Tim McG

Clay Bennett is a jackass. I sincerely hope Howard Schultz beats his brains out with that lawsuit. Another clear case of Screw the Fans....I want money.

Allegra-D? Flonaise? Sorry...not until bedtime.

I think you have the names backwards. Chacon is the player, Wade is the GM who fired him. Chacon assaulted Wade before he was released. Here's Wade's version of what happened: Chacon sounded disgruntled, but never should have resorted to physically assaulting Wade. He deserved to be released after that. I don't think he or the Player's Union have a leg to stand on in this particular case with their grievance. You're right, Aggie...I screwed up the names. I corrected it. But Wade needs to get a grip on what players say verses what they want the team to do for them. Wade strikes me as a loose cannon in the same vien Mark Cuban is in the NBA. Guess what: Attitude 0, Player complaint 1. Wade is an idiot.

Hm. OK. Ingrid Bergman Humphrey Bogart Sydney Greenstreet

Speaking of pushing, how about Astros pitcher Sean Chacon throwing GM Ed Wade to the floor and threatening him? He was kicked off the team, though the Player's Union is filing a grievance for being improperly terminated. Here's a description from the Astro's website: Sounds to me like [edit] Ed Wade needs a lesson in personnel management. You fire a guy and wonder why he's yelling at you? Duh. The man must be an idiot. Fire him, instead.

Cat Stevens Connie Stevens Steven Bishop

Speculators trade whatever is moving good. The more "action" in an investment, the more speculators get attracted to it. Speculators are therefore exaggerating the price on oil right now. I don't see what this has to do with the oil companies. Nobody likes overvolatile prices. I doubt the oil companies do either. It makes it harder to budget and come up with reasonable quarterly goals. Screws up planning, basically. There is a role that speculators play, btw. They help create a more efficient pricing mechanism and provide market liquidity. Nevertheless, prices overshoot, and that's what has been happening. Makes good sense. I would compare that to flipping or spec'ing houses. All I'm saying is speculators won't trade what won't sell. Oil sells and is needed. Hence, it works well for them. Sucks for the rest of us. What is has to do with the oil companies is they get to further jusify that new spike in cost at the pump AND they have a made-to-order scapegoat to blame it on.

That makes no sense. You don't think they already use some of their profit and reinvest it in their business? HELLO! That's going on already. Everybody in this thread gets that - not sure who you're referring to. The difference is the demand for gasoline hasn't gone down as prices have gone up, as they would for corn flakes and nice shoes. Can you show me where it says that in their business plan? Or a contract they signed with the U.S. government? Where it's their DUTY? Even if they did everything within their power to "help out the country in times of crises" right now (by eliminating all profit from their business), your California gas price would only go down from $4.56 to $4.20. So the major problem of high gasoline price still exists, and now you've created companies that can't sustain their business or attract shareholders any longer, ultimately putting people out of jobs while still paying high prices at the pumps. ... At $125 billion dollars in free and clear profit, they aren't investing very much now, are they. Again, if your sole motvation is profit, your company is no better than a leach. A cancer on society. I would compare that to another time of myopia in the days after the 9/11 attacks; when stockholders rushed the market and it took a huge drop. It hurt our economy and in a time of crisis. Selfish people we got, Aggie. Now how about giving back to the country which made it possible for them to make their billions, eh? BTW...you apparently missed my edit: Gas is $4.73 a gallon so a 50 cent drop would be most welcome. You are correct in pointing that out, Aggie. Thank you!

Speculators sell futures over the commodities exchange. There is no connection between the oil companies and individuals who go long on oil futures. They don't take physical delivery of the oil, but they help set the price of oil on the market. If there is a connection between the oil companies and the speculators, or if they are working together as you suggest, then it would be a violation of Federal laws. It would be called market manipulation. People have to be very careful about that. Speculators aren't completely to blame for rising oil prices but they have definitely contributed to the quick runup of prices. BTW, commodities are notoriously fickle, and oil companies went through their hard times too. I imagine they feel that their windfall profits help to offset the slow times, of which they experienced several before this spike up on oil. I'm not necessarily defending them but I don't see a point in singling them out for abuse. I hope they will be using some of these windfall profits to increase exploration. TBH, I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying they are working together or that speculators are on the oil company payroll [though I wouldn't be surprised...remember the insider trading scandal of a few years back and today's mortgage investment/loan scandal; it is possible]. What I am saying is they would not speculate on anything that wasn't needed, being bought or could be resold at unchecked prices. That is how they are undeniably linked. Why speculate on something nobody has a use for later?

