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Posted on 11/09/2005 7:16:55 AM PST by libertarianPA
WASHINGTON - The chiefs of five major oil companies defended the industry's huge profits Wednesday at a Senate hearing where lawmakers said they should explain prices and assure people they're not being gouged.
There is a "growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage," Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., said as the hearing opened in a packed Senate committee room.
"The oil companies owe the country an explanation," he said.
Lee Raymond, chairman of Exxon Mobil Corp., said he recognizes that high gasoline prices "have put a strain on Americans' household budgets" but he defended his companies huge profits, saying petroleum earnings "go up and down" from year to year.
ExxonMobil, the worlds' largest privately owned oil company, earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter. Raymond was joined at the witness table by the chief executives of Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BPAmerica and Shell Oil USA.
Together the companies earned more than $25 billion in profits in the July-September quarter as the price of crude oil hit $70 a barrel and gasoline surged to record levels after the disruptions of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Raymond said the profits are in line with other industries when profits are compared to the industry's enormous revenues.
Almost sounds good if you don't realize that our current society and way of life has molded folks to the point where buying gasoloine is no longer a choice. let's see you and your family stop buying gass for 2 months and then tell us how much choice you really have.
Byron Dorgan is an unadulterated moron. If anyone caught him on Squalkbox this morning, he was pathetic. Even the economic flyweight Mark Haynes disagreed with his position to the point of anger. How any midwestern state could elect this socialist is beyond me.
Agreed. I'm sure a lot of this same type "questioning" of businesses went on in Germany and Italy in the 1930's.
Energy is already highly regulated. It takes years just to build a pipeline thanks to the EPA hoops that companies have to jump through. Plus the eco-nazis' lawsuits.
"Almost sounds good if you don't realize that our current society and way of life has molded folks to the point where buying gasoloine is no longer a choice."
You're right. They also have the choice to cut back on other spending. If people go out to dinner three times a month, they might have to go out to dinner once or twice a month.
If gas is too high, individuals have the choice to cut back on other things. That's the way a free market works. That's the way financially responsible people behave. That night you and your family stay home from the movies will probably save you the money to buy a tank of gas.
Stop acting like gasoline is a right.
what about the big OIL FUTURES TRADERS???
What about them?
The society that you have helped mold and the way of life you have chosen do require consumption of gasoline. That does not mean that you "have to" consume them, you have chosen it over the alternative. There are people who have opted out of the system, ride bicycles, grow their own food, go to bed when the sun goes down, etc. It is not a life style that I would choose, but the choice is available.
You imply that gasoline is a necessity. It is not. It is necessary to maintain the life style you have chosen, but it is not necessary to support life in itself. You would like to isolate gasoline from the total package of choices you make, but it doesn't work that way. You reap the benefit of fossil fuel consumption almost every minute of the day and it is not unreasonable that you pay market prices in return. But the bottom line is that you always have the choice. You just don't like the alternative.
It is? Tell that to:
Chevron
BP
ConocoPhillips
ExxonMobil
Royal Dutch Shell
Total SA
Eni SpA
Repsol
Anadarko Petroleum
Kerr-McGee
Occidental Petroleum
The list goes on but you get the point. Is the auto manufacturing industry a monopoly? Is discount retail? Is aluminum producers? I don't hear anyone clamoring to regulate those industries. Seems the invisible hand does just fine.
The alternative to capitalism is either Communism, Dictatorships or anarchy. I pick capitalism. Park your cars and walk.
Right on, my brutha!
I guess we should go semi-socialist like France, Italy, Britain and other EU countries that have proved that the way to control people, while keeping them down, is to create artificially high energy costs.
When you mold a society to be dependent on something then decide to bump the prices, you are acting like the average drug dealer - get 'em hooked and then reel 'em in. I happen to be financially responsible and can afford the current prices, along with having to foot the bill to repair my house and replace my "stuff" from losses due to Katrina. I can also afford to go out to dinner and hit the movies, if so inclined. That doesn't mean that there are many who can't afford the extra, unnecessary burden. Some folks don't have enough "luxury" items in their budgets to cut back on.
The basic necessities need to be readily available until such time as there is enough other infrastructure in place (more government controls for transportation, etc.) to alleviate the need that has become our "norm". Cheap and available energy is one of the things that allowed us to be the freest, strongest nation on God's Green Earth. Let the greedy decide to take advantage of that need and we become their servants. About the only thing you and I are apt to agree on is that the Congress is insane to try to socialize the oil profits by turning them into "Windfall Profit Taxes". I don't call for government control, but energy is one of those necessary commodities that needs some oversight to keep yet another entity from having excessive control over peoples' lives/quality of living.
Where were you in 1986? Do you support have floor prices for oil so that the industry does not collapse, or are you only against companies have highs too high?
This makes me sick. I vacillate between "it's too late for America" and "it's not too late to save our republic" depending on my mood and optimism for the day.
Today is a "It's too late" day. Whether it's in 10 years, 100 years, or 20 years when our country finally falls completely into socialism, days like this make me sad. There is no way to stop the politicians.
they should all be in the dock too... after-all, the futures traders are the ones that ran up the price of oil/gas.
Kind of like the hippy communes of the 60's that finally fell apart because of the extra amount of sacrifice needed to exist that way in a country that made so much possible.
There are also people who opt to be homeless and jobless and shirk other responsibilities - it's a choice, but there is no sane purpose between the choices. Should folks, in the greatest nation the world has ever produced, be relegated to making choices to live more simply in order to maintain a reasonable standard of living? We are already too far into a socialistic mode to allow others to further that trend "just because they can". One would expect a free society to improve quality of life rather than send folks backwards and make them more dependent on the whims of others. The only way this could be worse is if the government decided to jack the taxes on energy and further the subjugation; which so many of the idiots in Congress seem intent to do with their WFP tax crap on the table now. Fair prices are all that anyone can ask for; if some idiot wants to pay $150.00 for designer sneakers, then that is Capitalism at work; if someone has the strings to control others' lives by getting greedy with what has become a defacto necessity, then that needs to be curbed. I can't agree more that Congress needs to loosen up and allow energy construction and exploration to help provide for a Nation's needs, but too many of them have their hands firmly on the reins of power they so covet and instead of doing right by the American People, they would rather allow artificially high prices and use it as an avenue to a broader Welfare State.
Well, I'm out of breath.
God Bless
......"You really don't understand how capitalism works, do you?
It's like this:
We want the oil companies to build more refineries, and to upgrade the ones they have to make them more efficient, right?
Well, the way they do that is by investing; "investing" means "spending money," and the only way you can do that is if you have profits, i.e., money earned from sales.".....
I wish that this is what they are doing with the added profits.
But XOM has not added to exploration, or to building plant. They are in a huge stock buyback mode, spending over $13 billion so far this year buying back their stock at the highest market price the stock has ever reached. They are now committing $5 billion buyback for the next quarter, based on the strong 3Q profits.
It is really a shame that the best investment that XOM can find for their current $29 billion in cash hoard is to retire stock that is paying a 2+% dividend.
But whatever they can do to goose earnings per outstanding share will juice the stock price. And since Fatcat Chairman Raymond, 66 years old, owns over 4.5 million shares, each dollar the market price goes up, he makes another $4.5 million toward his retirement (on top of his retirement pension of $6.5 million per year) That's a portfolio even Anna Nicole Smith could fall in love with.
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