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If you want a piece of their profits, buy their stock.

Buying Exxon stock seems like such an obvious conclusion to you and I, but this bozo wants to get "Beyond Capitalism" (I think 'Lunacy' comes after you leave Capitalism).

Should ExxonMobil (XOM) share its profit with the American People?

It should share its profit with those who own it. To the extent anyone has ownership, they are due a prorated share of the earnings. Only in liberal-land does the word "share" apply to being able to seize the property of another person.

Some will say that the US government leases land to XOM and should share in the profits. If the US government put profit sharing in the lease terms, then those terms must be honored. In any case the government did not do one whit of work to develop the resource, nor did it "invest" in any common sense meaning of the word. It seized the land from someone or it seized the money to buy the land. And government can only attain an asset by credible threat of the use of deadly force.

Speaking of taxes, anyone can surf over to Yahoo's finance page on XOM and see that for the fiscal year ending Dec 2004, it had $42.655 billion in operating income upon which it paid $15.9 billion in taxes, or 37.3%.

When anyone claims that XOM should "share" its profits, do they include that 37.3% they already "shared" by paying the tax, or do they mean an amount over and above that $15.9 billion. If the latter, where do they think that money will come from to find the next oil field, or to develop that next federal leasehold? Maybe the Saudis will lend it to them.