Oil company earnings skyrocket, taxpayer subsidies continue

Via ThinkPogress, the nation's five biggest oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell—are feeling no pain, despite the ongoing economic doldrums.

Booming crude-oil prices and improved refining profits are poised to put a firecracker under Big Oil's first-quarter earnings and set the stage for a year that could come close to rivaling the industry's record year in 2008.

First-quarter crude prices averaged about $100 a barrel, or about 20% higher than a year ago, pushed upward by oil-supply concerns due to political unrest in the Arab World and a recovering global economy. That spike is expected to lift earnings by about 50% at Exxon Mobil Corp., and about 33% each at Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips, compared with a year earlier.

Just as a reminder, last month the House GOP voted unanimously to protect taxpayer-funded subsidies to big oil. All of the belt tightening, you see, has to be done by Medicaid and Medicare recipients, not by those poor beleaguered oil company execs.

As further reminder, this:

Remember that as you're shelling out $4/gallon.