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Author Topic:   GOP: Party of the Rich
BlueRoamer
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Posts: 95
From:
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 10, 2008 06:39 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for BlueRoamer     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Seems the GOP are protecting their rich, white cronies as usual. Meanwhile, America suffers soaring gas prices.

Seems neither Bush, nor his protege, McBush would do anything about it either.


GOP senators spike windfall profits tax on Big Oil

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic initiative that would have taxed the windfall profits oil companies have enjoyed due to rising energy prices, with the minority leader calling the proposal a "gimmick."

The measure failed to achieve the 60 votes required by Senate rules to proceed. The vote was 51-43.

Six Republicans, including three seeking re-election in November, broke ranks to support the bill.

Two Democrats -- Sen. Mary Landrieu of oil-producing state Louisiana and Majority Leader Harry Reid, who voted no to be able to bring the measure back to the floor under Senate rules -- voted against the measure.

Along with placing a special tax of 25 percent on oil companies, the bill would have permitted lawsuits against the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil-producing cartel, and suspended deposits into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Profits from renewable energy sources would be excluded from the tax.

"We're not afraid, on this side, to go after Big Oil when they are not doing the right thing," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. "And we are not afraid to go after OPEC because they are a cartel that squeezes us.

"We're not afraid to do some strong tough things that will -- some in the short run, some in the longer run -- that will bring down the price, the all too high price, of gasoline."

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, said the measure was needed to "wring out" speculators he blamed for driving the price of crude oil to more than $130 a barrel in recent weeks

But Senate Republicans insisted the new taxes ultimately would hurt consumers and cut American oil supply, saying Democrats simply were playing election-year politics.

The bill is "pure and simple a pathetic attempt to even call itself an energy plan," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "Hitting the gas companies might make for good campaign literature or evening news clips, but it won't address the problem. This bill isn't a serious response to gas prices. It is just a gimmick."

The Kentucky Republican added, "They are hoping the idea of going after energy companies will create the illusion of action after a week in which they themselves fought for a bill that would make the problem worse. What a political charade."

As the average cost of gas edged above $4 a gallon, high prices are definitely on the minds of voters.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday shows 40 percent of respondents are more concerned about the cost of gasoline than long lines at the pump, which occurred during the energy crisis of the 1970s.

But 55 percent of those surveyed are more worried about the long lines and rationing.

The poll results reflect telephone interviews with 1,035 adults on Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 10, 2008 08:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Good, this is a bullshiiit piece of legislation which if passed would be vetoed by Bush because....it will raise gas prices further as oil companies pass along their cost of doing business to consumers...as all corporations do to stay in business.

It would result in a decrease in the amount of domestic oil production...as the so called "windfall profits tax" on oil companies during the worst President in American history, the Jimmy The Teeth Carter administration did.

As it is, oil companies make about 8 cents on a gallon of gas. The federal chair warming demoscat screechers and howlers make over 18 cents per gallon of gas sold in the US.

For their 18 cent profit per gallon, they drill no wells, buy no equipment, take no risks, meet no payrolls and get a totally free ride.

Who's greedy? If everyone in America knew this, talk about robbing oil companies of their profits would cease.

More than 70% of the production cost of a gallon of gasoline is the cost of crude oil from which it's made. The cost of crude oil is totally out of the hands of domestic oil companies. These moron leftist demoscats know this and they also know they're lying through their teeth when they call oil companies "greedy" and talk about "excess profits".

Good for the Republicans.

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 11, 2008 03:04 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Exxon holds the record on profits. Period.

quote:
The cost of crude oil is totally out of the hands of domestic oil companies.

That's not true at all. They have the capacity to increase production. They just don't have the will. The increased demand means they can charge more. They do have stockholders to earn money for.

________________________________________________________________________________________

By a show of hands, how many saw that Big Oil could actually avoid the proposed windfall profit tax by [amongst other things] increasing refinery capacity?

Senate Republicans block windfall taxes on Big Oil
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago


Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.

"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the "orgy of speculation" on oil markets.

But Republican leaders said the Democrats' plan would do harm rather than good — and they kept the legislation from being brought up for debate and amendments.

