The 4 makes the 3 superfluous as you will be able to go dirty like crazy.
Posted on 03/17/2004 2:08:40 PM PST by backhoe
You confuse citizenship with trade, Eva.
While we as individuals may care about the citizenship of those with whom we trade, we all would lose a great deal if we imposed citizenship to which you refer in your post on COMPANIES.
If you do not see me pumping gas at the gas station and ONLY see that I am handing my money over to the attendant, you might similarly think that he robbed me.
You would be equally wrong in that case, of course.
Get away from his stores and the local competitors and the prices drop significantly.
Yes, Adam it does: you apparently are uncomfortable not only with economics but also with logarithms if you think of them as level of education beyond reading.
If you knew anything about prices, you would know that that is a relative notion, and their ratios make more sense than they themselves. And it is changes in ratios that are captured by a logarithm.
Now, you prefer something else: arbitrarily singled out notions and measures that don't measure anything. Well, as COBOL programmers used to say in ancient Rome, purgamentum init, exit purgamentum: garbage in, garbage out.
Of course, if one puts a you-should-love-liberty slant on garbage, you expect it somehow to be transformed into a philosophical thought...
Oh no, Mr. Petronksi: this may uncover facts, you cannot do that with a libertarian. Plus, knowledge of logarithms immediately give you away as an elitist and thus disqualifies you from "feeling the pain of the masses." You should not have admitted to knowing logarithms... They don't even use them is business schools any more.
This suggestion is hardly practical: it presupposes the ability to process information and, more importantly, take responsibility for one's own actions. The suggestion and motivation of the oroginal post on this thread is much more practical: b---ch and moan about the markets, evil Fed, stupid government... Don't you see how much more practical THAT is?
You have an erroneou perception that oil companies are insulated in those countries where they drill:
ARCO was a totally US company, with a totally domestic supply of crude. There was no foreign currency involved That's what you think. It would've been terrible if their finance department did not trade currency futures, and I would be VERY surprised if their shareholders and directors allowed that for long. Oil and gas are international markets, and even if you sell only in Montanta you are subject to price oscillations that are smoothed out by forward currency contracts. In addition, a domestic oil company tips into spot oil markets when they are short in supply or have excess volume.
and no foreign markets either, to drive up the price of oil. The price for oil was not determined by ARCO. It was determined by demand and AGGREGATE supply.
BP stated at the time of the take over that they wanted to see a single price for oil in all their markets, that they hoped to raise the price of gasoline in the US to the same price that they pay in Europe. And you thing that ARCO, being good Americans they were, would not want the same thing?
In addition, you misunderstood what BP said: it is a well-managed company and I cannot believe that someone could say such a silly thing, which would cause laughter even in an MBA class...
Yeh... That's the ticket...
Snake oil is also good, I hear. Unfortunately, it was all confiscated by the Fed, masons, and international Jewish bankers as part of enslavement of the American people. Otherwise I would definitely buy some: a solid investment.
I forgot to explain my remarks on this. Another poster was claiming that the weak dollar was the cause of the price rise. There is no foreign exchange involved in the sale of domestic crude. Also, the philosophy of the board changed to a more market conscious strategy after the Lod Cook left. They reversed everything that Cook had done and basicly prepared ARCO for the takeover by BP, for which they were paid handsomely.
There is no such thing. Is a polio shot a public good to the one child in a million who dies from it? Is a highway a public good to the man who loses his farm for it?
and we hire the government to provide them.
Hiring refers to a voluntary process. You are referring to a non-voluntary process based on violence not collaborative activity.
Naturally, any contract grants privilages and imposes duties, so to partake of public goods you as individual do forgo certain freedoms.
Please provide evidence that I have signed such a contract.
Having common currency, including that which is "faith-based," in a public good
Not for young folks trying to purchase inflated housing. Or old folks being robbed of their benefits and savings via inflation. Remind me how falsifying the CPI is a public good?
The 4 makes the 3 superfluous as you will be able to go dirty like crazy.
The ratio of what to what?
Now, you prefer something else: arbitrarily singled out notions and measures that don't measure anything.
What do you propose we use a unit of monetary measure? Lord Greenie himself has rejected all the M's and MZM.
Actually just plain dumb steel, copper, soybeans or oil have been sufficient for the last several years.
Now why is that?
Could it have something to do with the fact the Feds probably have more unfunded liabilities than all privately held wealth in America?
Eva, "prevewnting" a takeover IS in the interest of shareholders. Takeovers cannot be prevented altogether: poison pills increase the price, which is in the interest of the shareholders.
Sound like you'be been subjected to a great deal of anti-management rhetoric from armshair generals in your company: somehow, even if one's expertise is limited in makign two-sided copies, he still knows best what is good for the company --- having never seen its books even!
With this in mind, Cook increased the debt to value ratio to a such a high level that a take-over was unattractive. And what happened to the price of the stock?
The idea was to keep the company going, rather than please the stock holders. I would think that to let the company function as a going concern IS the mains interest of the shareholders.
After the embargo of '78, ARCO pulled out of all it's foreign holdings and concentrated solely on it's Alaskan oil, purposely to be free of the OPEC pressure. That is a bet the company made, like many strategic decisions management faces.
ARCO was one of those companies that people were proud to work for, What people are proud of is the function of their psyche and often has little to do with the object of pride. Witness, for instance, the pride of a parent in her or his child: it is there even when the child's achievements are average. There is nothing wrong with that (in fact it's great for the lucky child) but it has nothing to do with the child itself.
In those times, Eva, Americans were generally proud of their corporations. The same was true about people who worked for GM, GE, aerospace industry: you were a part of something big, you were making America great. A generation before that, Americans were proud of their country in general, but by '70s the civil rights movements not only achieved equality for minorities but went further and imposed guilt and shame on Americans. We were no longer proud of our country and ashamed of what "we" have done to the VIetnamese, blacks, women, Latin Americans: the leftists have won that territory. However, we were still proud of our corporations.
Well, the battle continued and granted more victories to the left, which after patriotism went on to dismantle other insitutuions: family, parenting, primary education (liberal arts higher education is dead since 1050s) -- and, finally, capitalism itself. The change in attitude manifested itself in 1987-1989 or so with a notable increase in labor turnoover: loyalty to companies has disappeared. Companies have responded, of course, by cutting costs in that area --- from reduced benefits to "hotelling" (office-sharing).
You may or may not see the point in the specifics I offered, but the main point is valid: whether employees feel good or bad working for the company has nothing to do with the company's strategy in the global market. This is simply because people do not know management, although they believe they do --- just because they observed their managers (sort of like fancying oneself being an engineer just because you've seen a car or better yet --- drove one!) Havig very little reason of that kind, people liked working for ARCO in 1970s and they do not, as you say, now --- with equally little reason.
Most certainly, this feeling has nothing to do with the company strategy or country of incorporation.
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