Bullsh*t OIl Company Profits

[mojo_786]

I'm not sure (and i HIGHLY doubt) that these companies show their "actual" profit. I am old enough to know that there are alot of ways and techniques you can use to get around the tax paying part of any business. I know if you have cars under the company's name, your insurance is A LOT cheaper, also the money that your spending on the car (maintenance, gas, even the insurance) could save you big bucks when filling in the tax sheet.

Thats why these massive companies hire many accountants to help the get the lowest dollar possible. In countries where they have the recession tax system, or the progressive tax system, or any type of system for that matter, companies show the least amount of profit so that they pay the least amount of money to the government.


-Mojo-

[epp_b]

let's see smaller more efficient cars in the US
let's see more alternative fuels
let's see an increase in the CAFE standards for once in 20 years
let's see increases in public transit monies
let's see a return to urban dwelling
let's see gas-guzzler taxes on SUvs
let's see increased taxes on gasoline
let's see a change in the energy policy in the here and now
let's see some of that $300+ billion dollars our congress has spent in a fruitless war in iraq invested into an energy policy that would actually raise our position in the world versus lower it
let's see the gov't drop the oil subsidies

make fatsos lose weight!

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by epp_b

make fatsos lose weight!

Haha, I read that article and a bunch of others on the subject. How badly does 100 more pounds in your Thunder Thighs affect your mileage? If anything, why don't manufacturers just make cars lighter? I doubt humans have evolved to such epic heights in the last 30 or so years that a BMW 1-Series almost encompasses an E23 7-Series. Hell, if oafish Jeremy Clarkson can fit in an original Mini, then what's the problem?

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by epp_b

make fatsos lose weight!

hahahah!!

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by mojo_786

I'm not sure (and i HIGHLY doubt) that these companies show their "actual" profit. I am old enough to know that there are alot of ways and techniques you can use to get around the tax paying part of any business. I know if you have cars under the company's name, your insurance is A LOT cheaper, also the money that your spending on the car (maintenance, gas, even the insurance) could save you big bucks when filling in the tax sheet.

Thats why these massive companies hire many accountants to help the get the lowest dollar possible. In countries where they have the recession tax system, or the progressive tax system, or any type of system for that matter, companies show the least amount of profit so that they pay the least amount of money to the government.


-Mojo-

true to an extent, but if you have ever worked in the upper management of a publicly traded company in the USA, you would fully understand just how regulated businesses (especially multi-million and billion dollar businesses) are.

the enron debacle (and subsequent 20+ years in prison for the only surviving exec) proves just how costly "fancy" accounting can be.



the one ENORMOUS piece you are missing in your thoughts is that these are publically traded companies that rely on ever-increasing HIGH quarterly profits in order to increase the valuation of their stock. so yes, tax savings by showing low profit *could* be beneficial, but doubling or tripling your stock price by posting high quarter over quarter and year over year profits will allow the execs to reap exponentially more dollars than tax breaks.

[epp_b]

Haha, I read that article and a bunch of others on the subject. How badly does 100 more pounds in your Thunder Thighs affect your mileage?

I'm not doing the math, but it all depends on your car.

More weight = engine has to work harder to do the same tasks = more fuel consumption.

if oafish Jeremy Clarkson can fit in an original Mini, then what's the problem?

Umaricuns need ta fit dar big tweenny-pound buurrrgers and dem big dranks and all da fraas!!

[amdforever]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

Not to mention Apple doesn't have to go dig random holes in the ground to find PCs nor do they have to build tubes for their product to be transported in, although Apple's products do hook up to a series of tubes...

Yes, very true about the series of tubes.

As Jon Stewart and Senitor Stevens would put it, the internet is clearly "a series of tubes".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIn_J_jxf-o

[mojo_786]

Hmm... I dont know Sandor. I agree with you till a certain degree, how some corporations double their profits so that their stocks can rise, giving them more money to invest/spend.

At the same time, I know several companies that are using various different tax cut methods to get things rolling their way. I know its not something to be "wow-ing" about but if you start off small, eventually you'll get their. And if you start getting greedy and shit from the start, theres a very good chance you won't change.

What ever the case, i know that if not all of the companies, atleast 90% of these million dollar corp. will practically do whatever they can to keep filling their pockets. Anything from Sweatshops (walmart) to major tax deductions (Apple, etc) to "charity" work so that you can get rebate on taxes.

Its sad how far they'll go to fill up their pockets.

