damaged mountainside near AT in PA

[shades of blue]

Ok marcnNJ..I will try to make this as clear as possible, not calling your ideas "dumb" as you have called mine after you continue to either twist, or totally misunderstand what I say(dumb is a great word to use though...I'm filled with intellectual shame). Here goes, read carefully, and try to understand.


I never said oil companies are building refineries with tax breaks. What I said is that they want to build with old technology, but won't build with new technology. Gulf coast refineries were damaged during katrina and the federal gov't repealed (short term) epa laws to allow the oil companies to rebuild or repair damaged refineries under older technology (not clean air technology, but cheaper, polluting technology). Tax funds in emergency disaster relief is being funneled into the gulf coast (and that is great) to help all these people and companies. None of that is really a problem for me sometimes rules/laws have to be bent for an emergency. Companies, especially small businesses need help and they provide lots of jobs in that area, and people need to work.

HERE is where I have the problem. It is Bush admin philosophy to make this short term repeal the norm for all building. The current party in power is giving more subsidies to the oil companies and they want to repeal the epa laws. My understanding is that the road block to building more refineries is the cost of building them under the current EPA laws. Also, why are we giving ANY subsidies to companies who are making record profits? If we should be helping anyone we should be helping companies who are in danger of failing (i.e. farms, air lines ect.) You don't see Delta airlines making record profits right now do you? They have rising fuel costs and other issues which are driving them into the ground.

I said oil companies weren't making record earnings, but record profits. What I meant to say is that I wasn't talking about record earnings, but record profits. Of course you have record earnings when you pass along the higher costs of doing business. What I'm trying to say is that the companies are doing more than passing along the cost.

You and I will never agree on this. I don't think you're ideas are dumb...as you so eloquently did for my ideas. I think they're just wrong, and nothing I say will convince you otherwise. I've had my last word..

[MarcnNJ]

I don't blame the corporation for making as much money as they can...it's human nature. What I blame is the gov't for rewarding companies for this robbery by giving them MORE of our tax money in corporate welfare to build their refineries,

we allow them to use old technology to build plants that will pour more pollution into our environment for 30 more years (the life of that plant). The corporations are the smart ones...we are the dummys for not revolting against this.
We are BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA sheep.

There are 2 instances where you said oil companies were building refinery plants.....i dont mean to call your ideas dumb.....i just think that its dumb for you to say, twice, that oil companies are building refineries when they arent...

Of course you have record earnings when you pass along the higher costs of doing business. What I'm trying to say is that the companies are doing more than passing along the cost.

Thats simply not true....otherwise they would have a higher net profit margin of 10%......if they were doing more than passing along the cost, they would be keeping more than a dime out of every dollar they earn....think about it....if you sold lemonade for a $1, and for each cup you sold you got to keep a dime....and someone accused you of overcharging for padding profits, would you think they are crazy??


You and I both have major problems with Bush giving tax breaks to companies....i dont agree with subsidies for any companies in any industry....nevermind the oil companies.....

Were Reagan's and Bush 1's EPA laws so strict that refineries couldnt be built between 1980-1992??

The reason why refineries arent built is their cost.....somewhere between $3-$5 Billion....and a contsruction time of 2-4 years.....and if you look back at how much money the oil companies were making back in the late 70s all the way up to the mid-90s, they couldnt afford to build them...they werent making near the money they are now because OPEC had the price of oil down in the $12-$20/B mark......and they didnt have high margins back then either....

Again, your ideas arent "dumb"...just the refinery building quotes.....Im afraid youve been sucked in by the Republican v. Democrat tug-o-war and name calling instead of concentrating on the truth....thats their intention....truth is we need less regulation to explore alternatives and, for the short term, our own oil....otherwise we will be the slaves to the Oil Cartel and the Oil Corps.....for now, conserve...and buy some stock.....

[shades of blue]

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/ar...07145909990004
House Passes Bill to Boost Oil Refinery Construction

The world's largest publicly traded oil company Exxon Mobil Corp said its quarterly profit leapt 75 percent to nearly $10 billion, the highest in the company's history.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/BUSINESS/10/...eut/index.html

I couldn't resist. You gotta love the dime analogy. 10%? Try 75%

Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe it's not just that the oil companies don't want to build for JUST environmental reasons. If they produce more refined oil, they have more supply, thus no excuse to keep prices so high.

