PipStop

What a day. Try to follow my logic here.

Off the top this morning it was revealed with the release of U.S. Non-Farm Payroll data that fewer jobs were lost than originally forecast for April in the U.S. So no big deal, the US dollar rallied a bit, and it was all a bit of a yawner.

President Bush said today that the U.S. economy is "not as robust" as it could be. Thanks president, for the insight.

Yet all this week we've heard of oil companies posting record profits, in the billions. In fact Exxon, which posted a first quarter (that's the first THREE months of the year) profit of $10.89 billion, actually disappointed investors! Chevron posted first quarter profits of $5.17 billion - and I'll stop there lest you start to get sick.

Hasn't President Bush historically been a supporter of big oil? The days, weeks, months, go by and we all (globally) pass gas stations daily. With every pass the cents (pesos, yen, rupees, etc.) at the gas pump seem to keep ticking up.

Not all is lost in America, though. The U.S. government is so nice to send its residents a nice tax rebate check that totals $7.1 billion in the first installment to more than 7.7 million taxpayers (out of 130 million). That's a whopping $300 a piece. If you're paying attention that's just shy of $200 billion total.

Does this all make sense? I can't help but think cynically ... wow, all Americans seem to have it made.