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by mojo_786

Hmm... I dont know Sandor. I agree with you till a certain degree, how some corporations double their profits so that their stocks can rise, giving them more money to invest/spend.

At the same time, I know several companies that are using various different tax cut methods to get things rolling their way. I know its not something to be "wow-ing" about but if you start off small, eventually you'll get their. And if you start getting greedy and shit from the start, theres a very good chance you won't change.

What ever the case, i know that if not all of the companies, atleast 90% of these million dollar corp. will practically do whatever they can to keep filling their pockets. Anything from Sweatshops (walmart) to major tax deductions (Apple, etc) to "charity" work so that you can get rebate on taxes.

Its sad how far they'll go to fill up their pockets.

it's not a question of "whether or not" or "maybe" with publically traded companies (MUCH different with private companies). For a company to survive an IPO and survive on the NYSE or NASDAQ, they ***NEED*** to post profits. and the profits ***NEED*** to rise.

This is part of the reason many newspapers are going private again, there was too much desire for instant profits by shareholders, so groups of private investors were/are buying out the individual city papers (happened in Philly 2 years ago) and all of a sudden, they have no shareholders to answer to, infinitely less SEC regulations to adhere to, and the ability to make the changes the owners want on a day to day basis without answering to thousands of shareholders.

Publicly trade companies are under excruciatingly detailed surveillance in today's market.

[hajj]

Are there any reports about the cash flow? As it has been said, profits are easily made up, but cash flows aren't. There is a small possibility that the cash flow was higher than the reported profit.

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by hajj

Are there any reports about the cash flow? As it has been said, profits are easily made up, but cash flows aren't. There is a small possibility that the cash flow was higher than the reported profit.

sure! all publicly traded companies are required by law to report everything quarterly.

--->
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=XOM&annual

[asthenia]

Originally Posted by sandor_

sure! all publicly traded companies are required by law to report everything quarterly.

--->
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=XOM&annual

Don't forget to add three 0's to each number.

[Ventura6]

Since when did it become such a crime to make money. If you really hated the oil companies' profits (illogically in my opinion considering their margins), you would buy a smaller and more efficient car yourself instead of relying on the market to produce one despite the fact that you know it will look horrible, move at geologic speeds, and cost way more than you are going to save in "expensive gas."

Now I come from the US, so our gas (petrol for those of you across the pond) right now costs about $2.07 per gallon, and I say, that's where it should be. If it cost $5.00, I would say, that's where it should be. And I know I would say this because when it was $1.00 10 years ago, I was saying the exact same thing as when it was $3.00 1 year ago.

That's the price it should be.

We determine the price of gas, not OPEC or Exxon, but it's us. They want to sell it for as high a price as we are prepared to tolerate, and we do tolerate it, because here in the United States at least, it has never been high enough to drastically affect the average consumer's pocket book at the end of the year. When we stop tolerating it, when the price gets to be too bothersome, then we will start to see revolutionary new technologies, super efficient cars... the lot.

But it is still all up to us. If we don't properly demand it, the market will never supply it. And I'm not going to demand it; not now anyway. I am perfectly happy paying $2.07 for a gallon of gas. I filled up my car tonight and enjoyed the sweet song of a gasoline powered car at 90 mph on the freeway all the way home. And you know what...? So was everyone else.

[Blind_Io]

Umm, actually the price is determined by how quickly it can be refined. You have a point but it's hardly that simple. You have commodity traders speculating in oil futures, that affects the price of the crude. The quality of the crude is also a factor in what can be produced from it. There's the fact that the fucking tree-hugging Panda-humpers have not let us build a new refinery in over 30 years, combined with the twice yearly "change over" to winter formulation in the snow belt, which can take a refinery off line for a week or more. Then you ad in the price gouging, which is NOT the same thing as profit. Price fixing is illegal, and don't try to tell me that they don't do it. I would not be surprised if there was some "creative" book keeping going on either. The Oil companies pay out huge sums of money to congressmen and always manage to avoid any serious investigation into their business practices.

The problem is that the oil companies don't seem to be acting like independent organizations. What one does, they all do. The free market would suggest that they should be fighting each other for business resulting in the best possible price at the pump, but it's not happening. The price at the pump is nearly uniform despite brand name or parent company. The oil companies say the price of oil is to blame, well my family has mineral rights and we get a percentage of everything they pump out. If the price of oil at the well head is higher then we should be seeing a larger check every month. We don't. The price at the well head has not changed nearly as much as the price at the pump. Yet in the first quarter of this year, one oil company (Exxon, I think) posted 300% of their projected profits. 300%!