No wonder he'$ pi$$ed about ga$ price$! It's a Toyota. I get 25-27 MPG.

Agreed. But as to your pricing example, the point I have been making all along is that they do not need to charge as much per gallon AND if they took those huge profits and reinvested them into the business from time to time, they could reduce the cash outgo by using that money to balance out the increased cost of oil. See what people aren't getting is this isn't a consumable in the sense a box of corn flakes is or a new pair of shoes. It is a commodity we cannot do without. That is a marked difference in necessity relative to doing what is in the best interest of the American people. Pardon my love of country, but these guys made their billions off of us, with tax subsidies no less and with little regulation. They have a duty to help out their county in times of crises. Not to be the money grubbing profiteers that they are.

No wonder he'$ pi$$ed about ga$ price$! Plus, you still sail a boat, Goodie? It's not a sail boat. Maybe he meant "sale" boat

Which is controlled by the cost of a barrel of crude oil coming into this country moreso than anything else. NOT oil companies profit margins. Your whole argument about profits has been irrelevant. edit - cost per gallon of gas here was $3.94 this morning. Up from $3.89 the past few days. Your prices for EVERYTHING are higher in California. edit 2 - that 10 cents per gallon doesn't add up to THAT much. If you fill up weekly with 15 gallons of gas, that's $1.50. Multiplied by 52 weeks, that's $78. PER YEAR. Bank on that. OK. Prices are higher...and? California is also the most populous state in the Union, too. That means huge profits for the oil companies. And that $78 bucks buys me a tank and a 1/4 of gas. Now unless you figure that I'm the only one driving in California....that adds up to huge amounts of money saved for us Californians. BTW....my wife drives a car and so does my son. Now we're talking about $230-250 dollars saved per year. That's pretty damn relevant to me, Aggie.

BTW...I was wrong about the price of gas being $4.56 a gallon. It's $4.73 a gallon. My bad.

No wonder he'$ pi$$ed about ga$ price$! Plus, you still sail a boat, Goodie? Nope....never have. That was a picture of me on somebody else's boat in the San Francisco Harbor.

Oil companies are one instance right now. They're simply passing on their increased cost of raw material to you the consumer, while maintaining their same profit margin - not increasing it. GM or Ford can't do this because people would simply not buy new cars, but hang on to their old ones for alot longer. The demand would go down. The oil industry is different because the demand doesn't go down. They CAN pass along their increased cost (due to the increased cost of their raw material) of doing business to us and we pay it. They don't HAVE to lay off anyone or decrease their profit margin from 8.5% to 6% or something (note - a reduction from 8.5% to 6% profit on a 4.00 gallon of gas would only decrease the pump price by 10 cents, so you're still payin the exorbitant price as I mentioned earlier, regardless of profit margin). You're so far off base here it's silly. Take away ALL of their profit and you still pay $3.66 instead of $4.00. WITH NO PROFIT TO THE COMPANIES. Their profit is clearly not the biggest chunk of what you pay at the pump. Aggie...these guys are protecting a profit margin and making untold billions of dollars in the process. Any legitimate company, one which cares about Americans and American business will temper that with the reality of finding other ways to curb costs without damaging the economy and the people's ability to live within their means. A company motivated by profit and profit only, does not reinvest those obscene profits back into the company thereby avoiding constant price increases. They simply do not care. Again, these price increases are coming in advance of the crude oil not yet ready for consumption. Again, that means we are paying for that increase TWICE. Again, that contributes to the over all billions of dollars they are getting. $4.00 bucks...where are you seeing that? It hasn't been that low since mid-spring in California. Currently, [edit] $4.73 a gallon. That would be more than a full dollar more that your $3.66 price. Again, 8.5% per gallon is very little money. I don't know about you but my truck needs more than a gallon to get me through the week. That 10 cents adds up to one helluva lot of money saved over a year's time, Aggie. Bank on it. Additionally, that 10 cents creates one helluva lot of profit for the oil companies times $1.25 Trillion dollars worth of business in the space of only four months. Again....it is not the profit margin, Aggie...it's the cost per gallon.

