If only Exxon could earn money like Disney

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Some things are just too easy -- like attacking Exxon Mobil Corp. for yet another quarter of record earnings.

Of course Exxon made a lot of money in the second quarter. It sold $138 billion worth of oil, natural gas, chemicals, gasoline and other energy products.

The net profit on those sales: $11.68 billion, which just happens to be the largest quarterly profit ever earned by a U.S. company.

But Exxon’s net profit margin of about 8.5% -- net income as a percentage of revenue -- pales when compared with what many other blue-chip companies earned in the latest quarter.

Yes, this is the argument the oil industry always trots out when its earnings are under fire. But that doesn’t make it less true.

If companies such as Walt Disney Co. and Eli Lilly & Co. could rack up Exxon-like sales while maintaining their current profit margins, nobody would pay much attention to Exxon’s results. Instead, there would be demonstrations in Anaheim demanding that money-grubbing Disneyland cut the price of churros and cotton candy on Main Street.

Disney earned $1.28 billion last quarter on sales of $9.2 billion, for a profit margin of 13.9%. Apply that margin to revenue of $138 billion and Disney would rake in $19.2 billion.

Drug maker Lilly would do even better -- much better. Its second-quarter profit was $959 million on sales of $5.15 billion, for a margin of 18.6%. On Exxon’s sales base, Lilly would earn a stunning $25.7 billion.

There are plenty of companies with profit margins well below Exxon’s, of course. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s net margin in its fiscal first quarter was a mere 3.2%.

And by some financial yardsticks Exxon is indeed earning spectacular returns, even if its net margins don’t stand out. The company’s return on equity last year -- a measure of how well it deployed shareholders’ investment -- was 34%, compared with 15% for Disney, according to Bloomberg data.

Consumer activists say their real beef with Exxon is that it isn’t spending enough of its loot to find new oil and gas reserves. Wall Street may even agree, to a point: The company’s shares slumped $3.95, or 4.7%, to $80.43 today, in part on concern that Exxon’s overall oil production is declining.

Then again, name a oil-rich country on the planet that is welcoming American energy giants and promising to make it worth their while to come in and drill.

Venezuela? Russia? Iran? California?