Lee Speice – 2/24/08

This page was last updated on February 24, 2008.

Go after oil companies; Lee Speice; Beaver County Times; February 24, 2008.

Since I don’t know if Lee Speice is male or female, I’ll refer to her/him below simply as Speice instead of following my usual practice of using a Mr., Mrs., or Ms. title.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“The federal government is giving us $600.”

[RWC] Speice is wrong from the first sentence. The federal government isn’t giving anyone $600. The feds are simply giving one taxpayer’s earnings to another person who did not earn it.

“I would think it would be better served if they were to use this money to investigate the oil companies. They are the ones that are putting our country in the financial trouble it’s in.”

[RWC] I wish folks like Speice would pay attention. I’ve lost count of the number of times the feds have investigated the oil companies since 1970. In all cases, no wrongdoing was ever found.

“Isn’t that a nice profit that Mobile made — $8.6 billion?”

[RWC] Who is “Mobile?” Is Speice referring to ExxonMobil? Why does Speice seem to have a problem with profit? Without profit, no one would invest in business. Of course, folks like Speice would have to find something else to gripe about, like the price of hay to feed the horse they’d be using to pull their wagon.

“By giving this money back to some of the people, it means grandma can run out and play the slots and the dope heads will be able to buy more dope.”

[RWC] Where does Speice believe profits go? As a reminder, profits go to pay shareholder dividends [pension funds, mutual funds, IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.] and also fund exploration and research to find more oil.

“Some people will put it to good use.

“How much longer will the taxpayers put up with these gluttonous oil companies and the government turning a deaf ear and wearing blinders to the gougers of the oil companies?”

[RWC] Note Speice doesn’t tell us in what industry he/she works or worked. Speice also doesn’t provide her/his guidelines for defining “gluttonous.”