I think I understand your percentage idea...I invest this..I should get this percentage of my investment back...I invest more, I should get more in return. 75% more in return though? I just don't see jumping 75% in one quarter, even over a year. Oil has been close to 60 a barrel for a year...right? sometimes higher, sometimes lower. How did the jump up to 75% happen? I don't see other companies, who have rising costs just like oil jump with that much profit. Something just seems wrong to me.


The gov't is trying to give incentives (carrots) to get these companies to build more refineries. Fine, I think they should do it on their own....dime so to speak...but fine...let's help them. Just don't sell the environment down in the process. Let's not weaken an already weak protection law so that companies might build refineries. In our short term...great, prices go down...in the long term, we would have 30 more years of current pollution.

I said that the last post on this issue would be the last...but I couldn't help myself. Marc maybe by some miracle the oil company is just getting deserved profits and it just happens to look bad. I don't think so, most of congress doesn't think so right now (of course it's an election cycle coming up)but I've been wrong before. Maybe oil companies aren't polluting...maybe I'm just imagining the smog and bad air quality over the blue ridge mountains.... I hope so. The world would be much better if I was wrong.

[the goat]

I couldn't resist. You gotta love the dime analogy. 10%? Try 75%

the 10% figure refers to profit MARGIN (ie. what they make for every dollar). the 75% figure refers to profit GROWTH (ie. how much net profits grew during a particular time frame.

in short, your profits can grow by 75%, even though your margin stays static at 10%.

hmmmm, i think i may regret re-entering this thread.

[MarcnNJ]

lol...im trying goat...

[shades of blue]

I've been doing a lot of researach, and your explanation is exactly the one that the oil companies are using. I'm not saying wrong, just their explanation. I understand better about profit margin, now that I've really researached it. What I've found interesting is a lot of different explanations on how we got to this point in the first place.
OPEC's rising cost as you said was definately a huge part of it. Something else I found though was a view of why refineries aren't being built. It isn't in the oil companies interest for them to be built. They would be unable to charge as high prices if they had a better capacity to refine crude oil.

http://wyden.senate.gov/leg_issues/r...oil_report.pdf

Senator Wyden of Oregon claims that oil companies prepared this to happen by shutting down refineries and private refineries over the course of the last 15 years. Supposedly this kept the refining margins high...and that is in the oil companies best interest. If his report is accurate, it's very interesting. It had quotes from lots of oil companies internal documents. This is only one source that I've seen, so...who knows...but it is an official gov't report.

I also saw that companies didn't raise the price of gasoline as quickly as they could have (market wise) over the course of this last energy crunch. Maybe they didn't because they didn't want to be looked at too carefully with the consumers screaming at congress.

It is still difficult for me to wrap my head around a company making that huge of a profit in times of national crisis...but I guess it's normal for the business world.

[bfitz]

It is still difficult for me to wrap my head around a company making that huge of a profit in times of national crisis...but I guess it's normal for the business world.

Dude, its not a crisis. Supply is sufficient if expensive. Demand is up, production is up, volume of sales are up, profits would go up even if prices didn't...thats how business works. That cost of production increases lead to sale price increases thus increasing total profits while not increasing margin is a simple idea to understand. Every business hopes there is a surge in demand for their product...its what makes our market tick...if people want to cut down their use of gas they can...but thus far they don't seem to want to so why should the oil companies make it cheaper for them? If anything they should raise prices...that would go more towards encouraging people to cut down on consumption...which is what you'd prefer they do, no?

[weary]

I shouldn't enter this debate because I'm neither an expert, not have I done much research. But the assumption that 10 percent profit is either high, or, low, is nonsense.

It all depends on turnover. A supermarket that turns stock over daily or weekly can operate on tiny profit margins. A retailer of houses -- or refineries, if there is such a thing -- that turns over a property every year or so, or every decade or so, needs more to survive.

I don't know where gasoline figures in this broard spread, but I suspect that refineries are more than pleased with the current profit margin on the gasoline they produce.

Weary

[saimyoji]

hijacked thread, far from the original intent of talking about our poor mountain in PA. Possibly split Sgt. Rock?

Incidently, I'm leading a hike (high school kids) from little gap to lehigh gap next next weekend. Anyone interested?

[c.coyle]

hijacked thread, far from the original intent of talking about our poor mountain in PA. Possibly split Sgt. Rock?

Incidently, I'm leading a hike (high school kids) from little gap to lehigh gap next next weekend. Anyone interested?

We'll be doing it northbound bright and early Saturday morning, assuming good weather. Shouldn't be hard to spot your group.