QUICK! GET BIG OIL ANOTHER TAX BREAK, STAT!

(h/t The Big Picture)

Oil Producers Mask Decade's Worst S&P 500 Profit Drop (Update3)
By Michael Tsang and Darren Boey

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Take away Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips and profits at U.S. companies are the worst in at least a decade.

Without the $70 billion that oil producers earned in the last two quarters, profits at companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index tumbled 26 percent and 30.2 percent as of last week, the biggest decreases for any quarter since Bloomberg started compiling data in 1998.

Even after taking out financial firms and consumer companies that reported lower earnings, oil profits accounted for almost half of the overall gain of 11.02 percent for the S&P 500, Bloomberg data show.