Oil Lobby Reaches Out to Citizens Peeved at the Pump

WashingtonPost.com ^ | May 9, 2008 | Jeffrey F. Bimbaum

[Andonius_99]

My real question is what made crude suddenly jump so high?

• Declining value of the dollar
  
• Increased demand for oil by developing countries
  
• Speculators
  

And not necessarily in that order, either...

[SAJ]

The huge bulk of the profit in the ''awl bidness'' comes from lifting the product in the first place. Refining is and has been a piss-poor business for decades, avg net margins being something like 3-5% of capital. Hell's bells, you can buy a CD and get better return than that most times.

If the pubic (no typo) actually understood the industry, they'd stand up and salute. VERY few industries operate on the net profit margins that the ''awl bidness'' does...and NO industry receives the pubic condemnation that oil does.

The pubic have been spoon-fed stacks of socialist crapola from the illiterate bastards in the mass media, which I prefer to call the Lame-Brain Media. That's to be expected, to some extent, because the LBM, to a man, to a woman, couldn't operate a business that actually produced something other than hot air at a profit if they tried 50 times.

The public needs to be educated, eh? Fair enough, it does, but who the devil is going to do it? Pulbic skewls? Hah! 50-60-70% or more of the pubic (no typo) couldn't even compute net profit on a 'barrel' of oil (there is no such thing, btw) or on refined products, let alone discuss capital flow and requirement and ROC in producing new energy sources so that Joe Dipstick can keep his SUV filled up reliably.

For further details, see any third-world shjthole except in the Middle East, which nations are -- temporarily -- in an historically unique situation.

Oh, btw, I do not now, nor ever have, worked in the oil/gas industry except tangentially. I certainly don't work there at this time.

[SAJ]

Now, dangit, Hack, there you go with that hard fact and common sense stuff again...(mutter, grumble...)

;^)