On world markets, oil prices retreated a bit Tuesday but remained above $131 a barrel. Gasoline prices edged even higher to a nationwide record average of $4.04 a gallon.

At the Capitol, Democratic leaders needed 60 votes and they got only 51 senators' support, including seven Republicans who bucked their party leaders. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a state tied closely to the oil industry, was the only Democrat opposing the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted in favor of the measure, but for procedural reasons changed his vote to "no" so that he could bring it up again.

"We are hurting as a country. We're hurting individually as Americans ... and the other side says, `Do nothing. Don't even debate the issue,'" complained Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

"Average citizens are scratching their heads and saying, what's wrong with Washington," said Schumer.

GOP opponents argued that little was to be gained by imposing new taxes on the five U.S. oil giants: Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP America Inc. and ConocoPhillips Co.

While these companies may be huge, they don't set world oil prices and raising their taxes would discourage domestic oil production, the Republicans said of the Democrats' plan.

"In the middle of what some are calling the biggest energy shock in a generation ... they proposed as a solution, of all things, a windfall profits tax," Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chided the Democrats. He called their proposal "a gimmick" that would not lower gasoline prices and only hold back domestic oil production.

"The American people are clamoring for relief at the pump," agreed Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., but "they will get exactly what they don't want" under the Democrats' plan — higher prices and an increase in oil imports.

The bill's supporters argued that their proposal was different from the windfall profits taxes of the early 1980s that thwarted domestic production and led to a rise in imports. The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their "windfall" to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said.

Shortly after the oil tax vote, Republicans blocked a second proposal that would extend tax breaks that have either expired or are scheduled to end this year for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. Again Democrats couldn't get the 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Neither Republican presidential candidate John McCain nor his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, were in Washington to cast votes on the energy issue on Tuesday.

Obama, in a statement, said Republicans had "turned a blind eye to the plight of America's working families" by refusing to take up the energy legislation. Obama has supported additional taxes on the oil companies. McCain is opposed to such taxes and has proposed across-the-aboard tax reductions for industry as a way to help the economy.

Election-year politics hung over the debate. Democrats know their energy package has no chance of becoming law. Even it were to overcome a Senate GOP filibuster — a longshot at best — and the House acted, President Bush has made clear he would veto it.

But there was nothing to lose by taking on Big Oil when people are paying $60 to $100 to fill up their gas tanks.

The oil companies have been frequent targets of Congress. Twice this year, top executives of the largest U.S. oil producers have been brought before congressional committees to explain their huge profits. And each time the executives urged lawmakers to resist punitive tax measures, blaming high costs on global supply and demand.

In addition to the proposed windfall profits tax, the Democrats' bill also would have rescinded tax breaks that are expected to save the oil companies $17 billion over the next 10 years. The money would have been used to provide tax incentives for producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.

In an attempt to dampen oil market speculation, the legislation would require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and would provide authority to regulate U.S.-based trading in foreign markets. And it would make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.

After Tuesday's defeat, Democrats did not rule out pushing the issue again.

"This was politics at its worst," complained Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "This was a refusal to debate the biggest problem confronting the American people. ... That takes nerve."
Link
____________

"The oil companies could avoid the tax by using their "windfall" to push alternative energy programs or refinery expansions, they said."

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AcousticGod
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Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 11, 2008 01:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Crickets... that's what I expected.

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Heart--Shaped Cross
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posted June 11, 2008 08:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Heart--Shaped Cross     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
AG

You too, BR.

Jwhop.. no soup for you!

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 12, 2008 03:22 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Still no comment on Republicans blocking the bill that would have pushed refinery expansion?

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thirteen
unregistered
posted June 12, 2008 03:58 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I think the oil companies day will come ! They are manipulating the system and it will come to light. Can't say i'd be upset about that.

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jwhop
Knowflake

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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 12, 2008 05:34 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yeah, if Congress stole every penny of oil company profit on every gallon of gasoline sold in America....it would reduce the retail price of gasoline 8 cents per gallon....because that's the net profit US oil companies make on a gallon of gasoline. The Congress makes 18.2 cents on every gallon of gas sold in the US. Now, tell me who the hell is greedy. That doesn't include state sales taxes on gasoline. In the case of NY, it's about 64 cents per gallon. How's that for greed?

