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Oil is cause of downturn
Butler (,PA) Eagle - Letter to Editor ^ | 2/19/08 | Ronald Goebel

Posted on 02/19/2008 5:27:44 PM PST by smokinleroy

Oil is cause of downturn

Exxon-Mobil earned $81 billion in profits in the last two years. Are we surprised? Supply and demand — that's what they say. So Exxon-Mobil could reduce the price of a gallon of gasoline to $1.50 and the company still could earn $40 billion in profits in two years. Am I wrong on my math?

I predicted a recession two years ago when the price of gasoline hit the ceiling. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we suck all the extra dollars from our citizens and force them to put it in their gasoline tanks and heating oil tanks, they will have no money left to buy clothing, gifts, entertain, go out to dinner, or buy the things that Congress and President George W. Bush say we now need to buy to come out of the dive into which this country's economy is heading.

So, the country is going to go into more deficit spending to send everyone a check for $500 or more. If the oil companies lowered the price of gasoline to $1.50, we would have an extra $100 a month to spend. Of course, if you earn $100,000 or more a year, or have stock in Exxon, you don't care about that.

We have a milk marketing board in Pennsylvania that regulates the price of milk. Why not establish a gasoline marketing board? What we don't need is an excess-profits tax. We don't need to give more money to an already glutted Congress that spends money like the old proverbial drunken sailor. Shame on all of our elected officials from top to bottom for allowing this rip-off to continue. Price-fixing by the oil companies is running rampant.

Ronald Goebel
Cranberry Township


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics/Elections; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: energy; morondemocrat; oil
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To: spanalot
I go to the farmer in the next county, pay him $540 for 7000# of corn,

Thats alot of popcorn..

61 posted on 02/19/2008 7:37:58 PM PST by MaxMax (I need a life after politics)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
You make perfect sense. I only wish the gumbint would get it! Or perhaps they do, after all they are supposedly smart people.

If we cut off Opec, and stopped importing from the mideast all together, drilling our own of course to replace it, especially if we did it as a sanction, the mideast would look completely different at us. They believe they have us right where they want us.

62 posted on 02/19/2008 7:38:56 PM PST by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: gidget7

We should be using Coal and Nuclear power for Electricity. We should be using our natural gas to power our cars. We have the infrastructure to do this. We could fill our cars in our homes if you have a gas line to your house.

It is insane that we use so much gasoline in this country when we have so much natural gas.


63 posted on 02/19/2008 7:40:04 PM PST by I got the rope
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To: plain talk
Nobody has to have OJ to get to work, nor do they need to buy it in 10-20 gallons at a time. Nor is it a necessity to heat your home. Guess what? I has even left the grocery budget altogether! Gotta cut somewhere.
64 posted on 02/19/2008 7:44:45 PM PST by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: jonrick46
Not to mention, the ........how many different emission regulations during refining ?? California has the strictest regulation on gasoline emissions, and a lot of other states have different. With so many different mixtures, it costs more to refine, and states, in many cases cannot get it from a neighboring state unless the emissions standard is the same. Even in an emergency. How about Congress make ONE uniform regulation! And the the strictest one.
65 posted on 02/19/2008 7:52:30 PM PST by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: smokinleroy

Funny, the record taxes paid by Exxon in 2007 would more than pay for the silly little tax rebate. I guess we just don’t want to talk about that.


66 posted on 02/19/2008 7:53:11 PM PST by Dead Dog (B' Slap America: Hillary '08)
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To: I got the rope
Yes we do have a lot, and most of it is untapped. It runs under my brother in laws house in upstate NY, and they had to chlorinate their water to get rid of the sulfur smell. Same with my mothers property in KY. Both are on a natural gas plain. I often wonder, what will happen, eventually, if it isn't tapped?
67 posted on 02/19/2008 8:03:54 PM PST by gidget7 (Duncan Hunter-Valley Forge Republican!)
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To: gidget7
Nobody has to have OJ to get to work, nor do they need to buy it in 10-20 gallons at a time

Irrelevant. Talking about profits and what it costs for a company to produce gasoline vs orange juice.

68 posted on 02/19/2008 8:15:33 PM PST by plain talk
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To: spanalot

Don’t tell everybody. Others will do the same thing and then the price of corn will go up and I will no longer be able to afford my corn flakes. They cost an arm and a leg as it is.


