Posted on 04/29/2006 6:39:09 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EARNS_OIL?SITE=KOIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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Apparently, capitalism has become a bit too expensive for some people?
"High" profits? Higher than the crappy profits they had previously.
But compared to most other industries, those profits are mediocre.
"Democrats unapologetic for obstructionist policies that have run up the price of oil, hence giving oil industry high profits."
I've never heard the federal goobermint complaining about the $100billion that ExxonMobile paid in income taxes last year. Or the large chunk the feds take out of every gallon of gas.
The oil industry will have to invest $100 billion in Alaska to get the 17 billion barrels of recoverable oil, and $20 billion just to build the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline. Guess where that money must come from.
According to the Left, they go into orphanages at night and take candy from babies and sell it to warehouses.
The reason why their profits are so high is that the government won't let them drill in Alaska.
Profit made by ExxonMobil: $8 Billion
Taxes paid by ExxonMobil: $34 Billion
Who should be the apologetic ones????
People in government? Like Hillary with her cattle futures and I heard some other guy made millions off some taxpayer sports stadium deal. And many people come in to Congress poor and leave rich. It's the American way:)
Oil companies make about 8 percent profit on a gallon of gasoline. If the price goes up a buck, they make an extra eight cents. Do we really want to strip them of the wherewithal for finding and producing new sources of oil, all for the sake of that 8 cents?
The best legislation that the Congress can meet the Oil Companies with over this is a Bill to immediately open ANWR for drilling.
Immediately.
Since liberals are always searching for as many victims as possible of something, the oil industry appears to them the ripest target.
The tax breaks that they'll get Congress to pass for them?
Private companies arenot supposed tobe in the oil business? If they think that
Exxon is cheating the public, then what about CITGO, where the profits arte going into the pockets of a tinpot dictator?
How many billions they make is meaningless.
Their percentage of profit on investment is tiny and by all rights they should all close down at least according to my economics prof in the 50s.
They don't owe the public anything!
OPEC controls oil prices and we don't control OPEC. C'est la vie, eh? They saw how well their oil embargo worked with the Yom Kippur War and Jimmah's disastrous handling of the affair, as well as our tolerance of the new high prices after the fact, that they're doing it all over again.
We can immediately lower oil prices by sticking it to them and expanding domestic refining and oil drilling. If we went all out, these speculators would immediately sell their reserves, knowing that their days are numbered. Make some changes in refining rules and lift the ethanol tariff, and the situation is made even better. A few simple moves that would fix everything.
A few simple moves opposed by Democrats.
We need refineries. Oil is in fine supply, but we can only get gasoline as fast as we can refine it. And the problem with refining it, is that the government standards for environmental emissions and such, as well as securing the necessary documents to build a refinery alone, require much time and much money- like 10 years and many billion. Very few are willing to make such a risky long term investment. I wouldn't.
nutty reporting.
Exxon - profit margin 10.6%
J.P. Morgan - profit margin 10.6%
Procter&Gamble - Proft margin 12.7%
Pfizer - profit margin 15.7%
Motorola - profit margin 12.4%
Pepsico (frito lay, taco bell) - 12.5%
Altria (formerly Philip Morris) - 15.0%
Where's the OTHER outrage?
There is none because hese companies pay off handsomly for their investors -- (including Senators)
H.J. Heinz - Profit margin 7.65 %
Kohls departmet stores - profit margin 42.8% (2002)
And so is the government that profits more than the company profits.
Nope.
First, you won't immediately see the effects of expanding domestic refining.
Even with no ecowhackos and NIMBYS fighting the permits, it'll take 5 to 10 years to get a new facility online.
Then you have to have the pipelines to feed it and move product.
As for drilling, there are over 1600 rigs drilling in the US today. There are not many more rigs, and those that are not drilling are mostly moving to new locations.
To get a substantial increase beyond that, you have to build the rigs, train the hands, supervisors, service company personnel, and increase logistics and supplies--much like building an army from scratch. It just does not happen overnight.
For the same reason, over 10% of the Gulf of Mexico assets which went offline because of Katrina and Rita are still down. You cannot train sat divers, ROV operators, and underwater welders overnight, and there are medical constraints on how long these guys can be down there.
To make it happen at all takes money, and lots of it.
BTW, oil prices are set by refinery bid. Throwing a tax at speculators will not change the global demand picture one pixel.
As for OPEC, they can increase prices by cutting production, but they no longer carry the capacity, individually, to lower them. Global demand for oil has increased that much.
But that's not how it works. The oil market has been inflated by speculators, and even most analysts will say at least $15/barrel is from pure speculation alone. This is why I wasn't surprised to see the price of oil drop $5/barrel this past week right after the President's energy press conference, which proposed a few tiny ideas that practically should have no effect. This is also why the price of oil immediately spikes whenever any adverse geopolitical event happens, even if it doesn't affect oil prices. Mahmoud Ahmadenijad says something stupid and boom, price goes up.
There is no possible conclusion to make there except for that there's so much speculation in the market that even remotely related things can affect the price. I guarantee that if the President and Congress stepped up tomorrow and said that we were going to embark upon a nationwide domestic oil expansion project, that the price would immediately nosedive. Not because we'd be getting any new oil immediately, but because speculators would start dumping their holdings, knowing that the value can only be held for so long.
It's not a purely supply and demand market anymore, contrary to what big oil says. If it was, the price of oil would be at around $50/barrel. It's an inflated market due to speculation that comes from fear mongering on geopolitics and supply. Even OPEC says the price is too high and that it should be lower. We also have the highest oil inventories in 8 years, yet prices keep going up. This is a speculated bubble, and at some point, it will pop. And it will pop hard.
And the best way to pop it? Eliminate the weapons speculators use to bid their holdings up with. Domestic expansion is one solution. Another is to cool down the geopolitical crises that are going on. Speculators are like poker players. They'll keep on betting and betting and betting if they think they've got the stronger hand. Give them reason to question that, and sooner or later, they'll start to fold.
This "crisis" makes me madder at the politicians than the oil companies. Respect for them has waned considerable in the last few years and this certainly does not help. Most have turned out to be cowardly pimps.
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