I’ve never understood why people call oil companies, etc. “thieves”. They provide you with a service or good, and you provide them with money. Where’s the theft?
Dumb statements like that really grate on me.
Please explain in what respect telecoms are like oil companies, and how broadband adoption rates are at all germane to a discussion of oil prices.
Would it be a closer analogy to reference Enron & market manipulation via rolling blackouts, perhaps?
What kind of market manipulation is going on? Are oil companies shutting down oil refineries for “maintenance” to drive up the price of gas?
Look, it’s simple. Americans as a society, have placed their balls in a vice and depended on the oil companies not to squeeze. The oil companies have a right to charge whatever the market will bear for their products. Just because you prefer a suburban lifestyle that involves driving a single passenger automobile that gets low mileage does not lessen that right.
Now I’ll hear from dozens of dopers who live next door to their jobs or who telecommute, or who drive hybrids powered by unicorn farts, but the fact is, you have more control over the price of gasoline than Exxon does. If you stop buying it, the price goes down. The people who are already doing this are not being hurt, at least not as much as the rest of us.
If people wanted to make a case that the oil companies are getting sweetheart deals on oil and gas leases from the federal government and should be required to pay market values, that I could support. But saying they charge too much for the gasoline they sell is just whinging. Change your lifestyle to use less gasoline, or shut up.
THE PROFITS THAT OUTSTRIP PREVIOUS ONES ARE IN ABSOLUTE DOLLARS!!! I don’t know if it hurts you being that stupid, but it hurts me to have to read some of what you write. Absolute dollars do NOT matter. If oil companies were raking in 30+%—PERCENT—you’d have a gripe, but they’re not, so you don’t. Except possibly against capitalism in a larger sense. Is that where your problem lies? If so, it would help with others understanding you. I mean, sheeze, If you had invested $100 and amassed a 7.9% profit, your pockets would be bulging with a whopping $107.90!!! How dare you! You just made the same return on your investment as evil Exxon! :eek:
As far as why they don’t drill elsewhere. they are. As we speak oil companies are drilling. Now they can’t drill everywhere. So in choosing where to drill they first try to determine which places have the largest likelihood of having oil. Does that make sense to you that they would do that? If so, wouldn’t it also make sense that they’d want to drill where they KNOW there is oil, like ANWAR, and not in a place that they have a lease on but all current indicators point to “very iffy” and that will be money down the drain?
Come on, man. This is really NOT THAT HARD.
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I would favor a windfall-profits-tax on oil companies that supports highway & bridge maintenance.
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For those who have constantly argued that the recent inflation is due to increased demand from India & China, why are prices now dropping?
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Anyone wanna guess what will happen to prices as we get closer to the election?
Do you think that a 7.9% profit margin is a windfall?
Can’t answer. I have no idea how that figure was calculated. Anyway, it was a general statement rather than a specific one.
The concept of profit margin is not particularly difficult. If you don’t know how it’s calculated, why are you commenting at all?
I don’t know, specifically, what Exxon is counting as a quarterly expense, and whether it’s appropriate. For example, I heard they are still spending a terrific amount of money to attempt to undermine the judgment against them for the Valdez spill. In my opinion, that shouldn’t count against their quarterly profit, but I don’t know a) whether that’s true, and b) what is standard accounting law.
Point being: I did not state specifically that Exxon has a windfall profit. But if they did, it would be good public policy to tax it and support road & bridge repairs. Of course, I’d say the same for any other oil company, or car company.
That said, I imagine they are cooking the books and nobody in the current administration is watching very closely.
The whole concept of profit magin is a red herring. It doesn’t matter what the profit margins of the oil companies are. They are selling a product at a price people are willing to pay. If people would pay $10.00 a gallon for tap water they would be within their legal and moral rights to charge it. Just ask Dasani.
If their profit margin was too low would that be the government’s responsibility as well? If nobody would buy their product at a price point where they could make a living should we all make up the difference? If not, then you don’t have the right to charge a windfall profits tax.
There is no such thing as a windfall profit. The very concept is meaningless. There are people who are entitled to take a portion of the profits, and they are called stockholders. Their assumption of the risk of losses is what entitles them to the profits.
I would agree if we were talking about a frivolous consumer product like shampoo. But oil/gas is a commodity and we have been made dependent on it (to some extent) by public policy.
OK, so I’m definitely confused now. Public policy, in this case, had nothing to do with the demands of the public?
The profit percentage is bullshit. Creative accounting like the banking industry is now using. Like mortgage companies are using. All is well.
Do they add in the huge ,huge, huge bonuses and salaries? Of course not. Of course they used to claim 2 % and people on this board believed that as well. It was exactly as the Exon Site showed. Thats where I would go for honest figures.
a)it’s not true. That case was dismissed by the Supremes. b) it’s obvious you don’t know what “standard accounting law” is, so I ask again, why are you commenting at all?
Put the bong down, and grow up. Of course, salaries and bonuses, no matter how large, are included in a publically traded company’s financial reports.
A windfall profits tax ought to be balanced with a disaster-loss tax credit. If you want to penalize a profit-oriented company for succeeding due to conditions beyond its control in an profit-oriented economy like America’s, then do you support rewarding that same company for failure due to uncontrollable circumstances?
But not shown as profit. That was a stupid response. You must be severely hung over.
Not that I doubt your expertise on stupidity, but HUH? They are not shown as profit because they are not profit. Funny how that works.