War Brings Big Oil Highest Earnings in History – The Monday AM Quickie 8/3/26
Have a good start to the week everybody! -Whitney
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THE BIG NEWS
War Brings Big Oil Highest Earnings in History
Trump’s illegal war on Iran has made a lot of money for executives in the rapacious and world-ruining oil and gas industry, the AP and NPR reported. Per NPR:
Chevron just announced its highest quarterly earnings ever. Shell clocked its second-highest quarterly profits. And while ExxonMobil's profits came in beneath what Wall Street analysts had expected, it still managed to double its earnings compared with this time last year.
Combined, the three companies raked in, on average, some $404 million in profits every day for the last three months.
It's a bonanza for those companies (and for their executives). And it's raising eyebrows and ire among some European lawmakers and Democrats in the U.S. Congress, who are calling for windfall taxes on those companies.
Here’s some data for numbers enjoyers: Exxon Mobil reported it doubled profits during the second quarter to $14.53 billion. Its revenue was up 42 percent for the period, a whopping $116.02 billion. Chevron made a smaller dollar amount for period, but it represented an even higher leap. The company quadrupled its profits to more than $12 billion, while revenue increased 56 percent to more than $70 billion. And Shell clocked profits of $9.8 billion.
The reason these guys are raking in heaps of money is because the supply of oil and natural gas is extremely constrained by the on-and-off-again closure of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, the price for Brent crude went from $70 a barrel to as high as $126 a barrel during March, April and May.
“There are constituencies around the world who are having a very good crisis, and the oil producers are one of them,” Patrick Galey, fossil fuels lead at environmental nonprofit Global Witness, told the AP. “When you compare that to the hundreds of millions of people who are struggling with rolling blackouts, with electricity curbs, rationing, waiting in line for food queues, or the disruption to fertilizers and the potential impact that that has on food prices, we don’t think that it’s a justifiable price for the rest of the world to be paying.”
According to NBC News yesterday, the US agreed to “pause” its attacks on Iran because Trump said he was at the “perimeters of a deal” that would include the “Immediate, Complete, and Total” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Arizona, California, Nevada Face 40 Percent Cut in Water as Colorado River Evaporates
Environmentalists say the federal government’s proposal to cut water use would provide only a temporary solution to the shrinking Colorado River, according to the Guardian. The crisis has already wreaked havoc: “Fourteen native fish species are endangered or threatened. The once-lush wetlands in Mexico’s river delta have been dry for decades and the once mighty river slows to just a trickle as it crosses the US-Mexico border.”
My question is: what is California going to do about its tech industry, which is throwing up water-wasting data centers all over? And, what is the state going to do about the Resnicks, whose operations are guzzling up as much water as possible for its various business lines?
72 People Dead After Mass Swim from Morocco to Neighboring Spanish Territory
An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people swam from Morocco to the nearby Spanish territory Ceuta on Thursday and Friday, according to the Financial Times and the New York Times, a mass action that resulted in at least 72 deaths as of Sunday. Reports did not give a definitive reason for the action; Reuters reported Saturday that those who undertook the journey had been drawn “by viral social-media videos and messages from friends suggesting that the heavily guarded border could be breached,” and the FT reported that “Questions swirled about whether the deadly crossing had been triggered as a political ploy.” Whatever the catalyst, global fascists are now using the action to bludgeon Spain’s center-left prime minister and migrants rights champion Pedro Sánchez, whose government is introducing “a historic legalization plan for hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants” this year, the Washington Post reported. Now his government “found itself rushing to install a new 1,640-foot floating barrier near its border with Morocco, and to hammer home a point: that while it might be humane and open to legalization, it is still tough on irregular migration.”
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Small Colorado Town Declared Abandoned Amid Drinking Water Crisis In other water-related crises, all local public leaders of Hartman resigned, about a month after receiving official word that the city's water was undrinkable. via the Guardian.
- US Attorney Drops Claim That Ex-Olympian Damaged Reflecting Pool Jeanine Pirro filed on Friday to dismiss the charges against David Hearn; on Saturday, Trump yelled on social media that he disagreed with her decision and insisted that “the major damage was caused by VANDALS!” via the AP.
- Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno Denounces Former Son-in-Law Rep. Max Miller, Says He Shouldn’t Be in Congress Moreno found his spine on Sunday and stood up for his daughter, who days earlier accused Miller of new horrific instances of domestic violence, including holding a gun to her head. via Politico.
- New York State Sues Prediction Market Kalshi, Calls It ‘Illegal Gambling Operation’ Meanwhile, ex-Rep. George Santos agreed to pay $35,000 to settle Commodity Futures Trading Commission charges that he used the platform to make $17,500 by trading on whether he would attend the State of the Union. Via CNBC and the Washington Post.
SOME NUMBER
525,000
That’s how many newcomers Cincinnati’s officials are preparing to welcome to the metropolitan region by 2050 under their new Climate Migration Readiness Plan, according to the NYT. The plan “calls for building much denser housing, expanding public transit and decreasing the city’s reliance on fossil fuels. It also involves systematic monitoring of metrics that could presage population shifts, like distress in the housing insurance market.”
ON THE SHOW TODAY
8/3: Sam and Emma are in the studio today. Their guest is Robert Bland, assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Tennessee on to discuss his book “Requiem for Reconstruction: Black Countermemory and the Legacy of the Lowcountry’s Lost Political Generation.”
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Inside The DNC’s Dysfunction | David Hogg | TMR
Ken, you did this to yourself.
GOP's Show Trial Puts Our Future At Risk
Using this opportunity to remind everyone that Rand Paul raised an antisemitic, anti-gay bigot who also likes to spew his hatred on people in public. Nice family.
PARTING WORDS
“I think I lost my home. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”
– Monica Opfer, a woman in Spokane, Washington, who watched as one of the Spokane Area Fires burned its way towards her house Saturday, “so close she could feel the heat from the flames,” then grabbed her dog, Mabel, and her medication, and fled, according to the Spokesman Review. As of Sunday, the fire had burned across 5,390 acres and destroyed more than 600 structures, NBC News reported.
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