I smell a rat.

[asthenia]

Price fixing isn't done at the pump, that would be too obvious. (Technically the price you pay is whatever the gas station owner pays, plus his own teeny weeny markup -- it's why he drives an Accord and buys meat on sale.)

You're on to something with the refinery shutdowns and the oil companies' refusal to build more of them, but that's only half of the supply/demand issue.

The other half is in deciding where to pump oil out of the ground, and how much of it. They don't call the shots on how much to pay -- that's largely up to the country they're pumping it out of -- but the oil company executives do meet and decide what company gets to pump how much, and from where. They've been doing it since Rockefeller's oil monopoly was broken up in 1911, decentralizing control of the market. I guess it's kind of re-centralized now, you could say.

The companies use this scheme to 'punish' countries they think are being uncooperative, and 'reward' the ones that play along, all the while controlling how much oil in total makes it out of the ground. That's why Canada, which isn't a member of OPEC and charges crrraaaazy bargain basement prices for oil, is America's biggest supplier of low-quality gummy crude; while cranky middle-east petrocracies are watching their lakes of sweet delicious oil go un-pumped.

If things get really nasty, the oil executives have got friends in high places, "elected" and paid for, who can throw some sanctions around. Or embargoes. Or even some shock 'n awe.

Together the oil companies and their cartel are much more effective at controlling prices than the facade of capitalism and competition would have everyone believe. The good news is that if gasoline was priced the same way as, say, long distance phone calls, then the price fluctuations would be much bigger in both directions. Oil supply is tricky to control, and cartel pricing smoothes out the ups and downs. You don't want to pay $5.80 a gallon every time Hugo Chavez throws a hissy fit.

Exxon's revenue is currently more than the GDP of Kuwait, so something's up. The companies can shrug and say they don't choose the price per barrel, but if they wanted to they could lower it. Just ask your local Sheikh or Prime Minister nicely, and he'll let you pump it out a little faster. He'll be happy to get more money at once, and everyone will pay less at the pump. Meanwhile oil companies' profits will sink like a damn stone.

So, don't hold your breath for that.

[Leifer]

Originally Posted by sandor_

no more so than any other industry.

Would you rather have the billions and billions of dollars, or the 500 million? Both are quite alot of money, but it's obvious that Exxon can play their cards right. Almost everybody buys gasoline, whereas only the lesser-educated people buy Apple products. Short of the iPod.

And it definitely IS the iPod that is responsible for the amount of money Apple has been getting -- or had been getting. There's no more market for an iPod, everyone has one. But with gasoline, you just have to have it. And for the next few years, companies like Exxon will have us all on a leash, because gas is a necessity for enough people that they can fluctuate prices to whatever they want.

[sandor_]

Originally Posted by Leifer

Would you rather have the billions and billions of dollars, or the 500 million? Both are quite alot of money, but it's obvious that Exxon can play their cards right. Almost everybody buys gasoline, whereas only the lesser-educated people buy Apple products. Short of the iPod.

And it definitely IS the iPod that is responsible for the amount of money Apple has been getting -- or had been getting. There's no more market for an iPod, everyone has one. But with gasoline, you just have to have it. And for the next few years, companies like Exxon will have us all on a leash, because gas is a necessity for enough people that they can fluctuate prices to whatever they want.

... and the proposed US national budget for 2006 is $2.57 trillion. that's $2,570,000,000,000. sorry, large numbers don't scare me. this is capitalsm in the country which holds the highest nominal GDP numbers in the world by 4x. over $13 trillion is spent on goods and services in the US every year.

[Ventura6]

Originally Posted by sandor_

... and the proposed US national budget for 2006 is $2.57 trillion. that's $2,570,000,000,000. sorry, large numbers don't scare me. this is capitalsm in the country which holds the highest nominal GDP numbers in the world by 4x. over $13 trillion is spent on goods and services in the US every year.

I think you have the right idea. People look at the salary of the CEO of Exxon and then say, "Surely he isn't working 85 million times harder than I am, so there must be something wrong with this picture." The fact of the matter is, there isn't. Not in the aggregate, anyway.

These companies are obligated to post profits, not only for the benefit of the company, but also for their shareholders.

[asthenia]

And the shareholders sure aren't complaining.

[un-dee]

There are still rules, laws, and more you have to follow in a market economy. Forming cartels or arrange prices is against the rules.