Can we just, overthrow oil companies???
LikeAnOcean
Posts: 7,718
I mean, we out number their execs by hundreds of millions.. Protesting does no good. We are too dependent. They are charging us more than double of what supply and demand should be!
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/21/news/economy/oil_hearing/index.htm?cnn=yes
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/21/news/economy/oil_hearing/index.htm?cnn=yes
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Poor Planning on the part of the United States does not make an Oil Company evil for turning a profit on energy that helps people live nice fun convienent lives. They also employ thousands and help them enjoy life through salary and benifits and what not.
They didn't force the US to import everything... they allowed that environment to be advantageous.
What the US has needed to do for years is to work on ways of loosening ties with oil before this happened... they had thier first "crisis" in the late 70's... then demand dropped.... shockingly the price of oil dropped. There are plenty of ways to become more energy independant we as a country have just not done anything about it. As far as energy is concerned we need to make sure the government regulations keep competition free so one company isn't dominant or controlling other companies or batteries what have you.
Obvioulsy demand is quite high across the globe, then we add in all the special blends of all fuels including now diesel... and it gets really expensive.
with all due respect to those senators involved, they don't know what the hell they are talking about. Normal Supply and Demand? What is that? All that good outsourcing in India and China has produced burgeoning oil hungry markets, and thier money... just as good as the dollar. It's not just US demand... it's Global demand that is the largest issue, the US has not taken steps to drill for local oil or to properly support finding alternative methods of energy independance.
Why would they do that?
Because they know that if we did drill we would accomplish two things:
1. drive down the price of oil on the market (very bad for them)
2. significantly ease our dependence on foreign oil thus totally altering our current foreign policy, which would therefore bring some stability back to the middle east, lower tensions between the US and the arab world, provide economic security to the US, and utterly destroy their global warmongering. (even worse for them)
:cool:
If I opened it now would you not understand?
So who then is going to find the oil you use to drive your hummer? Are you going to do it?
This "oil companies are evil" bullshit is exactly that. Energy is the most valuable commodity, so its not suprising that they make huge profits.
It wouldn't. This is a long term increase in oil price from which there is no recovery. Oil reserves in the arctic regions would not significantly change the current sitution, though they mights put it off for maybe 5 years.
That is hogwash.
1. We could be drilling in the pacific, AND in the gulf
2. There is NEVER "no recovery" from the fundamental laws of supply and demand.
If there is more supply, the price will decrease.
Of course global demand for oil is increasing.
However, OPEC is ALREADY LIMITING production, is not at full capacity, and there IS extra capacity in the system (albeit not much) globaly.
What you are seeing right now is GLOBLAL COLLUSION by the major players in the oil game to drive up the price, both on the supply AND demand side. They are selling less than they could be. And they are BUYING (speculating) RABIDLY. Now part of that buying is honest -- ie. big money is not comfortable in stocks or cash right now, and is moving in to hard assets. But part of it is PURE MANIPULATION. They are buying just for the sake of driving up price.
Why?
To cripple the economies of this world so badly that going concerns are no longer going. Put simply: they want to put the screws to us, so that we will have to sell. Then they will buy on the cheap.
This is EXACTLY what the great depression was about, and it is EXACTLY what they are doing now -- an unfathomable consolidation of wealth. Bear Sterns was just the fucking beginning. Hang on and get ready.
The Federal Reserve announced today that, outside of outright catastrophe, they are done cutting rates.
Get ready for more bank write-offs, failures, and bankruptcies.
They are engineering a crisis, plain and simple.
BTW, Brazil just discovered two MASSIVE new oil fields, and we could be doing the same, if the pussy-foot liberals would STFU and get the drilling started.
Unfortunately, the big money is MORE than happy to oblidge and not drill. It just keeps the price up for them, and they get to hold on to reserves, which they get to state on their balance sheet as assets, and use for leverage instead of selling it.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
we're screwed :(
Where is the supply going to come from? Oil is already getting harder to find resulting in companies going further offshore into deeper and deeper waters. It costs more to extract oil from these places and its only going to get worse. You (and many others) are obesessed with conspiracy theories about how the oil companies are screwing you. But the reality is oil is a finite resource, we have already found the biggest fields and a basic understanding of geology can tell you that as you go offshore we are going to find poorer reservoirs and less oil. So get used to rising oil prices because things are only going to get worse.
