Oil companies provide jobs, income

To the editor:

Note the headline: "Ford to halt production at 10 plants." Ford also is cutting production by 20 percent, laying off people and closing subsidiaries. General Motors also has discharged numerous employees and closed plants, and their suppliers are in bankruptcy. The reason both major companies are in such a perilous state is that they are losing money like a hemophiliac loses blood.

Locally, as well as nationally, many are calling for the big oil companies to be burdened with windfall profit taxes. Why? They are making money, providing jobs and supporting many other companies and organizations. This is the way the free-enterprise system works under capitalism. Don't try to penalize them. The last generation in our country has rapidly become socialistically oriented because so many have become dependent on the state for everything.

I own no stock nor have any investment in the oil companies, but I am all for their making money. If they are making money, they will continue to provide jobs for those who aren't rich, which includes me as a retiree, and many small companies and stations will provide a livelihood for many families and investors, which is the way free-enterprise capitalism works.

WILL E. WADE, Jackson