Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Enough to make you sick

I'm usually a proponent of hands-off government, but this is way over the line. It's time to regulate gasoline/diesel at the federal level as a public utility.

Jack

So what? They are businesses whose sole purpose is to make money, and that they do. You get fuel whenever you need it, no lines, no shortages, no quality issues, and as much as you can afford. If I had a product that everyone wanted, I wouldnt give it away, I would make as much as I could, and when you think about it, they could ask alot more for it.

And at the same time destroying your nations econonmy Mr Hawk?

It is actually very easy to understand.

Exon made $11.68 Billion in the second quarter, But they and Wall Street epected to make more that that. It does not say how much but lets be conservative and say they expected to make $15 Billion during the second quater. Which is a difference of $3.32 Billion.

Which in real terms means. Exon Lost $3.32 Billion dollars in the second quater and as such will be putting up the cost of gasoline at the pumps to try and regain some of their losses.

And this ladies and gentleman is how business works. And no you cannot have a pay rise, you see how much we lost last month, think yourself lucky you have a job!

Dang I wish I had Exxon stock. I gotta go check the mutual funds in my 401k and see if I do...

oh boy here we go again... profit margins means nothing to some folks... BTW, the government makes more of off gas than exxon does and they don't even break a sweat doing it...

FJ chances are that you do since you have a 401k so do I and thousands of other people...

Without wanting to get political.

It's been on the news here that Centrica (the owners of British Gas) have made nearly £1billion or £5m a day....


This is the day after announcing that my gas bill is gonna rise by 36%.


That makes me sick too.....

However...

There was a bloke on the news at lunchtime saying that getting annoyed at Centrica/BG is no good. At the end of the day they are a business and they are to make money. The people to get angry at are the politians who haven't put a cap on the amount that utility bills can be increased by....

Ah ok, I am more diversified than you are although, right now I'm waiting to become eligible in my new employer's program, then I'll roll over my old 401k. I can't wait to be debt free, then I'll open a trading account somewhere so I can invest on whatever company I want.

Blame ExxonMobil for the destruction of the economy is a bit dramatic and way misguided. How about allowing them and all our oil companies to drill in the oceans, out west ( and to mine the shale ) and in ANWR, and then they can offer lower cost, home produced, self dependent products to us?

And, if you look, their margins arent too extreme, they move a tremendous volume of product, and do it very well.

Check out what Shell Oil made. They were right behind Exxon.
You can bet most other big oil companies were up there too.
Kinda makes you wonder why the media loves to jump on Exxon, don't it?

sorry, but oil companies are not non-prof's.

in 2Q/08 Google netted $1.25 B (yes, that's billion) on $5.37 B revenue. my calculator says that's a 23.3% margin compared to evil Exxon's 8.4%. anybody pi$$ed that you're paying for that? trust me, you are paying for that whether you know it or not - and that's whether or not you've ever used google.

how about the $80 / gallon people are paying for their latte's at Starbucks? that one's a little more discretionary, but Starbucks got away with double digit earnings for more than a decade without anyone saying a word.

government regulation will only undermine the free market economy. you reduce Exxon's margin enough and guess what...Exxon and every other oil company decides it's no longer very profitable to stay in business.

Sorry, but I'd rather pay $5 (/$10?) per gallon than be walking or taking the bus to work.

While I agree with your overall point, most people don't pay anything to used Google, so the comparison is specious.

They do pay to use Google. Ever buy anything from any retailer who's got an internet presence? Then, the cost of google is built into your purchase. Doesn't matter whether you bought it in the store or on the Internet. Google charged companies $5.37B last quarter, and those companies passed the cost on to you.

Or, another example: I just re-upped our 2 year agreement for our Google appliances - the ones that feed our internal web services (nothing to do with public facing systems). That's 60-someodd thousand that comes out of my company's budget, which, because it in some way contributes to OUR margin, eventually gets passed on to our clients who then pass the costs of their legal services on to you (their customer) by upping the cost of their product or service.

True, but the consumer doesn't feel the pinch like they do at the gas pumps. I guess that's where I was trying to go with that. And even if you could see the "google surcharge" on your receipt, as passed onto the consumer, it would probably be pennies.

The trouble with that Kaiser is some one will be drilling for that oil off our coast's. mexico all ready drills in the Gulf but we dont and we pay them for that oil. I am all for drilling and doing so in a enviro friendly way it can be done.
I live out west and oil shale is a long way's off to be of any use.. It seems it is a bit of a challange to get oil out of rock, go figure.