Exxon/Mobil $9.9 billion profit for the quarter!!!

[Bondage]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by h2co-pilot:
AW! This is sooooo cute! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is the strangest goddam foreplay I've ever engaged in.
LMFAO!!!!
Jen - call me. The rest of you will have to wait for my report.

Sean

[TootsSUT]

Missed that last post of yours, Bond! You'll do what tonight????

Maybe you and Drty should go to the movies together. You seem to be getting along quite well together!

[DennisAJC]

CAHOOTS!!!!!! CAHOOTS!!!!!!

We're being played here by two sword fighters!

[TootsSUT]

What happened to the gas conversation??

[FreeorDie2]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by sfox:

3: No matter HOW you slice it, 9.9 billion in PROFIT is disgusting considering what the country has been enduring over the past year. These companies have profiteered on the back of national disaters to an unprecedented extent and if the current administration doesn't take some action, we may end up with a Democrat controlled government sooner than later....

S </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So. . .was it disgusting about 3, maybe 4 years ago when oil was $10 a barrel and you were buying gas for less than a buck a gallon? You were getting a great deal, but the oil companies weren't making much in profit? It's idiotic to take one quarter out of context, you have to look at profit over the long haul.

That said, the oil companies have long complained that they didn't have enough in profit to make certain activities profitable -- like building refineries. One would hope that they would use some of this profit for research and building infrastructure.

[MovinH2]

2.55 for cheapest around here. Something needs to be done. Put their profit makings at a cap.

[DavidAragon]

Costco was the cheapest here in northern Cal.

In San Fran, it was $2.99, then up here in Novato, it was $2.79, then a bit further up in Petaluma it was $2.65

I notice that as soon as the commodities market clicks up a cent, it is reflected at the pump in 3 seconds. However, if it the market goes down 30 cents, the price at the pump doesn't go down for 3 weeks! $##$@@!#

[Poseur]

I notice that as soon as the commodities market clicks up a cent, it is reflected at the pump in 3 seconds. However, if it the market goes down 30 cents, the price at the pump doesn't go down for 3 weeks! $##$@@!#
It's because the station owners will raise the price of gas with the market even though the gas in their tanks was purchased at a lower price. Once they refill those tanks at the higher gas price, they cannot lower their price much and make a profit on the gas they are holding so they must keep the price up even after the pricing goes back down until they refill their tanks at the new lower price.

[dochummer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jennifer:
By the way, what movie are we seeing?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Dumbo

[Dan]

9½ Weeks

[ckhagman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PARAGON:

Those of you who do not think something is wrong with the current fuel situation are going to wake up to severely higher prices for everything else you buy a few years down the road. Everything you buy has to be transported and the over-inflated diesel fuel prices currently seen is killing shipping.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hasn't that already happened? I have been seeing fuel surcharges on UPS shippments for a lot longer than 2 months.

[h2co-pilot]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jennifer:
By the way, what movie are we seeing?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Crying Game

[PARAGON]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by h2co-pilot:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jennifer:
By the way, what movie are we seeing?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Crying Game </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Hart1]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Dickhead, we're not talking about the housing market. Paragon is dead on with this: </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wow, your comprehension is just amazing. You stuck on Stupid too?

The point being, is that we don't complain about the "profiteering" in other businesses when it might benefit us. Think on this for awhile, you may just "get it".

At any rate, Capitalism is a two way street.

When gas prices are "low" we are the recipient of market forces at that time, which we do not mind. Now that the market forces are not to our liking, some cry, only wanting it "one way"

Notwithstanding, this was not my quote, this was the quote from Doug Bandow, who is a "Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan."

No offense, but when all is said and done, your "views" just don't hold water, dickhead.

[Hart1]

More from Doug Bandow.....

October 27, 2005


Price Gouging in the Public Interest
by Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.

Gasoline costs too much in almost everyone's opinion. President George W. Bush is urging Americans to drive less. Other politicians want government to push prices down.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., suggests giving the president the power to set retail gas prices. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., complains that companies are "profiting in an extraordinary way at the expense of the American consumer" and has proposed a windfall profits tax.

Eight governors have requested a federal probe of gasoline pricing. Hawaii has imposed controls on wholesale prices. Other states might follow suit.

"We really need to step back and recognize that, like electricity, gasoline is too vital to the economy to be left in the hands of these corporations that have been gouging us," argues Doug Heller of the misnamed Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Los Angeles.

Price controls have been around as long as prices. And price controls have had disastrous effects for just as long.

Heller's argument makes no sense. After all, if ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell could simply conspire to push up prices, they would have done so before now.

Gasoline prices have recently increased for a number of reasons. One is growing demand. The emergence of China and secondarily India as industrial powers is transforming the global market.

Another reason prices are high - and have spiked in response to the damage inflicted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - is pervasive regulation. Most important, it has become extraordinarily difficult to build oil refineries.

Both the number of refineries and their total capacity is lower today than in 1980. The last new refinery opened in 1976, even though gasoline consumption has jumped 25 percent since then.

