Where are gas profits going?

[UpInArms]

http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/09/04/business.20050904-sbt-MICH-B1-Where_are_gas.sto

excerpt:

The most obvious answer as to who is making money off high gas prices is the companies, said Robert A. Robicheaux, professor of marketing at University of Alabama at Birmingham, who has studied the oil industry for 20 years.

In 2004, the nine largest integrated oil companies made $87 billion in profit, with Exxon Mobil alone making $25 billion, according to an August report by the Congressional Research Service.

This year, Exxon Mobil reported profits jumped 32 percent to $7.6 billion in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2004. BP saw a profit increase of about 30 percent, totaling $5.6 billion in the second quarter, while Conoco Phillips earned $3.1 billion, a 55 percent increase in profits in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2004.

The high profits are mostly driven by high crude oil prices, which jumped more than 60 percent in 2004, according to the congressional report.

...more...

[bribri16]

1. In the pockets of the wealthy Bush supporters, silly. n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. "In the pockets of the wealthy Bush supporters, silly."

[Skink]

12. Are you bari bri....?

Bari saxplayers. All that is right with the world. Clinton played tenor on Camera but we knew.

[cabbage08]

3. Kick

[struggle4progress]

4. Noooo! They wouldn't really gouge us -- would they? eom

[Erika]

5. Bush is padding the pocket book of his supporters

at the cost to working Americans. Yet so many of his supporters bleat for him.

[Tace]

6. OK, I'll Take Some Flak Here

The oil business is a business. They do it to make money. We're glad they do, because we put the gas in our cars.

The oil business is cyclical. They make more money some years than others. This is a real good year.

There's no possible way that you can expect the oil industry to do things that will lose them money. They cannot because they simply can't. It ends in bankruptcy.

It's sort of like blaming a Black Leopard for being a vicious, ferocious beast. It is. And if it weren't, it wouldn't be a Black Leopard, but rather somebody's idea of a housecat.

[Erika]

8. W said they should contribute their excess profits to the hurricanes

So, tell us how Bush, an oil man thinks they have excess profits, while you don't.

[Tace]

9. I Don't Want To Defend Big Oil -- No Way

I'm not excusing anything. But my point is that they are not altruistic. They aren't doing what they do just to be cool or to make everyone happy.

[Erika]

10. Bush told them to donate their excess profits to hurricane victims

He's one of the oil men. O'Reilly thought they should give relief to Americans by cutting the price of gas by 20%.

[BiggJawn]

20. Could have fooled me....

Tace, these are PROFITS, you know, the money that's left over AFTER the Wolf of Bankruptcy has been shooed away from the door?

Now if I had 32% more money after the bills than I had last year...Oh, what am I saying? 32% of NOTHING is still nothing, and thanks in part to Big Oil, I'll probably be in deficit this year the worst I've been since 1982.

"Alturistic" isn't in their vocabularies.

[mbperrin]

15. Never really was a bad year

for them

[Nimrod]

16. To me, there's a limit

These billions aren't operating costs, these billions are profit. Nobody says they should operate at a loss, but stopping the price gouging isn't going to lose them money. If you make 70 billion in a year instead of 80 billion, you did NOT "lose" 10 billion. You made 70 billion. I think they could still somehow manage to scrounge a living by leaving that 10 billion in our pockets instead of forcing it into theirs through hording and price gouging.

Sorry, but bankruptcy my white ass. That's lunacy. Honestly, I wish it were true, I'd love to see every single one of these fucking robber barons wind up on a food bank line. But it's simply not to be.

[kysrsoze]

17. They don't compete. The question is why they aren't required by the govt

What's better than a monopoly, but an oligopoly that acts as a monopoly? Where is the incentive to lower costs. They just pass it on. Why aren't these f*ckers regulated like every other mass oligopoly? Telephones, electricity, gas and banks are regulated. Why not the oil companies? Aren't they essentially just like all the others? The others all would have us by the balls without regulation.

Sometimes free markets work too much in the favor of corporations when they have something people must have in some quantity. Like it or not, people need gas to get to their jobs. Moving everyone closer would take a couple of decades and many aren't willing to move closer to work for a number of reasons.

If we had a government which serves its people, they would regulate this infrastructure industry like all others and force it to cut costs.

[0007]

19. And because they are the BIG OIL COMPANIES buddies

junior gives 'em a BIG TAX BREAK, too! Makes sense to me.

[struggle4progress]

21. The poor dears must choose between record high profits and bankruptcy!

We get stories about shortages to flavor never-before-seen prices ... and their bottom line goes up by a third! Ain't economics a grand science!

[Occulus]

23. Well, then, there's really only one answer, isn't there?

Nationalize the oil interests. Seize the companies and make them publicly owned. Yes, it's that important to our status as an industrialized nation.

It doesn't deserve to be a business of any kind, simply because it's so bloody important. I could argue the same for taxpayer-funded pharmaceuticals.

It's just that important.

[rman]

24. All true - but it doesn't make the pillaging ok.

Rather it is the reason why corporations should be stricktly regulated, and should not be allowed to manipulate the regulator. The regulator is the government, and not only is there a powerull corporate lobby, but we actually have corporate people in the government.

==============

"In 1776 we declared independence not only from British rule, but also from the corporations of England that controlled trade and extracted wealth from the US (and other) colonies. Thus, in the early days of our country, we only allowed corporations to be chartered (licensed to operate) to serve explicitly as a tool to gather investment and disperse financial liability in order to provide public goods, such as construction of roads, bridges or canals.
After fighting a revolution for freedom from colonialism, our country's founders retained a healthy fear of the similar threats posed by corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. These state laws, many of which remain on the books today, imposed conditions such as these:

- A charter was granted for a limited time.
- Corporations were explicitly chartered for the purpose of serving the public interest - profit for shareholders was the means to that end.
- Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
- Corporations could be terminated if they exceeded their authority or if they caused public harm.
- Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts they committed on the job.
- Corporations could not make any political contributions, nor spend money to influence legislation.
- A corporation could not purchase or own stock in other corporations, nor own any property other than that necessary to fulfill its chartered purpose."

source: Reclaim Democracy
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/
Corporate History Primer
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/pdf/primers/hidden_corporate_history.pdf

[Amonester]

7. Worst than shylocks, all the lot of 'em.

Because, at least shylocking is illegal...

:grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad: :grr: :mad:

[leftofthedial]

11. Carlyle, Cheney, those who can not be named . . .

[GoddessOfGuinness]

13. Qatar and Kuwait, maybe?

[sam sarrha]

14. Scalar Research.. you can make a plasma ball in a vessel 10X hotter than

the surface of the sun,.. there is only enough uranium for power plants for 12 years. but Scalar can make a reactor for steam steam turbines till they work out the induction coils to just make a big transformer hooked up to the grid.. small private units will be illegal,

Scalar is essentially free energy.. open up subspace and it flows out.

HARPP is funded by the Corporation that owns the 4 Four Corners Coal fired power plants. last i heard like years ago they had sunk over 4 Billion dollars into it..

scalar arrays are all over the world now.. a very dangerous situation

[Wilber_Stool]

18. The rest of the world

is making billions off our high gas prices. Here's somthing from James Ridgeway:

http://villagevoice.com/news/0536,ridgewaycolu,67514,2.html

[LeighAnn]

22. FW: FW: Try This, It Might Work

http://www.hereinreality.com/cheapgas.html

:)

[aikoaiko]

25. Some of it is going into my retirement plan.

tiaa-cref growth fund.

sorry.

[JABBS]

26. What Bush should do

Read this posting.