69 posted on 02/19/2008 8:16:36 PM PST by AUsome Joy
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To: gidget7

Above all, we need to BREAK OPEC - the cartel that funds terror and high prices and is buying us up!


70 posted on 02/19/2008 8:29:16 PM PST by eleni121 (+ En Touto Nika! By this sign conquer! + Constantine the Great)
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To: gpapa

What’s your point? That those earning more pay more?

Egads! Run for the hills, the Hottentots are coming!


71 posted on 02/19/2008 9:20:11 PM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: plain talk

It’s very relevant. Orange juice is not a necessity, it can be replaced with an alternate - water, apple juice, cola, whatnot.

Gasoline cannot.

You cannot pull into a gasoline station and say, “Hmmm, gas is a might bit expensive today, I’ll use diesel instead!”

Therefore, gasoline is an inelastic commodity. One will simply pay the price or go without. No choice.


72 posted on 02/19/2008 9:30:00 PM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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To: gogogodzilla

I needed to look that up.

A group referred to as “the Hottentots” at times appeared in the writings of Eighteenth Century Europeans, often used as a standard of the lowest, most “savage” types of human beings.


73 posted on 02/19/2008 9:41:16 PM PST by gpapa (Kill the terrorists, protect the borders, punch the hippies)
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To: smokinleroy
"Am I wrong on my math"

Yes, utterly hopeless. First, ask for Exxon's *sales* over the last 2 years.

The state of what passes for economic education...

74 posted on 02/19/2008 9:45:39 PM PST by JasonC
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To: USFRIENDINVICTORIA
It took me all of 2 minutes on Yahoo Finance to determine that Exxon's revenue over the last 2 years was more like $756 billion, against profits of his $81 billion, so they made a net profit of 11 cents on the dollar. If they dropped prices by 33 cents a gallon - assuming it would work similarly for their other markets (natural gas, chemicals, etc) then that would suffice to send their profits to zero. It might be more like 45 cents counting tax effects. But any way you slice it, nearly all the increase in prices we have seen at the pump has gone to the producing countries, and not to Exxon, and $1.50 gas at current upstream costs would bankrupt them in less than a year.
75 posted on 02/19/2008 9:52:10 PM PST by JasonC
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To: smokinleroy
can you blame him?......he's probably like a lot of the lower caste conservative freepers.....we work, we pay taxes, and see our pensions stolen, our 401k"s eaten alive, yet are told that we can't look at the $81 billion of the Exxon's of the world with a jaded eye?

I understand that the Republican party used to be the party of the rich but that had all changed....maybe it hasn't...maybe we have a lot of Republicans that don't give a hoot that the Mom and Dads out there are paying so much out of pocket for gas and heating fuel....

IOWS....no differant than the limosine liberals....

76 posted on 02/19/2008 9:58:38 PM PST by cherry
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To: smokinleroy

Yes, this guy is an incredible idiot, but further evidence of what this country is up against as it tries to make progress. Vote for HRc or Obama and more of the same.


77 posted on 02/19/2008 10:00:27 PM PST by scannell
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To: AUsome Joy

“Others will do the same thing and then the price of corn will go up “

DONT WORRY - THEY’LL make more - every summer.


78 posted on 02/19/2008 10:03:18 PM PST by spanalot (*)
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To: gidget7

The government has to do something to justify all that easy money they are getting. They would regulate the hair on a mole if it would pad their wallets.


79 posted on 02/19/2008 10:51:04 PM PST by jonrick46
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To: smokinleroy
Exxon-Mobil earned $81 billion in profits in the last two years.

In the same time period, they paid $201.6 Billion in taxes.

In 2006 they paid $97.5 billion in taxes.
Sales-based taxes - $30.381B
Other taxes and duties - $39.203B
Income taxes - $27.902B
ExxonMobil’s 2006 Financial and Operating Review
http://exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/fo_2006.pdf
Page 22

In 2007 $105.6 BILLION in taxes.
Income Taxes - $29,864
Sales Based Taxes - $31,728
All Other Taxes - $44,091
http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/files/corporate/news_release_earnings4q07.pdf $105.6 BILLION in taxes.

80 posted on 02/20/2008 4:57:56 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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