How’s this for sickening? One day the big news organizations are talking about seniors who are living on pasta because they can’t afford anything else in the midst of high gas prices and the struggling economy. The next, they’re announcing Exxon Mobil’s record second quarter profits of $11.68 billion. CNN does the math there to really drive home how staggering this is – their profit amounts to $1,485.55 per second. It’s Exxon’s largest quarterly profit in US history. Profit from the sale of oil was up 70%.

Back in May, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson appeared on the Today Show, defending his companies enormous profits from the first quarter which was nearly two billion less than their record second quarter profits. This guy isn’t hurting. This guy hasn’t had to swap his SUV for a Geo Metro, he didn’t give up eating meat because he can’t afford it and his palace probably isn’t in foreclosure.

But there’s good news. It’s an election year after all, and voters love to talk about gas prices during an election year. Today, democrats in Congress are planning a conference to discuss what they can do to end tax breaks for oil firms. Bills have already been introduced to add extra windfall taxes on gas companies’ record breaking earnings. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. No one needs to make thousands of dollars every second, and especially not at the expense of every day people.