Trust Babies

Descendants of the John D. Rockefeller on Wednesday made a big hullabaloo, chastising Exxon Mobile for going after short term profits from high oil prices and advising XOM to start investing in alternative energy.

How nice to be a limousine liberal trust baby.

The problem, little dears, is that XOM, FYI, is an oil company. Their responsibility is to their shareholders--you and me and everyone else in this country who has a pension plan, has an interest in a college or church endowment, or is invested in a large cap mutual fund. What they're good at--damn good at, in fact--is finding, pumping, and delivering oil.

They're not good at spending money on speculative technologies that aren't proven to be profitable without government subsidies. Nor are they obliged to. Let the venture capitalists and the college professors and the government grant hogs work on that stuff.

If you don't want to make money off of Big Oil, Rockefellers, sell your Exxon shares. Buy some First Solar (FSLR) or Canadian Solar (CSIQ)--both have appreciated at a much better rate than XOM in the past year.

And stop whinin'.