get a rope, god forbid they make money

Let's see how much that affects the price of gas...

According to the EIA (Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or ) we consumed 20.7 million barrels per day in 2007.  According to Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or , you get about 19.5 gallons of gasoline out of each barrel, in addition to some other things like heating oil.

So, that makes daily consumption about 20,700,000 * 19.5 gallons, or 403,650,000 gallons per day, or 147,332,250,000 gallons in 2007.

Let's just round up to 150 Billion gallons to make this simple.

So, these guys on the panel made something like 5.5M + 14M + 15M, let's just round up and say they made 100 million dollars.  OMG.  That's works out to .06 pennies per gallon.  Not 6 cents, .06 cents, or 6/10,000 of a dollar.

How much does the government make on every gallon? In California, it's over $.50 per gallon! (Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or and that was in 2002! For doing NOTHING other than regulating and taxing it?  The oil companies at least do something useful.

It so easy to point the finger at the oil companies, but we are the problem.  We vote idiots into office, and they have created this demand/supply problem.

Their profits are running at about 8%, which is probably enough incentive to deal with the regulatory nightmare that is energy.

Any way you slice it, 8% of $4.00 a gallon is more money than 8% of $2.00 a gallon.  Their profit is rising because the market price for their product is rising.  The fact that they enjoy totally inelastic demand is sad, but it's not their fault that the market (worldwide) is demanding more than can be supplied (by over a 1 million barrels per day).  That's why prices are going up, and profits follow naturally.  If they did not, there would be no reason to be in that business.

They are not angels, but they are not the problem.  Our congress is the problem, and our people are the ones putting those idiots in charge.  Sadly, the action that people want is for these same idiot politicians to punish the oil companies and sue OPEC, as if that is going to accomplish anything at all.

Reduce demand, increase supply by using our own resources (whatever they are), and the problem goes away.

BMoneeTheMoneeMan wrote on May 22^nd, 2008 at 7:31pm:


The tax on a gallon isn't to sneeze at.  and the higher the pump price the more that $ tax generates.  It sure as $hit isn't going into that lock box for infrastructure and road repair!  The pols and local gov. spend money like drunken sailors and when the economy really tanks you and I are going to not be asked but demanded...threatened to open your wallets more.  When sales tax decreas, the spending dosn't they just stick it to the property owners. 

-P.

Quote:


I coulda sworn the mark up was in pennies per gallon and not pennies per dollar

Quote:


Right. The only people worse than ebay and drug companies for gouging is big oil. Zero consciences. Screwed, blued, and tattooed as my old employer used to say.

Charlie

People buy so much of what they see on TV. And they also want somebody to point the finger at. Oil company execs are easy targets, but 8% is no huge operating margin. I wish the company I worked at could make 8 cents on the dollar, but we're a little more capital intensive than an oil company (i.e., over 500 jet airplanes and over 100,000 trucks to run and maintain).

What a lot of people forget about is that average Americans own much of the oil companies, mostly in the form of 401K's. Why should I be bitter when they succeed?

You have to remember that for the last 70 years, the Republican party has been trying to kill Social Securtiy. All my life it has been called the third rail of politics. Good. George tried it too. Gore should have known better than to make that silly statement though.

Defending the unbelieveable business of oil company gouging is hard to fathom. They deliberately haven't built new refineries here for years. No money in that, you know.

It's hard for me to root for a business that in the late 30 and 40s, bought up streetcar systems in several cities to kill public transportation that they didn't have a piece of. No money in streetcars either.

Charlie

Quote:

The top guys in just about every company in which I own stock make millions, too. So? When did capitalism become a nasty word? If I'm envious, I should become one of those guys, not point the finger at 'em. Turns out I'm not envious - but I do give them some of my hard-earned money to invest. And that's just enough for me.

Capitalism is fine.

J. P. Morgan and and the Rockefellers made the golden age which was so golden that even Republicans had had enough after the turn of the century. If you're going to make money, it would be nice if you don't act like Scrooge McDuck.

Greed such as this hasn't been seen in 100 years. The country can't afford it.

Charlie

Here we go again:

- Profit is evil and greedy
- People shouldn't be allowed to make so much money.
- That big corporate money should be forcefully. redistributed to those who don’t have as much.

What does sound like to you?

Marc wrote on May 23^rd, 2008 at 12:34pm:


If they haven't been said, it would sound like nothing.

I can't seem to find the quotes in this thread where these things were said, or mentioned the first time in the ANWAR thread.

Here's my perspective on the whole thing:

Campbell Brown is hot!