Several months ago, I signed up for a Master Card that gives me a 5 percent discount when I buy Shell gas. At the time, gas cost about $4 a gallon. The discount saved me 20 cents a gallon -- more than $2 each time I filled the tank.

I still use the card. The 5 percent isn't as much now that the price at the pump has dropped, but it still is worthwhile.

I thought about that recently when I bought gas at a Shell station in Arlington, Va., where the gas station was offering an additional 5 cents a gallon off to anyone who paid cash or used a Shell Master Card.

I welcome the discounts, but they lead me to wonder how much Shell and the other oil companies are overcharging everyone for gas.

Shell Oil made a $7.8 billion profit in the last quarter. Apparently, the discounts didn't hurt the bottom line. The profit was not excessive, said John Hofmeister, president of Shell, especially when compared to profits at drug companies and banks. Hofmeister made his comment in June. I don't know what he thinks of bank profits these days.

Last quarter, Exxon Mobil made the biggest profit of any corporation in U.S. history -- nearly $15 billion. The reason: oil reached a record high. People with far more understanding of economics than I can debate whether the oil companies are gouging everyday people at the pump. But I think they could knock off a few more cents and still pay the bills.

I think things like this as I see the economy sour with people thrown out of work and out of their homes while oil companies, drug companies and others make a fortune.

Consider the airlines. Everyone knows they're in trouble -- much of it because of high gas prices. When aviation fuel hit record prices, the airlines added fuel surcharges. When gas prices dropped, the surcharges remained. Gouging? I wonder.

Consider the banks, beneficiaries of a massive federal bailout. That means your taxes and mine are keeping them in business. While I understand the importance of assuring that our nation's financial base does not collapse, I'm not sure the $700 billion bailout was a wise response; time will answer that question.

But I am certain that there is something wrong about banks that are in such sad shape that they need my tax dollars to continue paying immense salaries and bonuses to top executives and dividends to shareholders.

As I trim my household expenses in response to losses in my retirement fund, I gasp at the excesses on Wall Street.

Mismanagement and greed undermined Merrill Lynch, which was forced to merge with Bank of America. You'd think that would have led to punishment, not rewards, for senior executives. But you would be wrong. Merrill has set aside $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both accepted $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury. They, too, have allocated millions for bonuses.

Businesses all over America are being forced to lay off employees; the fortunate ones get some sort of buyout, maybe a week's pay for every year or two they worked for the company. It's often tougher at small businesses -- the kind that are the backbone of the economy in Maine. The New York Times recently reported that jobs for teenagers and young workers hoping to start careers are disappearing. There will be far less part-time seasonal hiring this year than in the past.

But apparently the problems that have led to thousands of lower level layoffs in the banking industry are not causing that much heartburn in the executive offices where bonuses still flow and parachutes are golden.

PNC Financial, for example, is using $7.7 billion from the government to help it take over National City Bank. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that taxpayer money will help pay an estimated $41 million in payoffs to three top executives at National City.

When I bought my first house in 1977, I was required to provide evidence including salary records and two or three years of tax returns to convince a banker that I would be able to pay the mortgage. Prudent bankers followed a formula based on salary and other expenses that limited the amount I could borrow.

Somewhere that prudence was forgotten or deliberately ignored by too many major banks and mortgage companies in recent years. Mortgages were given to people who could never have met the old formulas. Bankers knew or should have known that the borrowers would be unable to pay -- especially when low one-year adjustable rates increased. Evaluating and approving sound mortgages was replaced by selling mortgages to make a quick profit.

These Wall Street tycoons with their inflated salaries could learn about banking and responsibility from the local community banks that serve -- and survive -- in central Maine.

The national financial meltdown is sad for bankers but even more so for millions of homeowners out on the street, their finances and their dreams in ruins. Of course, the people who took on debt they could not repay share the blame, but so do the bankers who encouraged them.

Oil companies are making record profits while people struggle to pay for gas to get to work and fuel to keep warm this winter. Banks are paying dividends and bonuses with tax dollars.

Does anyone wonder why Americans are troubled?

David B. Offer is the retired executive editor of the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. E-mail davidboffer@hotmail.com.