Some things just ain't right

No not really new news. I guess it just hit home a little bit harder for me this morning after zipping my credit card through the gas pump to pay for gas.
 
Eraser said:
I read an article this morning on CNN Money and just thought to myself "that ain't right". Its about Exxon and how they shattered their profit records:



Exxon posts quarterly, annual profit records - Feb. 1, 2008



After reading the story I was just....well, pissed. :angry I guess it didn't help that I had just stop at an Exxon on my way to work to fill up my Rainier.
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Put yourself in the CEO's shoes. Your company has invested many billions into buying oilfields and rights to oilfields. Those oilfields are going to run dry in the coming decade. It's a C-Level officer's job to have a 10 year plus outlook for a corporation. They need to shore up funds for the inevitable decline.



The only say that the american people have is the amount of oil they use. Your Rainier is not the most fuel efficient vehicle on the planet. Now neither is my Yukon XL, but I don't really complain about good business...
 
cgage said:
Your Rainier is not the most fuel efficient vehicle on the planet. Now neither is my Yukon XL, but I don't really complain about good business...
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Hey, my vehicle gets great gas mileage. Just yesterday I was driving along this long downhill section of the highway and my car's computer said I was getting 68mpg. I could even get it up to 74mpg if I barely pressed down on the gas pedal. Of course after going up a couple more hills and back to level it was showing the typical 15.6 avg mpg again. :laugh:



Anyway, you are right no need in complaining. I sure hope GM releases a car along the lines of the Volt concept car. I would buy it the day it was released and never spend a penny on gas driving to work again.
 
Do yourself a favor. Learn to invest. Get back some of the profits. Hedge yourself. It's a better option than drving one of those fruity electric cars or a hybrid.



By the way, if a hybrid is so ecologically friendly, what do they stuff in those batteries?
 
I am going to invest...right into one of those Volts or whatever they will call it when it is released. Then I'll stop spending so much of my profits pumping gas into my car.
 
cgage said:
Put yourself in the CEO's shoes. Your company has invested many billions into buying oilfields and rights to oilfields. Those oilfields are going to run dry in the coming decade. It's a C-Level officer's job to have a 10 year plus outlook for a corporation. They need to shore up funds for the inevitable decline.



The only say that the american people have is the amount of oil they use. Your Rainier is not the most fuel efficient vehicle on the planet. Now neither is my Yukon XL, but I don't really complain about good business...
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you gotta be kidding me?? you work for exxon?



oil companies are the worst at reinvesting their profits and those oilfield rights have been paid for many years ago and or only a small % of their overall profits as rent.



now if you were to say how they were investing in research to extract oil from shale, or expanding their refinery capacity (minus marathon oil maybe?), or working to find more environmentally friendly extraction processes so we can finally drill in alaska so all the tree huggers dont cry about a place they know nothing about, then i might agree with you.



i'm all about fair profits, but these are obscene. if any other industry were to report profits like this with out significant R&D (i.e., pharmaceutical, biological, auto, whatever) there would be more congressional hearings than you could stand.



the bottom line is people keep feeding their cars with gas( im guilty and will be because, i own a big truck, a big sedan, and high horsepower sports car) and until people either back off or the economy worsens to point where oil crashes we will pay 3.50 a gallon and exxon will make record profits for a lot longer than 10 years
 
boogiejoe said:
Do yourself a favor. Learn to invest. Get back some of the profits. Hedge yourself. It's a better option than drving one of those fruity electric cars or a hybrid.



By the way, if a hybrid is so ecologically friendly, what do they stuff in those batteries?
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that defintiely will help unless it crashes again
 
boogiejoe said:
Do yourself a favor. Learn to invest. Get back some of the profits. Hedge yourself. It's a better option than drving one of those fruity electric cars or a hybrid.



By the way, if a hybrid is so ecologically friendly, what do they stuff in those batteries?
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100% Agreed on that one, I think nuclear power and hydrogen fuel cells are the best answers on the table right now.



But in the interim I would not mind a hybrid with a plug in option, I am keeping an eye on the ford escape plug in.
 
boogiejoe said:
Do yourself a favor. Learn to invest. Get back some of the profits. Hedge yourself. It's a better option than drving one of those fruity electric cars or a hybrid.



By the way, if a hybrid is so ecologically friendly, what do they stuff in those batteries?
Click to expand...



Last time I heard NiMH batteries were fully recycleable. You are right about fruity though, any car less than 100k is prety fruitty anyway. Well except for a big SUV. Awesome mobile penis extender.:har: If I wanna look cool, I'll ride my busa, otherwise its the fruitmobile to work.
 
Thanks for the link. I was tempted to buy the Escape Hybrid but held off because of the battery technology it was using. Lithium-ion is the way to go.



Have you even seen the Tesla Roadster? One sweet looking electric car. Tesla Motors
 
Their profit margin is well below that of Google, Bank of America, Apple, and a good chunk of other publicly held companies. Granted, it's a pretty big gross profit, but split that out against their overall investment, and their earnings are solid, at best.



IIRC it was 9ish percent this year. Microsoft pulled close to a 40% profit margin for years. Now *that's* gouging.
 
If you want to get mad about obscene profits, get mad at banks and credit card companies. They make a larger percentage in profit vs sales than the oil companies.
 
With regard to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in particular, unless the batteries get charged from a renewable energy source, I'm not sure where the benefit lies from an environmental standpoint. The electricity is drawn from a power utility, which in turn gets its energy through the burning of fossil fuels. So the pollution is still there, it just gets displaced.
 
ExxonMobil's Main Objective is a 20% return on investment, They are know for oil and gas but, if you do alittle research they're into lot's of other technologies that make more profit than gas.
 
Scottwax said:
If you want to get mad about obscene profits, get mad at banks and credit card companies. They make a larger percentage in profit vs sales than the oil companies.
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Don't worry, I get mad at them too, but the gas companies are ridiculous. They have been saying for years that "oh we need the money for new discoveries". However, the only discoveries seem to be in the bank accounts of upper management around Christmas time. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, they realized that they could charge the American public $3 a gallon and had no reason to charge any less. I realize it is economics and business, but it aggravates me nonetheless. By the way, just read through this, and please understand that I am not attacking your post, simply adding my .02 to your input. :)
 
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