Now these chair warming Marxist boobs want to steal oil company profits and use the money to fund companies and research in direct energy competition with oil companies.

Imagine if these shiitforbrains chair warming Marxists voted to take the profits of Microsoft to fund IBM research into a new computer operating system.

Same damned thing.

But Americans are catching on fast. Only 20% of Americans blame oil companies for the spike in gasoline prices.

That's very bad news for the congressional morons who are looking around for someone to blame for high gas prices to divert attention from themselves.

Before this is all over, every American is going to know it's these brain dead morons in the Congress of the United States who are to blame for $4 gas and no one else.

Producing nations are charging all the traffic will bear for crude oil and they'll keep doing that. Since the moronic demoscat Congress refuses to permit oil companies to explore, drill and produce new American oil, these oil producing nations have America over a barrel and they damned well know it.

Only 40% of our oil usage comes from America, that means 60% is imported. Why should they lower the price? Right, no reason whatsoever. And why should they produce more oil in their own oil fields...and put more on the market..which would bring down crude oil prices and gasoline prices since more than 70% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline is the crude oil price. Right...no reason they would want to cut there own throats.

Now, these shiitforbrains Marxist morons want to just take over the oil companies. That's right, the very same morons who bankrupted Social Security, bankrupted MediCare, bankrupted Welfare and generally f-ed up every thing they ever touched want to take over..not only the oil companies but the entire healthcare system in America.

Hell, these morons can't even run the Congressional dining rooms and had to let out contracts to privatize them.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 12, 2008 05:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Now these chair warming Marxist boobs want to steal oil company profits and use the money to fund companies and research in direct energy competition with oil companies.

Or simply increase production through expanding refinery capacity. You're still dodging the point.

I'd like you to source your 8 cents a gallon statement.

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jwhop
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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 12, 2008 07:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
You lose again acoustic.

Politics of Oil
by Doug Edleman
Issue 109 - June 11, 2008

Oil companies profit margins are around 10%. They actually make only around 8 cents profit on a gallon of gas!

The station owner only makes around 2-3 cents per gallon. Where does the rest go? Part goes to the well owner – in most cases an OPEC nation.

A good portion is represented by the costs to transport the crude across the world, to refine it into gasoline, and to distribute it to the local gas station. Some goes back into exploration, and R&D. The rest is taxes!

Last year Exxon Mobile may have profited $40 Billion – but they paid $105 Billion in taxes! Just WHO is the oil profiteer? Our friendly watchdogs in Congress!
http://www.acuf.org/issues/issue109/commentsoil.asp

Yahoo Answers
Resolved Question

How much do oil companies make on each gallon of gas?

Help me settle a discussion. I say that the oil companies (Exxon/Mobil/Texaco/Etc) make about 30 % profit on each gallon, after taxes and the stations profit.

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
If you do some research, you will see, for instance, that Exxon makes 7 to 8 cents profit per gallon of gas sold.
In contrast, the Federal Government tax on a gallon of gas is 18.4 cents, and then you add the state tax of anywhere from 15 to 30 cents per gallon...well, you get my point.

The oil companies are NOT making a killing on gas prices like the media would lead you to believe, but the government is! http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070903072430AAVZcEA

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Big Oil vs. Big Govt.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008


Bring down prices at the pump? Easy.
Drill off the coasts of Florida and California.

Drill in Alaska (ANWR).

Build new refineries in the United States.
Build new nuclear power plants in the United States.

Forget it. Liberal Democrats beholden to the "environmentalists" and their useful idiots will not allow any such activities.

Finally, reduce federal and state taxes on oil and refined petroleum products such as gasoline.

The "price gouging" oil companies make between 8 and 10 cents profit per gallon of gasoline, while government makes between 40 and 60 cents per gallon of gasoline in taxes.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/s_568509.html

Now acoustic that was a bullshiit offer for oil companies to build refineries. First, why do it if American oil companies can't expand their oil production in America and these Marxist nuts in Congress have blocked every effort to do so.

Second, it would cost about a billion dollars before a single nut, bolt or steel beam were bought just to defend in federal courts against bullshiit lawsuits raised by the environmental nuts. Congress never said a word about actually issuing any permits or fast tracking the process so those refineries could be built.

