I may be the odd one in the bunch but I'll say yes to that question...
When I go to the gas station, I feel as though they are holding a gun to my head when I pay them, because I'm certainly not doing it willingly...
The CEO gets a bonus of almost a half a billion dollars...There is no person on the face of the earth that is worth anywher near that much money...They are just squandering the money they basically robbed from me and millions of other Americans...
So how does this work??? Do the speculators actually bid on the crude like at an auction??? The Arabs sound like they control the price of crude...I read yesterday that the Saudi's don't want the oil to go below 60 dollars a barrel???
The CEO gets a bonus of almost a half a billion dollars...
The one person who oversaw tremendous growth for that company. That is what they get paid to do. Sounds like he did a very good job. The investors and stockholders and the Board of Directors for Exon disagree with you that "no one is worth that much money"
Exon has one hundred thousand employees. There are probably millions of non Exon retirees and 401K investors that have Exon stock that are probably quite happy with the return they have gotten from purchasing that stock.
The Exon stock earnings has more than likely made up for the poor performance of money markets, CD and savings that have given very little return over the last 4 years. Do you want them to eat dog food or something? ;?)
Punish Exon and the other oil companies, you punish the employees, the retirees, the 401K investor.
And reading your posts, you would jump at the chance because it seems you want a communist system where no one is allowed to rise too high above the others.
Each according to their abilities, each according to their means.
What does that have to do with anything? I want the cost of crude to drop to $15 a barrel. There. I said it. By your logic, "xjcsa sounds like he controls the price of crude."
Yes. There's only so much available at a time, now and in the future. Refiners need the crude. They'll bid what they think it takes to assure their supply w/o overbidding. Others are also in the market. The key to price rises is the futures market. The bidding is done on speculative grounds of what the future holds. Right now folks vision of the future is rather fuzzy.
"The Arabs sound like they control the price of crude...I read yesterday that the Saudi's don't want the oil to go below 60 dollars a barrel?"
I'd like to set my own hours and fill in the amount on my paycheck also. It don't work that way. Other folks won't go along. They'll move on to other sources and apply other pressures like not buying enough to keep up the income and cash flow of the lower price crude. Others will be there to take up the slack.
In this case demand is rising and that's a sound basis for rising prices. Demand means there's an essentially permanent global rise in the total amount of crude folks want. This is a steady rise in a background of volatile incidents effecting supply and seasonal changes.
The commodities markets are weird, to put it mildly. Many past leaders and governments have tried to abolish them, but nothing they replaced them with worked as well. They do get out of control sometimes (remember the Hunts trying to manipulate silver at the end of Carter's reign?). But in the long run, things seem to average out since for every contract sold by someone, someone else has to buy one. And then cartels of producers (OPEC) also enter the picture. It is really one big crap shoot ultimately controlled by supply and demand.
I should have said that the commodities FUTURES markets are weird (no one, to my knowledge, has tried to do away with the commodities markets themselves).
Why aren't you screaming about the salaries of every CEO and farm conglomerate?
Most of the price you pay for gas, is comprised of local, state, and federal TAXES.
The retiring CEO of EXXON is getting 8 or 9 million dollars cash; the rest is in stock and most of the $400,000,000 is in STOCK OPTIONS, which can't be sold for years!
It is none of your business what a company pays its employees! Not a single cent is YOUR money; once your money goes into a company's hands ( which you received something for ), it is NO LONGER YOUR MONEY! Neither are YOU anyone to decide who is worth what or when. Nor are YOU in any position to say the NOBODY is worth almost 1/4 of a billion dollars. And FYI...many Americans are worth many BILLIONS of dollars.
Robbery is when someone takes that which is not his or hers.
If you BOUGHT ( that's the operative word here, BTW ) gas from Exxon, you got gas; they got the going rate; it was an exchange. Or did some Exxon employee hold a gum to your head, take everything you had with you ( all of your money, your car, your close, etc. ), and run away, leaving you bereft of your possessions?
People bid and sell futures and/or options on commodities; not to mention oil company stocks. This does NOT set the price at the pump. OPEC, refineries, and taxes have far more to do with the price.