the fact that a government taxes a product after the corporation has paid its overhead and overpaid its executives, and still made a $7.43 Billion profit in a year, does not mean that the public wouldn't be better served by government ownership & distribution of the product without the intervening skimming of dollars. would there probably be some mismanagement, incompetence, fraud, cronyism, etc. in a government run program? most likely, but the public deals with that, and with taxes each time they vote. the public has no such say in regards to corporate decision making. I would like to know how much Chevron/Texaco paid in US taxes last year, if anything.