Lucky they're not dealing with me because the very first thing I would do is cap every producing well in the United States and let 100% of all oil consumed in the US come from foreign sources. That would drive prices all the way through the roof and land the Marxist chairwarmers in the unemployment lines...along with the environmental nutcases in whose pockets these morons are.

You are one of the most incredibly lazy people I've ever run across acoustic. All this information...and much, much more was available to you with a simple search. I only took the first items on the page.

Now, no gas for you acoustic, BlueRoamer or HSC...except what you can produce in your lower GI tract. If your Marxist friends get their way, that's going to become your main means of locomotion. Eat lots of beans.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 12, 2008 08:18 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Not so fast.

Yes, of course our government taxes oil, but that doesn't and isn't preventing record profits on behalf of Big Oil.

Your top answer man at Yahoo provides sources that don't back up his 8 cents a gallon claim. His sources simply illustrate how much Big Oil pays in taxes. That's a nice diversion, but doesn't change the fact that the companies do have a hand in the pricing.

Your second source is apparently just a citizen who doesn't source his information either.

quote:
All this information...and much, much more was available to you with a simple search. I only took the first items on the page.

Two sources that didn't back their claims up whatsoever. You call me lazy? USA Today posted that Big Oil is getting 9% a gallon two years ago. A Califonia site I visited couldn't confirm in concrete terms what the profits are, but did mention that often the providers are also the refiners, and make profit doing both jobs. There's a post at Huffington Post, which admittedly may be innaccurate, that says whenever an Exxon station raises it's prices that information is directed by computer straight to Exxon and the wholesale price is increased accordingly.

Furthermore, profits are considered to be the money AFTER everything has been paid for: salaries, pensions, stockholders, etc. At just 8 cents a gallon it's quite exorbitant considering how much gas is sold.

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 12, 2008 08:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
How's this for some research: http://www.api.org/statistics/earnings/upload/earnings_perspective.pdf

8 percent! Just as I suspected. Not 8 cents a gallon.

And:

Since 1985, refining capacity has increased by 20 percent even though we have 57 fewer refineries. It has been more efficient to expand at existing refineries because the infrastructure to bring crude in and get products out is in place, the permitting process is quicker, and it is more cost-effective to add on to a refinery versus building a new one. In addition, the elimination of subsidies under the government price and allocation controls in 1981 led to closure of many smaller, less efficient refineries through the 1980s and 1990s.

So much for the impossibility of expanding refining capacity.

This is from the American Petroleum Institute.

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jwhop
Knowflake

Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 12, 2008 08:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Retail market prices are set by competition to sell gasoline...while maintaing a reasonable profit margin.

8 cents a gallon is a very reasonable profit margin.

Now acoustic, your arguments are bullshiit and the arguments of your Marxist demoscat bullshiiters are bullshiit .

Domestic oil companies are not ripping anyone off. The Congress of the United States is making more than twice as much money off gasoline than the companies who are doing all the damned work and taking all the damned risks.

Listen acoustic, I can't help it if you can't think.

Oil company profits are about 8% overall. Oil companies produce more than gasoline and the oil they sell to US markets is not all made into gasoline and diesel fuel.

Some of that oil is make into plastic products..nylon for one and some of that oil is made into nitrogen fertilizer...among many other produces made from oil.

Oil companies make 8 cents a gallon on the gasoline they refine and sell to their dealers.

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted June 12, 2008 08:56 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Oil companies produce more than gasoline and the oil they sell to US markets is not all made into gasoline and diesel fuel.

Some of that oil is make into plastic products..nylon for one and some of that oil is made into nitrogen fertilizer...among many other produces made from oil.


Granted, yet you still haven't proved that all they're making is 8 cents/gallon. Who am I gonna trust? You, who has trouble sourcing, or the American Petroleum Institute? Yeah...the choice is pretty easy.

quote:
Domestic oil companies are not ripping anyone off. The Congress of the United States is making more than twice as much money off gasoline than the companies who are doing all the damned work and taking all the damned risks.

You disregard the fact that the oil industry decides what it wants to report as profit. If I want to make it look like I'm not making anything off my business, then I use what would-be-profit for other things that won't be considered profit. Other things like paying myself more for instance. (No, they're not greedy!)

