Oil and apples - ExxonMobil uses advertisements to point the finger at bank earnings
Do you remember when you were younger and in the center of a deafening quarrel with a sibling? When caught by a parent, you would point the finger and explain how your transgression was less grievous.
But, when you have the resources of ExxonMobil and billions of dollars at your disposal, don’t just point the finger, buy full-page advertisements in papers like "The Washington Post."
That is exactly what ExxonMobil did.
Apologetically, they prepared America for record earnings by explaining "when you compare profits per dollar of revenue across a wide range of U.S. companies you see that oil earnings are not out of step with other major industries." The oil giant ended up announcing its daily sales were more than $1 billion a day. One-billion Dollars every single day! And even then, the company ran advertisements pointing the finger at the banks for earning even more.
The oil industry actually endeavored to justify its windfall profiteering by pointing the finger at .... the banking industry. Their "Business Week" and "Oil Daily"-provided chart explained that among the average industry earnings banks scored highest. This is no surprise when you take a look at their quarterly results and double-digit profits generated from credit card interchange fees. This $25 billion annual hidden tax on consumers is so vast that even the oil companies are looking up at them.
No surprise.
As gas prices doubled, so to have the banks’ earnings. Because they own the Visa and MasterCard charge card associations they too realized windfall profits; motorists more frequently used their credit cards and paid upwards of $1.50 per fill up just on interchange fees to the banks.
[Source: WayTooHigh.com]
