Exxon Mobil has ousted Wal-Mart as the revenue leader and its announced results for 2005 put it ahead of some significant countries, reports the New York Times. The company made over $36 billion on revenues of $371 billion.

The company is fighting with the rest of the industy to stave off the threat, and it's only a threat so far, that Congress will impose some kind of windfall profits tax to soothe voter anger at gas prices that are hovering well north of $2 a gallon.

The House Republicans and the President between them are certain to kill any tax proposal but Speaker Dennis Hastert's response that oil companies need to explain themselves better and explain what they're doing to increase capacity and lower the cost of gas is totally unrealistic.

If the market drives the price of a product up so that the company is sitting on record profits, what possible incentive does it have to invest more to increase capacity and bring the price down? Duh!

In one of his recent runs for president, Ralph Nader pointed out that if Exxon owned the Sun, we'd be driving solar-powered cars. A bit too conspiratorial perhaps, but at the rate the oil industry is going, solar power will soon be a realistic economic proposition.