I love watching you fight for Big Oil, but at some point you need to face facts.

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jwhop
Knowflake

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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 12, 2008 10:24 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Perhaps you'd like to tell us what the American Petroleum Institute says oil companies are making on each gallon of gas sold in the United States acoustic.

You are sadly mistaken or deluded if you don't know that crude oil is made into many products for the consumer markets. For instance, there's a range of products which are sold to chemical companies for carriers for pesticides and herbicides as well as so many others it's not possible to list them all here.

Overall profits of oil companies may be on the order of 8-10% but profits on gasoline are only 8 cents per gallon.

Now acoustic, I know you don't know a damned thing about business...nor do your Marxist moron Congressional members but when oil companies sell gasoline to their retailers...whom are the station owners themselves they are selling for about an 8 cent profit margin. Those station owners are private business owners who only buy from the oil companies. The oil companies don't own those stations. They may or may not own the land and they may or may not own the buildings and lease the stations to the "dealers" but they don't "own" those businesses. Dealers profits are whatever they can sell the gas for that they buy from the oil companies but the oil companies are out of it once they've sold the gasoline to the dealers. While they may have a "recommended" retail price, dealers aren't held strictly to sell at that price.

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 13, 2008 03:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
You are sadly mistaken or deluded if you don't know that crude oil is made into many products for the consumer markets.

I said, "Granted" above. Yes, even our non-biodegradeable shopping bags are petroleum products.

quote:
The oil companies don't own those stations. They may or may not own the land and they may or may not own the buildings and lease the stations to the "dealers" but they don't "own" those businesses. Dealers profits are whatever they can sell the gas for that they buy from the oil companies but the oil companies are out of it once they've sold the gasoline to the dealers. While they may have a "recommended" retail price, dealers aren't held strictly to sell at that price.

Peeved at Prices? Don't Blame the Dealer
Awash in Profit, Exxon Fights for Pennies While Raising the Rent

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 25, 2008; A01

Every time Sohaila Rezazadeh rings up a sale at her Exxon station on Chain Bridge Road in Oakton, her cash register sends the information to Exxon Mobil's central computers. If she raises the price of gasoline a couple of pennies, chances are that Exxon will raise the wholesale price she pays by the same amount.

Through a password-protected Web portal, Exxon notifies Rezazadeh of wholesale price changes daily. That way the oil giant, which is earning about $3.3 billion a month, fine-tunes the pump prices at the franchise Rezazadeh has owned for 12 years.

Now, however, Rezazadeh says she cannot stay in business. Credit-card fees are eating her profit margins. Exxon, which owns the station land, last week handed Rezazadeh a new lease raising her rent about 30 percent over the next three years. She stuck a copy on the window of her station to show customers who are angry about soaring pump prices. Rezazadeh has told Exxon that she cannot make money with the rent that high. Her territory manager's reply, she said, was simple: When you go, leave us the keys.

Rezazadeh, who fled to the United States from Iran in 1979, is part of the long chain that links motorists with the big oil companies. Major integrated U.S. oil companies -- which produce crude oil, own refineries and sell gasoline -- have been reaping billions of dollars in profit from high oil prices over the past two years, but they are still working to extract every penny they can from the marketing end of the business. Exxon Mobil doesn't break out its earnings from marketing alone, but its 2007 profits in worldwide refining and marketing -- known as the downstream part of the oil business -- reached $9.6 billion, 43 percent of that coming from the United States.

Although Exxon owns and operates few stations anymore -- less than 10 percent of the 12,000 Exxon outlets in the United States -- it uses franchise agreements to maintain tight control over stations that bear its brand. The company dictates everything from the number of pumps to hygiene practices to the placement of food on convenience store shelves. "They monitor everything," Rezazadeh said.

Exxon says it does all this to maintain uniform quality, while recognizing dealer needs. "We recognize . . . that we are in a difficult time with the run-up in crude oil prices," said Ben Soraci, director of U.S. retail sales for Exxon. "Retailers are under a lot of pressure, and they are on the front lines every day with the motorist, who is also feeling a lot of pressure."

Ultimately, Soraci said, "it's in our interest to see them succeed. It's not in our interest to see them hand us the keys."