Your chart shows that prices for gasoline have gone up. Alert the press! The demand for gasoline hasn't gone down enough to hurt the oil companies. They keep producing gas because the demand is there. So they don't have to lay off people like GM or Ford. Aggie...they don't layoff people because they keep inflating the price of gasoline to pay them [hellooooo]. The demmand hasn't gone down but the cost of doing business has greatly increased. That should cut profit, not increase it. $125 Billion dollars in profits, my friend. Free and clear, profits. That is, after their employees have been paid and all other expenses have been taken care of. Nobody does business like this...especially failing or floundering businesses. I think Exxon Mobil for 2007 had somewhere around a 9 or 10% margin. That is on over $400 billion in revenue. Your argument that they're taking more profits is wrong, the percentage has stayed about the same. If costs go up, the business has to pass those increases on to the consumer and that is what has happened here. The oil industry has the luxury of passing on those costs because demand is not going to drop off anytime soon. It's not just oil... Checked the price of wheat lately? You think oil has gone up, wheat prices have more than trippled. How about corn? Up 80% this last year. Now I see where a turkey farm is doing layoffs because the price of corn has become too high. What happened? The turkey grower knows people are not going to pay $25 a lb. for turkey so he needs to reduce operating costs and maybe suspend production until the corn market adjusts. The percentage has stayed the same but the price oil companies charge has increased 100% in retail cost to us since last year alone. Farm products go up and down due to weather/drought or pest infestation or the cost of fetilizer....and the cost of putting deisel fuel in their farm equipment in order to do business. Corn, in specific, is also being used for the creating of alternative fuels, sugars as well as feed. Any dip in production due to the items I mentioned will cause the price to soar. These guys can't charge enormous amounts of money to cover for that like the oil companies can for gasoline. They are forced to cutback, layoff or let the land go unused. The difference is, we cannot do without oil....but I'm fairly certain we could do without the occasional turkey.

Huh? Speculators in league with the oil companies? Paranoia at its finest. Speculators are out for themselves: they hope to gain a profit. I don't see how it behooves oil companies to buy up oil futures other than as hedge strategies. They also likely short oil also as a hedge strategy. Oil companies can affect the price of oil by slowing down their refineries. Other than that, I don't think they are involved. OPEC affects oil prices via public statements and production. But it is the speculators who move the oil price the most. I see. So these speculators are refining their own oil? Without a place to sell the stuff they wouldn't make a dime. The two are irrevocably linked, my friend. Oil companies can also affect price by arbitrarily raising the cost at the pump before that more expensive crude is refined....which is exactly what they are doing even as I type. They are not absorbing the cost of doing business. And, like the speculators, are in for themselves, too. Pure profit, no responsibility for how that affects the people and companies who depend on their product to survive. They simply do not care about anything other than protecting their profit margin. In short: Greed.

Actually, everybody does business like this. If the cost of producing your product goes up, but there is still high demand for your product, do you say, "Oh well, I guess I'll only make 1% profit per unit instead of 8.5%"? HELL NO! You raise the price of your product so that your profit margins stay the same. That's called capitalism. As Aggie has pointed out about a million times, the cost of gas is as high as it is because the cost of a barrell of crude oil has risen from $10 in the late 90s to over $140 today. Why oil has risen that high is another thing altogether and quite possibly is partly because of the oil companies themselves, but there is no proof of that (right now). If the cost of a barrell of crude oil was still $10 and they were charging $4.00 per gallon of gas, then you'd have an argument that the profits of the oil companies are outrageous. Well, I have to disagree , Jim. As I have stated before, companies whose cost of doing business outstrips their ability to keep the same profit margin as before, cut costs by laying off employees, downsizing company operations, hike insurance premiums and, yes, pass some of that on to the consumer via price increases. In a worst case scenario, they shut the business down completely. But I cannot think of one instance where any company has turned enormous profits when the cost of doing business has doubled or tripled. Additionally, as I have already said, the cost of crude does not and cannot immediately translate to a spike in price at the pump. That crude oil has not yet been refined and shipped out for consumers to purchase yet. We are paying in advance of that expenditure and will pay it again when that oil comes to us as gasoline at the pump. The oil companies are making record profits because oil costs more? This makes absolutely no sense at all. If anything, the profits would shrink and, like most companies in America, they would curb the costs through various other means. Increased cost of the raw product to do business does not equal huge profits. It can't. Well, unless of course, you grossly inflate the price of your product to cover for the loss due to cash outflow. If GM or Ford or Microsoft or [insert company name] did this, they would be out of business inside of a year. Oil companies do this as a matter of course because they can. As I asked before, at what point can we expect a given company to absorb the cost of doing business? The answer with Big Oil is obvious: They are going to milk this thing for all they can get...just like the speculators are. That is why a gallon of gas costs so much. How else do we explain the record profits at a time with the non-refined product costs so much? That 8.5% argument is only a smoke screen for the real issue: The oil companies have a commodity they know we need and they will charge anything they want because of that. That is greed, Jim. Pure and simple.

