It's easy to blame the oil company CEOs, but the shareholders are even worse. I hate to say that, because I hate the CEOs, but it's true. The shareholders demand that every last penny get wrung out of the king of world commodities so that the latest quarter's earnings-per-share beats expectations. It's an absurdly short-sighted way of making money that is ultimately ripping off American consumers. I am beginning to think that companies dealing in essential commodities should be either privately held or state-owned. Those seem like two extremes, but both private equity and the state have a more generous consciousness of value than impatient public investors and their brokerage firms do.
