Commentary

November 7, 2005
Letters to the Editor
Rocky Mountain News
P.O. Box 719
Denver, CO 80201

Dear Sir or Madam:

Why is the Rocky Mountain News a constant apologist for corporate atrocities that strike normal thinking people as simply wrong or unfair? Last week, four energy companies announced record profits exceeding thirty billion dollars for the quarter. This came on the heels of a transportation bill Republicans put through Congress giving billions of dollars in tax incentives for those very same companies, in part, to subsidize exploration, research and development.

Since the passage of the transportation bill, gasoline prices doubled, and the poor, along with those in the lower and middle income brackets were gouged at the pump. They will be gouged again when their home heating bills arrive.

To paraphrase the Rocky’s response, here come those populists again complaining about nothing. These corporate profits are pretty much in line with other corporate profits and those corporations need this money for exploration, research, and development. Thirty billion? That’s thirty followed by nine zeroes. This is how Corporate America thanks the constituents whose elected officials saw fit to bestow yet another huge chunk of corporate welfare on those who least deserve it.

There is no shortage of gasoline. There are no long lines. In fact, gas prices are dropping because the oil companies, unbridled in their greed, miscalculated the capacity of lower income customers to absorb the cost increase and fill the corporate coffers. Gasoline is not a discretionary expense for the poor and lower middle class. They simply drive less because they have no alternative. Now, the oil companies are choking on gas supplies they can’t sell because it is too expensive for many Americans. Record profits of the last quarter will however remain.

But ask yourselves, why is diesel fuel still $3.29 a gallon when more-expensive-to-refine regular gasoline is $2.38 a gallon? That market is mostly over-the-road truckers who must drive to survive. In fact, they must drive more as their per-mile profit decreases in response to increasing fuel costs. Every extra dollar our truckers pay to deliver every consumable in this country will be passed on to the customer in the form of higher prices. Will the Rocky Mountain News ever give its readers a fair shake, or will it continue to foist its corporate ideology on those of us who must suffer its editorials on a daily basis?

Activist judges, as the neo-conservative like to call them, told us separate is not equal. They told us sexual discrimination in the workplace is actionable in a court of law. They might, if there were any left, tell us price gouging by the oil companies violates price-fixing legislation and subjects the corporate offenders to a class action suit to disgorge ill-gained profits. That might prevent the next wave of baseless inflated prices. But that won’t happen as long as the corporatists are in control and as long as corporatist papers like the Rocky Mountain News walk in lockstep with the corporate offenders. Call us populists, call us liberals and call us lefties, if you wish, but know this, even a dog knows whether he’s been kicked or tripped over. Thirty billion dollars divided by four companies in three months is obscene, even by corporatist standards.

Very truly yours,

Randall J. Paulsen

RJP/sm