Your chart shows that prices for gasoline have gone up. Alert the press! The demand for gasoline hasn't gone down enough to hurt the oil companies. They keep producing gas because the demand is there. So they don't have to lay off people like GM or Ford. Aggie...they don't layoff people because they keep inflating the price of gasoline to pay them [hellooooo]. The demmand hasn't gone down but the cost of doing business has greatly increased. That should cut profit, not increase it. $125 Billion dollars in profits, my friend. Free and clear, profits. That is, after their employees have been paid and all other expenses have been taken care of. Nobody does business like this...especially failing or floundering businesses.

If you can figure out the back door deals going on, more power to you. Aim your anger there, and at OPEC & speculators. It does *NOT* stand to reason that as the cost of doing business goes up, profits shrink. Can you tell me where it says that in any theory of economics? Are you saying by the same token that if the cost of steel goes up, the price of cars and buildings should remain constant?? Simple math tells you that, Aggie. As to the cost of steel, prices do and have gone up, but to the tune of Billions of dollars in profits? Those businesses are closing and laying off people, Aggie. Their profits have greatly diminished. Just ask the people at GM or Ford what they have done to curb costs. Does the oil industry do this? Hell no. They have a commodity which they know we need to have in order to keep our jobs and survive. They also know they can charge whatever price they want to and nobody can or will stop them. $5.00 bucks a gallon says I'm right on this one, Aggie. You like charts? I have one for you: Edit: The red line is gasoline; the blue line is diesel fuel. Source: Energy Information Administration Show me where this says the oil industry is hurting relative to the cost of doing business.

You don't know that for certain, Aggie. A chart will not and cannot decipher the back door deals and manipulation of the market. Further, it stands to reason that as the cost of doing business goes up, the profits shrink. With the oil companies quite the opposite is true. At what point, Aggie, can we expect a given company to start absorbing the cost of doing business as opposed to always passing it along to the consumer? They sure as hell make enough money to justify doing that don't they? So what does that tell you, Aggie? That the oil industry is just an innocent beneficiary of huge profits and the fact we pay nearly $5.00 bucks a gallon at the pump is just a happy coincidence? C'mon. Use your God given power to reason, Aggie. Throw away your chart, Aggie. Look at the profits vs the cost of doing business...they simply do not justify themselves. On any level.

Disagree. Show me how that's a fact. I think you mean shrink instead of sprink (?). If the cost of business goes up (i.e. the cost of a barrel of crude goes quadruples), the oil companies are simply passing those costs along to consumers. They're keeping the same profit margin. I agree the system is being manipulated. But it always has been. Pardon my poor typing skills. Once again, they are charging far more at the pump to manipulate that 8.5% into huge profits, Aggie. It isn't the percentage it is the price per gallon.

OK. So you think it is perfectly acceptable to charge inflated prices to manipulate that 8.5% in to exorbitant profit making? Really? Because that, most assuredly, is what is happening here.

I would have to agree with this statement. Speculators have completely taken over the price of oil as they feel little fear of losing any money in the near future. They feel that the oil price can only go up in the near future. I believe they are wrong and they will be soon punished. I think oil has basically topped out. There is greater downside in current pricing than there is an upside. This is usually a sign to stay away. We'll see a drop soon. As far as oil companies gouging the American public, I don't know enough about the subject to comment; but I'd imagine that the oil companies also make money on increased prices as they are involved in drilling as well, aren't they? In general, it's hard to place so much blame on oil companies when the price of oil has gone from $20/barrel to $141/barrel in the course of approx 2-3 years time. The decline of the dollar has also played a huge role in the oil runup. I would primarily blame American stupidity (as far as shortsightedness in conservation and seeking alternative fuels), lower dollar, supply/demand, speculators, and OPEC. It seems unfair to aim a single-shot gun on the oil companies. I am not enamoured with these companies either, but there are bigger culprits out there. Speculation is only part of the problem here. The fact still remains that oil companies are charging way more than they need to in order to be a profitable business. I also think the oil companies are doing just exactly what the speculators are doing by getting all the money they can now by gouging us at the pump. Why, I have asked, are we paying more in advance of oil not refined yet? That is just crazy nuts. In effect, we will be paying for that cost spike twice: Now and then again when that higher priced oil get to us. That is greed, Guys. Pure and simple. Let's be honest here. If the cost of doing business goes up, the profits would naturally shrink, yes? In the case of the oil companies, as the cost of doing business goes up they are making more money than ever before in the history of combustable engines. How is that even possible? I think it is because of a money grab. Now I don't know all the math in the world but that sure sounds like the system is being manipulated. And how do we know those speculators aren't doing what they are doing to help the oil companies as well as themselves? One hand washes the other, both parties make bucket loads of money.