposed to the $100+/barrel today. The cut in subsidies would slash yearly major oil company profits from $126 billion, all the way down to $122 billion. In response, Mulva made the following statement to the press:
“Our industry already has the highest effective tax rate in the United States. Increasing these taxes would cost jobs and raise gasoline and other consumer prices, while actually unintentionally reducing the government’s tax revenue by discouraging investment by the industry’s largest and most financially capable companies.
The oil and natural gas industry supports 9.1 million jobs in the United States, a fact that is too often overlooked. Also, taxes are included in gasoline prices. At a time when everyone is concerned over the cost of gasoline, Congress shouldn’t do anything that could actually worsen the situation.”
Clearly, Mr. Mulva, who is paid about $17 million a year, should rent at least one of The God Father movies, before he makes any further statements to congress today. Yet Mulva’s diatribe was remarkably similar to that of U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue and other similarly sequestered interplanetary individuals.
It would seem that beleaguered Billionaires nationwide are beginning to hunker down together, circle the wagons, and resort to not-so-veiled threats against their own employees and the American consumer.
Personally, I fully realize that Mulva and other CEO tar balls are simply trying to scare us into continuing their corporate welfare program, at the expense of the American people, but I am not exactly a genius.
I am sure that my reaction is similar to that of most Americans who are more than a bit miffed that they are paying upwards of $4.00/Gal for gas while that gob of snot, who is paid $17 million by a company that made 11.4 billion in profit last year, pulls a Vito Corleone in front of Congress and the paid-off politicians in the Tea/GOP agree with him.
I say we call their bluff. And if they collude with each other to raise prices we sick the Sherman Anti-Trust Act on them. And if they violate union contracts in retaliation, we sick the NLRB on them. And if they try to ship more jobs over seas, we impose sanctions large enough to make them bring the jobs back home again.
It is not just me who is tired of being threatened by big-oil and other big-business bullies. I believe that the American people are also tired. Tired of being relegated to a life of indentured servitude, so that thugs like Mr. Mulva and the little cartel to which he belongs, can continue to shaft us right in front of our faces.
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
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