Today, the U.S. must import 10 percent of its gasoline as well as 57 percent of its oil. Thus, even the temporary closure of several refineries by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita sharply inflated pump prices.

Environmental regulations, backed by activists who mix demonstrations and lawsuits, create delays and inflate costs.

One Arizona project begun a decade ago is still at least five years away from completion.

Over the last 10 years the industry has invested $47 billion to comply with new environmental controls rather than construct new capacity, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Compliance with sulfur standards alone cost about $20 billion.

Although the recent energy bill included provisions intended to spur refinery construction, it added a new ethanol mandate - a political payoff to agricultural interests - which will force expensive technical adaptations at refineries. Air pollution rules require different gasoline formulations for "nonattainment" areas, reducing economies of scale.

While consumers target gas stations with their ire, the bulk of recent price hikes have gone to refiners. In contrast, distributors, marketers, and retailers receive just a penny more than in 2004.

Even today, prices at the pump are constrained by local competition. If gas stations could charge as much as they desired, they would have been doing so already.

Government also pushes up prices through taxes, which average 42 cents a gallon nationally. In Hawaii, where the state government has imposed price controls, the combined state and federal tax is more than 50 cents.

High prices might be painful, but they are the most efficient way to distribute goods in short supply. Indeed, the industry attempts to spread gasoline as widely as possible. Wholesalers charge "over-allocation" fees to discourage any distributor from accumulating a disproportionate share of limited resources.

Quite simply: prices rise when supplies fall. That signals consumers to use less and sellers to supply more. Price controls short-circuit the adjustment process and intensify shortages.

That was the experience during the mid-1970s gas "crisis."

Citizens in the world's wealthiest country sat in gas lines because the federal government allocated supplies and restricted prices.

Only when newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan lifted price controls did supplies jump and prices fall. Federal energy regulation was a public policy disaster that should never be repeated.

The United States also imposed a windfall profits tax between 1980 and 1987. Alas, the WPT discouraged companies from making potentially risky investments.

In 1990 the Congressional Research Service concluded: "The WPT reduced domestic oil production between 3 percent and 6 percent, and increased oil imports from between 8 percent and 16 percent." Replaying the old WPT would replay its effect, helping foreign producers and hurting domestic consumers.

As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated, natural disasters can create severe economic dislocations. Adjustments almost always are difficult.

But government intervention always exacerbates the pain. If gasoline seems expensive today, just try turning the energy market over to government.

[PARAGON]

If someone wrote it, you must believe it.

Over the past few years, during normal times, how many times have you heard about a shortage of fuel? You haven't. We produce enough fuel so the crap about increase demand being the culprit here is BS.

That dumb article might have been applicatory 15 years ago, but today there is a monopoly of sorts in the oil industry. All the industry needs is a remote excuse to artificially inflate the fuel prices even if that excuse doesn't come to fruition.

The fact that fuel prices can rise in anticipation of a hurricane or something happening with the war shows that there is something alltogether different than supply and demand controlling prices.

[H2Finally]

Paragon is dead on with this.

If pure supply and demand explain price increases, it SHOULD adjust downwards quickly also, when the "emergencies" are removed (as others have stated).

The above article seemed to be geared to "calm" consumers anger over retail gas stations' prices (-- "In contrast, distributors, marketers, and retailers receive just a penny more than in 2004"). The complaint here is against ExxonMobil, not individual gas station owners.

The point of how many billions was costing the petroleum industry to comply with regulations is IRRELEVANT simply because the $9.9 billion profit has absorbed any and all such costs (hence, PROFIT).

Housing price inflation is NOT the least bit comparable. As others have also stated, you have a choice of other houses to buy, no real choice about other means of auto fuel (at least none economical). Too, the increase in housing pairs with many increases in living standards (more spacious rooms, attached garage standard, better insulations, upgraded wiring, better fridge, etc.). In what way does today's expensive gas improve my living standard? Last, housing cost is an INVESTMENT. You can recoup (even at some lost if necessary) when you sell. How you gonna get back your gas EXPENSES?

Remember, $9.9Billion is profit of JUST 1 GAWD-DAMN COMPANY (record for any company in any industry in the US). Isn't the close second place running another $9+billion profit?!

[ckhagman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by PARAGON:
If someone wrote it, you must believe it.

Over the past few years, during normal times, how many times have you heard about a shortage of fuel? You haven't. We produce enough fuel so the crap about increase demand being the culprit here is BS.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oil is a global issue not a US issue. Prices for a lot of goods and services have gone up but oil is supposed to stay down? Our demand has gone up and our production has not.

[ckhagman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by H2Finally:

Remember, $9.9Billion is profit of JUST 1 GAWD-DAMN COMPANY (record for any company in any industry in the US). Isn't the close second place running another $9+billion profit?! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would like to know what Exxon/Mobils ROI was on this 9.9 billion. i.e. if last years was 2% and this years was 2% then who really cares. But if this hear was significantly higher like 6% or more than it is a problem.