That is sort of what I was thinking. It is not like oil companies are all completly owned by cartoon style evil billionaires who sit in their giant offices, wear top hats and smoke cigars all day. Oil companies are public companies owned by regular people. In fact I am pretty sure the oil stocks in my RRSP are the main thing keeping it in the black. Nothing is stopping anyone from getting a piece of those huge profits for themselves.
well you just posted why we have no choice you allready have the mentalaty of no protest because we are to dependent , that's what it would take a total shut down like a no drive day foreverybody no flights booked for one day ,other wise will just kep on paying as much as they are willing to charge we AMERICANS ARE SHEEP BAHHHHH BAHHHHH BAHHHHHHHHH ...
Gambling=a taxation on stupidity.
Remember, you can walk anywhere, as long as you have the time.
http://www.ryanmontbleauband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jessedee
LOL...tell that to the subsidy-grubbing oil companies.
Kinda like the agribusinesses getting money from the govt. to grow corn to burn so that the price of food goes up because it is scarce.
Gambling=a taxation on stupidity.
Remember, you can walk anywhere, as long as you have the time.
http://www.ryanmontbleauband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jessedee
Absolutely, yes. Do you consider that "FREE market and Capitalism"???
Gambling=a taxation on stupidity.
Remember, you can walk anywhere, as long as you have the time.
http://www.ryanmontbleauband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jessedee
I'm not suggesting that we "overthrow oil companies". I'm simply suggesting that we stop pretending they're operating in a free market.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Gambling=a taxation on stupidity.
Remember, you can walk anywhere, as long as you have the time.
http://www.ryanmontbleauband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jessedee
I don't disagree with this at all. But just as people need to be responsible for their actions, so do oil companies.
Their only responsibility is to maximize profits.
This is not an irreducible axiom. Profits, to oil companies, are a positive measure of revenues vis a vis costs. Costs, for oil companies, extend from the challenge of extracting oil from underneath or upon the earth's surface. Revenues, for oil companies, extend from the rewards of serving oil consumers.
So, to say that an oil company's "only responsibility is to maximize profits" is to say that an oil company must find the ideal balance between extraction costs and serving oil consumers. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that being the primary responsibility of an oil company. In fact, if the primary responsibility of an oil company was something other than that, we'd all be in trouble.
That was very well written. I get the feeling that some people here think that a oil company is like a one man operation where the CEO finds and pumps the oil himself then refines it and sells it to the gas stations. And when they make these massive profits it all goes in his pocket.
But in reality oil companies have thousands of employees (so when they maximize profits it benefits these people). Plus they also have thousands of investors including average people with retirement and savings funds (so when they maximize profits these people are able to make money). Plus oil companies pay taxes so when oil companies make more money they pay more taxes and average citizens benefit (a big part of the reason the Canadian economy has been doing so well the last few years is due to oil). So even if oil companies are only out for a profit, going for that profit benefits millions of people.
Absolutely. Of course, there's a flip side to this as well. All of those "thousands of people" are likely consumers of oil and suffer when oil prices increase. Furthermore, the "maximization of profits" can lead to environmental damage, monopolizations, and other undesirables.
Regardless, what really bothers me is that people simply want to focus on some kind of niche or surface issue in regards to this very complex topic, creating false absolutes out of pre-existing biases.
In addition oil companies subvert science, interfere with markets, lie to our elected representatives, manipulate gasoline supply in anticompetitive practice, and exert disproportionate influence over our government policy.
...and they don't pay their share of taxes.
LOL...define "their share".
They certainly do. However, they're far from alone in this.
Gambling=a taxation on stupidity.
Remember, you can walk anywhere, as long as you have the time.
http://www.ryanmontbleauband.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jessedee
As a result of federal corporate income tax credits and deductions oil companies pay an effective income tax rate of 11%. The non-oil industry average is 18%.
You didn't answer my question. Define "their share".