But some Exxon dealers say the company is trying to squeeze too much out of them.

Like Rezazadeh, Scott Burnham was struggling to cope with low margins and rising rents. On May 9, he closed his station on scenic Knickerbocker Road in Closter, N.J., and abandoned it to Exxon. In March, Exxon had said it would raise his rent by a third over two years. Burnham tried to line up buyers for the franchise, which he purchased for $475,000 just two years ago. But one backed out, saying that the station would lose money no matter how much gasoline it sold.

"Why is the government giving Exxon subsidies and tax breaks when they're making billions of dollars and when they squeeze every dime they can out of every dealer who made that profit for them?" Burnham said.

Soraci said rent increases reflect rising real estate values. "We have excellent real estate out there that is superior to our competition," he said, which allows the dealers to "compete more effectively."

Even some of Exxon's successful and loyal dealers complain. Jerry Daggle owns five Exxon stations in Northern Virginia, and even though they have different competitive conditions and prices, "Exxon magically lets me make about 8 cents a gallon" at each one, he said.

He said micromanaging extends to the snacks sold at Exxon's On the Run convenience stores. The company uses a "planogram" to show dealers where to put candy bars and soda. "If I want to put Coke on a different shelf, I have to get special permission," Daggle said. Recently he was reprimanded for selling mulch on the perimeter of his award-winning Gainesville station; the mulch, though popular in the neighborhood, wasn't an approved product.

Technology has enabled Exxon to tweak its wholesale prices not just by region or state, but by zones as small as a street corner. Although such practices bring cries of outrage from some station owners, they elicit shrugs from some economists.

"Retailers put a lot of effort into understanding local markets, whether they're in the airline business where prices for every seat are often determined on daily basis, or book sellers," said Richard J. Gilbert, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the gasoline marketing business. "There's a lot of fine-tuning to adjust prices to local market conditions. The gasoline companies are not very different in that regard."

"We feel very strongly that zone pricing is a method of pricing that at end of the day allows our dealers to be as competitive as they can be at the retail level," Soraci of Exxon said. "It gives us the opportunity to give a particular retailer or trade area a lower price if competitive conditions require that."

Daggle, who has been an Exxon dealer for two decades after working his way up from pumping gas, said he has done well. But he still cannot fathom how the oil company can charge him different wholesale gasoline prices for each of the five Northern Virginia stations he owns. The stations all sell the same Exxon-branded gasoline, delivered from the same terminal in Newington, where it arrives via the same pipeline. Sometimes, Daggle said, it's even dropped off by the same truck and driver hours apart on the same day.

The only thing that's different is the price, which can vary by 35 cents per gallon, Daggle said. "If I could have driven a truck to Gainesville and drive the gas from there to Shirlington, I could have made 50 cents a gallon."

On occasion, he said, he has persuaded Exxon to lower his wholesale price to help match price cuts by a station next door in Gainesville.

Historically, gasoline marketing has been a low-margin business. For decades, when oil was plentiful, margins were kept low to move as much crude oil through the system as possible. Now, major companies don't have to fight to move product, but they are still battling for nickels and dimes at the pumps.

Like other parts of the retailing business, gasoline marketing has become more concentrated and high volume than it was in the days when mom-and-pop gas stations lured customers with free drinking glasses.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm, noted in a report that in 1977, the United States had 223,118 gasoline outlets. By 2007, the number of outlets had declined to 164,292 -- even as the amount of gasoline sold increased. The average station now pumps 73 percent more than in 1977. And companies are trying to boost revenues by attaching convenience stores to the stations. In 1977, only 5 percent of gas stations had convenience stores; now, 65 percent do.

"The industry we're part of is an extremely competitive industry," said Exxon's Soraci. He said major oil companies' market share has dropped 20 percent in recent years as mass merchandisers such as Costco vie for customers.

Oddly enough, when prices are rising rapidly and consumers are most upset is usually when profit margins are slimmest for station owners. When prices are falling, as they were in September 2006, is usually when jobbers and station owners make the most money.

How much depends largely on Exxon. "If I had raised my gas, within a couple of days, almost inevitably, they would have raised my wholesale price. It's an unspoken rule," Daggle said. He said his Gainesville station makes most of its money from repairs, not gas sales.

