As British leave, Basra deteriorates

At least we know what your complaint is really about. People making money. Damn them. Let's go thru the numbers again, for gworld:

125/1500 = 8% operating margin. So, if you invest $1 you get $1.08 out of it. Raking in the cash. Do you think that's too much? What would be your perfect operating margin for a business?

Big Bank needs to get it in the chin!

You shouldn't defeat your own premise in your own links, gworld. It's bad form

 

So you are complaining that OIL companies have to pay tax?
The tax is on declared profit which is nothing compared to the real profit. Let's look at the price of oil during this war. The price has gone up from $20 to $75 which is 75/20= 375% increase. Unless you claim that their cost has gone up with the same percentage, it should be obvious that their profit has increased.

2 (price)- 1 (cost)= 1 (profit)
10 (price)- 1 (cost)= 9 (profit)

 

Nope. Where do I make that claim?

Let's look at your last 2 links, gworld.

16.7/213 = 7.8% margin

125/1500 = 8% margin.

Where's the gouging? It seems that profits are about the same over a period of a year or a period of 5 years. About 8%. Again; is that too much?

Where's the proof of "pocketing profits" and the like? The profit margin is the same now as it was in 2002. Where's your issue here, gworld? Is 8 cents on a dollar too much for you? Do you gripe this much when you pay sales tax?

Congratulations on passing 1st grade math; but your equation is faulty. And you repeating this same mantra over and over again is just weakening your argument; as its not any reflection on reality.

So again. To reduce oil costs are you going to support the building of more refineries?

How about - is 8% too high a margin for a business? If so, what maximum margin would you allow a company to work under? 4% 3% 2%?

Help me out here. About 10 posts, and you have yet to make a coherent point.

 

I'm so shocked by that statement I am having trouble finding words right now.

 

Now I understand why you act so stupid, you don't know the difference between crude oil (price of barrel of oil) and price of the gas in gas station.

Number of refineries effects the price in gas station but doesn't effect the price of crude oil. Starting wars in disguise of "fighting terrorism" and causing political instability effects the price of crude oil.

It seems d16boy is not the only one who bases his life knowledge on working at a gas station.

 

The markup at the price of the pump (what you were moaning about originally) is because of lack of refining capacity. That was your original moan, wasn't it, gworld? Please see your original posts if you forget that now.

If you increase refinery capacity; the cost at the pump drops; which is - essentially - what anyone cares about. And its a fixable problem. So; again. Do you support the building of more refineries to lower the costs of gas? It's not difficult.

Price of oil is driven by demand. World demand is growing, world output is staying (essentially) the same. Therefore the costs go up. I don't have time to teach you basic supply/demand theory, so I'll assume you understand that the point is self-evident.

Here are pretty pictures to help explain the situation to you:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/oil/supply_demand.html

How about these? Not difficult questions; based upon your expert knowledge of how much profit is too much you pretended to have earlier.

 

When you start to lie then I have to stop you. I only mentioned the profit of oil companies that I have explained depends on the crude oil price and I even made fun of d16boy that he only knows about gas stations, so don't lie.

The rest of your post is as stupid also since you claim that raise of demand from 2003-2007 has caused almost 400% price increase which is absolute nonsense. The price raise is mostly caused by the war and the biggest winner of this war are oil companies.

 

You've not been here long enough then mate.

You'll get used to GTechs utter crap soon enough, I feel you are already figuring him out.

 

Uh ok. Gworld here is your original gripe. This is your highlighted section:

Gee. Wonder where I came up for your refining gripe? Shocking. Did you not read what you quoted, or did you not understand it? Which was it?

Again; do you support building new refineries to keep costs to consumers down? Yes or no? It's not a tough question, mr economics.

Before that you went on a tangent about oil company profits; which you have been thoroughly debunked on; unless you care to claim that 8% is too much profit for a company to be making. Do you wish to do this?

