Give Oil Company profits to the people

[ZZman]

Remember, that 12 billion is profit. Money left over after expenses. So where is it going?

Well I am a average wage earner here and after I pay my bills (expenses) there is very little profit (fun money) left. (Living paycheck to paycheck sucks!)

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
Remember, that 12 billion is profit. Money left over after expenses. So where is it going?


Does it matter?


Yes, living paycheck to pay check sucks ..but everyone does it. I don't care what you make, until your investments are topping your annual paycheck earnings, you're in the same rat race. The only difference is the size of your house, the newness of your car ..how quickly you write the check for the preferred dental work ..where you buy your clothes and how often you do it.

I like to live large like anyone else does. I begrudge the (nearly) $4000/year that I pay for all electronic/communications that my family uses ..the massive school tax that I pay ...and the water&sewer and trash bill ....my $2800 auto insurance bill....but I'd hardly say that I'm "suffering" due to high energy costs. I'm rearranging my spending.

There's no one I know that cannot make their life work on paper with the income they have vs. their mandated costs. It always comes down to their view of what a "needed" life includes that clouds the math. Again, I'm all for "living large" and I don't pretend to be exempt from the effect of a life that historically shows that you were nature's way of saying you made too much money.

 

[ZZman]

Wow you do live large. $4,000 for comm and 2800.00 for car insurance. You are killing me.

Sure it matters where it goes Gary. Instead of reducing gas prices for all of us it is probably going into the shareholders pockets.

If they put more of that profit into exploration, refining, and alternative energy projects their profit would show way lower and it would be helping out the average joe in the long run. Less profit in the short run would mean lower fuel costs.

 

[oilyriser]

Drive slow. My Subaru gets 45mpg, the same highway mileage as a 2008 Prius, if I go 55.

 

[Tempest]

Ask your employer to give up his profits for "the good of others" and see how well that goes over.

 

[ZZman]

My employer is a city government so we don't make a profit. We spend money to help others.......

I never said profits were bad. You must make a profit to stay in business. Excess profits are what I am talking about. 12 billion in profits made after expenses is way excessive when gas prices are high.

And that is just Exxon-Mobil. What did all the others make?

 

[LTVibe]

Oil companies do not dictate the price of crude oil. They have to pay that price to the producers (OPEC) and pass the price on to us. And just like an automaker makes more profit on a $45,000 high-end vehicle than they do on an $18,000 compact, the oil companies are going to make more profit on $140 barrel/$4 gallon than $20 barrel/$1 gallon. Also keep in mind that profit margins for oil companies are nowhere as high as those for companies like Bank of America, Microsoft, Google, etc. An oil company is naturally going to have much higher operating costs than those industries.

Remember back in the 1990's when gas was sometimes as low as 99 cents/gal, and oil company profits were way down? Nobody was complaining about the market forces at work then. Why complain about the same market forces at work now?

I hate paying high prices for gas as much if not more than anyone, but outrage directed at the oil companies is unjustified.

 

[Steve S]

Where does it say anybody is owed low priced Gas? Not that I enjoy the prices I pay mind you. It is like if you have a swimming pool and you have to pay for the chlorine.No pool no chlorine .

 

[Steve S]

Originally Posted By: ZZman
My employer is a city government so we don't make a profit. We spend money to help others
Where does the money come from and how is it obtained ?

 

[ZZman]

Steve S: I have a pool. I buy Chlorine. But I shop around and buy the cheapest I can, not the name brand. I can do this because of competition. I can't do that for Gas because they are all in it together.

And who said I thought we were owed low gas prices?

Where does money come from?: Taxes of course.

LTVibe: I complain about them because they are making excess profit at our expense. I don't really care about the profit margins for other companies because they have competition and I can chose or not chose to buy from them. I also don't have to buy many of these products on the consistent basis I do Oil/Gas.

 

[ZZman]

If they are not taking advantage of us then why did gas shoot up when oil went up but now that it has gone down over $35.00 a barrel the gas prices are slowly going down and not as far as they should? Gas should be down 63 cents a gallon from its peak where I live. $35.00 divided by 55 gallon barrel equals 63 cents. Gas is only down about 30 cents.

How would you like your grocery prices to flucuate every week like gas and oil does? And when it does all the stores raise and lower their prices the same amount? Would this be competitive? Would this be capitalism?

 

[ZZman]

Don't compare our prices to Europe's prices. They have decided to tax their fuel to death. That is why theirs is so high. Their gas would be a similar price to ours if they taxed it the same way.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: ZZman
My employer is a city government so we don't make a profit. We spend money to help others.......

I never said profits were bad. You must make a profit to stay in business. Excess profits are what I am talking about. 12 billion in profits made after expenses is way excessive when gas prices are high.

And that is just Exxon-Mobil. What did all the others make?


This explains alot. You work somewhere where they already take money from others to help those who are elected decide to help.

So it makes sense that you would want to take profits from a company and spend them the way the government wants to spend them.

Look, I'm not against having good roads, etc.

But I am against any sort of re-distribution of wealth.

I don't think I can say much more without getting political.

However, you do have a few facts wrong. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons, not 55 gallons, and only about 1/2 of that barrel becomes gasoline. I think another 10-15% becomes diesel fuel and perhaps jet fuel, home heating oil as well, and the rest (about 1/4 to 1/3rd of the barrel) becomes everything from asphalt to pharmacuticles and cosmetics.

 

[javacontour]

The other thing is that you have to compare the commodity prices before taxes, distribution, etc.

So have prices of unleaded gas on the NYMEX dropped proportionately with the price on the NYMEX for crude?

You can't just look at the price on the pump and make a valid comparison.

 

[ZZman]

You are correct on the 42 gallons. Also that only 19-25 gallons becomes gas. I stand corrected.....and embarassed......

But is it redistribution of wealth to get our own money back that we were overcharged for? (Remember 12 billion profit in a quarter after expenses)

Big Oil really is a Monopoly.

 

[javacontour]

I am free to buy as much or as little of the fuel as I see fit.

I cannot pick and choose how much tax I pay.

So personally, the tax is far worse, given there is no legal choice to not pay it, compared to the price of fuel.

I am free to use less fuel. I cannot write my government and say I want to use less services, so I'm only sending 1/2 of my taxes to the treasury, at any level.

No one forces me to pay for fuel, but folks with guns will take my home away if I refuse to pay my taxes.

 

[LTVibe]

Originally Posted By: ZZman
But is it redistribution of wealth to get our own money back that we were overcharged for? (Remember 12 billion profit in a quarter after expenses)

Oil companies not price gouging

Quote:
Another thing to keep in mind is that the oil companies have been investigated several times, and no one has, as of yet, even been able to prove that they ever charged too much for their product.

 

[ZZman]

Untrue Javacontour, We can chose how much tax we pay by how much we make, What state we live in, where we live such as the city or country, what we chose to buy, How many write offs we can come up with, etc.....

Your only option for fuel is to buy less or pay what the oil monopolies set prices at. They don't compete with each other. They just share market and rake in our cash!

 

[ZZman]

Imagine an investigation into price gouging. That is a laugh. A few pay offs with those billions in profit and it goes away quietly.....

 

[Steve S]

All you have to do is look at the $$$ the oil companies give the politicians . Yes we are being screwed but it really could be worst. It is our govermments fault for not useing our own resources and doing what it takes to get the power supply taken care of . Put fault where the blame is.