Selling gas remains a cutthroat business in an industry awash in profits. Three years ago, when Daggle bought the Gainesville station, a share of Exxon stock was about $50. Buying and fixing up the station has cost him $800,000, and he hasn't yet drawn a profit from it. "If I had bought the stock," he said, he would have nearly doubled his money and would have "never lifted a finger."

Staff writer Tomoeh Murakami Tse contributed to this report. Washington Post
_____________________

And you still haven't come close to proving your 8 cents a gallon number. Nor have you refuted the fact that Exxon can choose what it wants to do with its revenues in order to manipulate the "profit" to the number they want.

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jwhop
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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 13, 2008 06:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yeah, so what?

So Exxon adjusts it's wholesale prices to dealers depending on competition from the station next door. So what?

Your argument is that because major oil companies make an overall profit of about 8% that means they also make a profit of 8% on gasoline but that's an absurd argument.

Gasoline is the least profitable part of their business when profit MARGINS on gasoline are compared to profit MARGINS on the rest of their product lines.

Admit it, you don't know what the hell you're talking about and neither do your chairwarming Marxist demoscat buddies who sit on their as$es in DC and haven't done a damned thing about lowering gas prices since they became the majority party. In fact, they've doubled the price of gasoline by blocking every effort to explore, drill and produce more US oil.

Throw every one of them out of Congress.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 16, 2008 06:23 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Bumping...since a certain someone thinks that by starting a new thread he's going to get away with blaming Democrats for the price of gas.

Supply, demand, manipulation, and our weak dollar all contribute to our high gas prices.

The summer gas tax break would equal a savings of about $30 for the consumer over the course of the summer. Not much. It would also take $10 billion away from road maintenance. I suppose Jwhop is proposing that we just get rid of it altogether. We can just borrow more money, right? That's a responsible position to take. United States of America: welfare state to our Communist debtors. That's a great road to continue down.

I'd like to also take this opportunity to ask JWhop once again to prove his 8 cent a gallon statement as he has not done so.

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Mannu
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posted June 16, 2008 08:50 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mannu     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
He probably meant 8 % as in profit margin.

Virgo slippage. LOL

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jwhop
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Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 16, 2008 10:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ahhh, there you are acoustic. It's been 3 days since you failed to respond to my last post. Do my eyes decieve me? Did you just suggest I ducked your 3 day old response.

Perhaps you need your perscription adjusted acoustic. It's you who has been missing in action.

Naturally, I thought you had locked yourself in the closet to have a good cry since your argument got blown out of the water...once again as usual.

Oil companies make about 8 cents per gallon net profit on the sale of gasoline...that's after taxes...you know..NET PROFIT.

Oil companies make overall about 8% profit from all product line sales which is in line with other US industries.

Google profits are about 25% of sales. How come congress isn't accusing Google of gouging?

In any event acoustic, facts are facts and no amount of spin will obscure the fact that the Congress of the United States is directly responsible for the US being at the mercy of foreign oil producers and speculators who can run the price of crude oil up to the heavens. Congress has put the United States in the position that we can't do a damned thing about it because we import more than 60% of the oil we use in the United States.

Didn't need to be that way but Congress...moronic democrats and the econuts in whose pockets they are insisted. Now, we're paying the price.

The only consolation is that by election time in November everyone is going to know who is responsible and perhaps these radical leftist morons will be sent packing.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 17, 2008 02:18 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
It's been 3 days since you failed to respond to my last post. Do my eyes decieve me?

No. Your eyes don't deceive you...at least not in this case. I haven't answered here in a few days, and frankly with regard to this topic I'm not tremendously concerned. My argument is solid and verifiable. Yours is lacking, and your being a Republican, and backing Big Oil works against you ways you don't seem to understand. Sure you can say ANWR, but as long as the leader-of-the-pack/most-profitable-company-in-the-world Exxon says it's not interested in increasing production your point is moot. Higher demand coupled with flat supply makes for fat wallets for those in the oil industry.

quote:
Did you just suggest I ducked your 3 day old response.

No, I suggested that you were burying the "argument against" by starting a new thread.

quote:
Naturally, I thought you had locked yourself in the closet to have a good cry since your argument got blown out of the water...once again as usual.