Nonsense, indeed:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/21/commentary/column_hays/hays/

China accounts for 40% of the increased demand:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4191683.stm
India's deman has risen:
http://www.iags.org/wsj050504.htm

Production is essentially the same. Please stop defending a point that is clearly baseless. It's silly.

So again. I'll ask. Where does it show? Surely not in the 8% margins that the oil companies work under. Where are the profits going?

87% of US's oil comes from: canada, saudi arabia, mexico, venezuela, nigeria, angola, etal.

The war is not driving up our prices. Worldwide demand is. Please try to understand supply and demand, gworld.

 

Erm guys... step out of the bubble.
How many words of Iraqui can you speak.
Basically we are stealing their oil and selling it to the US.
The Fundamentalists know this and are trying to drive us out<
We are actaully a little bit guilty here.
Been there fired the bullets, stepped back looked at the politics.
All about dollars, illuminati, Federal Reserve etc.
DC is offial the new Illuminati Bitch incidentally,

 

Why? Are you suggesting this isn't an a potential example of such, or is being aware of such what you take issue with?

 

"We" are? I've previously made a bet ($50 via paypal) to anyone who could source (not a prison planet source) where the US is stealing Iraqi oil. Let me know if you'd like to claim that $50.

Hell, I wish it were true. If nutjobs are going to suggest such, the least we could do is get the benefit of that stolen oil and have lower gas prices.

 

You are entitled to your opinions but that fact that you may actually believe...

"muslims simply do not have the ability to live in peace, even when the opportunity for such exists."


...is what I find shocking.

 

I thought it was a straight forward question. Can I presume you are going for "shock value" (uh, not "shock troops" ) in this example of selective outrage?

 

I am not outraged. I'm shocked by your comments, there is a difference.

 

outrage:

Ah, those subtle nuances. Still, the question remains unanswered.

 

You may see the difference between shock and outrage as subtle. I can't help you there.

It was a loaded question to begin with that had little to do with my post. I was not suggesting anything but rather making a statement of opinion.

 

are you still angry that you can't understand why Oil companies are not making as big of a profit as you want them to? I never said anything in my posts about gas stations...however you did, when you tried to change the subject.

Go look at history, and you will note that the price at the pump (which is a reflection of the price of a barrel of crude) has never adjusted properly with inflation. Now that it has, you are still angry. When I proved you wrong about profit margins, you were angry. When Lorien did the same (and a much better job than myself as I did not feel like going back through the thousands of posts here in the forum to find all that stuff), you got angry. Face it, we have proved you wrong once again, and you cannot dispute the facts. Although I bet you will resort to calling us cheerleaders once again.

 

I don't call you cheerleaders this time, I call you stupid when you can not understand that when the price of barrel of oil goes from 20 dollar to 75 dollar without similar increase in cost of production, the profit sky rockets. Profit margins as reported by public companies are nothing but accounting exercises which most of time are based on complicated tax rules and pure fantasy. Just a simple example, so even a dummy like you can understand.

Company A makes 1000 dollars selling a product that they have bought for 100 dollars. Company A makes $900 profit which represents 90% profit. Now company A decides to pay the CEO $850 in compensation. The profit for company A is now $900-$850=$50 and the profit margin is only 5%.

 

I was wondering when gworld was going to trot out the salary figures. Here we go, to show how gworld -again- isn't letting reality interfere with his opinions.

According to (and I know gworld will appreciate this) a socialist site, the ceo of Exxon (someone named Raymond) had a salary of $70 million dollars in 2005. Exxon's revenue for 2005 was $371 billion dollars. So, when you look at this.

His salary (70) / Total revenue (371,000) in millions.
70/371,000=.00019 dollars he makes per dollar of revenue exxon takes in.

So, again, where does gworld get the idea that the companies are hiding the profits in the CEO salaries? Baseless; of course. It doesn't even make sense economically to grossly overpay a CEO's salary.

Not sure why gworld is bothering to continue in this thread; but I'm happy to continue basic economic (and math!) lessons, if he enjoys it as much as I do.