[mnehring]

You don't think that a couple billion of Big Oil's recent record profits aren't redirected quarterly to off shore hedge funds that inject money in the 'future' commodity they produce?

No, as a rabid investor, I pour over their annual reports. One thing that is consistent is that the majority of those 'billion dollar profits' don't come from domestic downstream supply (ie, oil that goes to US gas production). Most of the profit comes from wholesaling that oil to Europe (lower dollar allows this) or selling the oil to petrochemical companies that turn it into plastics or other chemicals. The profit from domestic downstream is pretty much flat. The big bucks are in upstream wholesale reselling and downstream produits blancs.

[kellynla]

Thank you for injecting a little sanity into this thread.