Right! Like that is even a remote possibility. The beliefs you concoct in your head are something else.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 17, 2008 02:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Oil companies make about 8 cents per gallon net profit on the sale of gasoline...that's after taxes...you know..NET PROFIT.

Once again I see you SAYING, but not PROVING. I would have thought that this would have been an easy one for you. I guess I was wrong. Maybe your "gut" told you that, huh?

quote:
Didn't need to be that way but Congress...moronic democrats and the econuts in whose pockets they are insisted. Now, we're paying the price.

How is it that you always forget about Republicans in Congress? Just TWO years ago Republicans had the majority in Congress, AND had a Republican President to boot. I don't buy your blaming Congress. I don't see why anyone else should either.

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jwhop
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Posts: 2787
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 17, 2008 01:36 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
All the proof that American oil companies make 8 cents per gallon net profit on their gasoline sales has been posted.

Now acoustic, anyone who requires a level of proof beyond that...such as you who called Hitler a liar when he said in his own words..."I'm a Socialist", well acoustic I have no intention of moving heaven and earth to prove anything to you.

What I posted, I posted as a public service. Showing other members and readers here that congress itself is the culprit in $4 per gallon...and rising gasoline prices is the very definition of a public service.

Proving that leftist demoscats are attempting to shift the blame which belongs to them to oil companies is also a public service.

You did say something else recently having to do with the so called summer gas tax break. Basically a non issue...other than the fact it's a device whereby congress attempted to get motorists to take their eye off the real ball. The real ball is congressional refusal to permit new exploring, drilling and oil production from ANWAR and the continental shelves of America.

You see, it's OK with these leftist morons that Cuba is letting contracts to Communist China to drill and produce oil about 50 miles off the coast of Florida..in our own patch but it's not OK for US oil companies to do the same.

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AcousticGod
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From: Pleasanton, CA
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posted June 17, 2008 05:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Showing other members and readers here that congress itself is the culprit in $4 per gallon...and rising gasoline prices is the very definition of a public service.

Our government now provides oil? Is that what you're telling me? Because in order for prices to go down, there needs to be an increased supply, and Congress doesn't control the supply now, do they?

So "public service" it was not. It was partisan, BS spin. Same thing, different day. *yawn*

quote:
Proving that leftist demoscats are attempting to shift the blame which belongs to them to oil companies is also a public service.

More spin oh Big Oil promoter.

quote:
The real ball is congressional refusal to permit new exploring, drilling and oil production from ANWAR and the continental shelves of America.

You see, it's OK with these leftist morons that Cuba is letting contracts to Communist China to drill and produce oil about 50 miles off the coast of Florida..in our own patch but it's not OK for US oil companies to do the same.


I have to say that attitudes towards these may be changing (with the prices), so I think now would be a good time to make a push for those who would like more oil drilling on American soil.

You'd still have to get the oil companies to want to increase production in order to lower gas prices, though, and that's still troublesome.

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jwhop
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From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
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posted June 17, 2008 06:59 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for jwhop     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
No, the government provides no oil. In fact, the government provides almost nothing but continuing program failures and excuses.

This demoscat Congress is refusing to permit oil right here in America from being drilled, pumped, refined and brought to market...which is the main reason gasoline is $4 per gallon and rising.

Oil producing nations and speculators know they have America over a barrel so to speak and that it will take about 10 years to bring new oil fields online.

Kommander Korruption vetoed the bill passed by Congress to drill and bring the ANWAR oil field online in 1995. We're paying for that nonsense now and we're going to continue to pay until congress gets off their sorry as$es and permits American oil companies to do what they do best...supply energy to America.

By election time, these sorry chair warming leftists are going to be looking for rocks to crawl under. It's just getting started but it's going to be a huge issue in the coming months and we already know where the leftist demoscats stand on the issue. When Americans find out Cuba is letting contracts to drill off our coasts...our coasts where American oil companies have been refused entry by their own government, the shiiit is going to hit the fan. I'm going to be immensely amused to watch them get spattered.
http://www.americansolutions.com/Actioncenter/Petitions/Default.aspx?guid=54ec6e43-75a8-445b-aa7b-346a1e096659

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