Steve_Jones said:The average price of a gallon in MD is $3.47.
$.42 of that is State Tax. ExxonMobil did a hell of a lot more to earn their 31 cents than MD did to earn more than them. Where's the outrage?
Ahh the cry of the anti tax person. There is no outrage becuse we like roads and fire departments and libraries and public parks and..... and .....
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
Not anti tax at all, just pointing out MD makes more with 0 effort. If EM making a profit is outrageous, someone else making more with none of the risk should be even more so.
A new article on the situation just came out, after Total also posted a record profit:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/energy/big-oil-profits/index.html
Apparently the amount these companies have collectively paid out to shareholders recently is around $100B, about the same as the total paid and currently committed to be paid towards Ukraine's defense by the US right now 
Hilton made $1.3 Billion profit last year. Someone needs to do something about these high hotel room profits,for the children.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
A new article on the situation just came out, after Total also posted a record profit:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/energy/big-oil-profits/index.html
Apparently the amount these companies have collectively paid out to shareholders recently is around $100B, about the same as the total paid and currently committed to be paid towards Ukraine's defense by the US right now
Well the good news is that the Fear/Greed meter on that site appears to be dropping. Whew.
Have you not read any of the previous pages? A few of us went into great detail about the trouble with only comparing two data points. You didn't share anything new. This isn't a new article, it's the same misleading article with a different company name. Check back tomorrow for the next new article. Funny thing- I searched Google for "CNN Big Oil Profits" and found a list of articles with different company names. If any oil company didn't see a big increase in 2022 Vs. 2021, then something went very wrong. In similar news, the gas mileage in my truck dropped almost 50%! Same gas, same route, same speeds, the numbers don't lie. Must be a conspiracy. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go unhook the trailer.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/valentines-day-spending-up-2023/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h
While we're posting questionable links (that is a dig at the quality of news articles these days, not at anyone here having a discussion, just to be clear), Americans are spending $26 billion on flowers and chocolate for a made up holiday next week. Imagine the better uses that money could be put towards.
Steve_Jones said:Hilton made $1.3 Billion profit last year. Someone needs to do something about these high hotel room profits,for the children.
Exactly!!!
Lionel Messi made 130 million last year for what, playing with a ball and Tom Cruise pulled down 100 million last year for, um, reading some lines.
People like this provide nothing of critical value yet there's never any outrage directed towards them.
Now, if you want to see some real outrage, have somebody make a lot of money while wearing a suit. It make no difference if what they're doing is vitally important, people get super pi$$ed about it.
In reply to Steve_Jones & RX Reven' :
It's incredibly disingenuous to make irreverent comparisons between luxuries that are entirely voluntary and have zero bearing on the economy or inflation, and commodities that are unavoidably essential to the economy and directly contribute to inflation all while being publicly subsidized.
In reply to Driven5 :
So where's the outrage at *redacted pharmaceutical company* for making record $$$billion profits in the midst of a global pandemic? Publicly traded, federally subsidized, CEO bonus... seems to check all the boxes
In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :
Outrage at their sharply cut net profit margin?
Driven5 said:In reply to Steve_Jones & RX Reven' :
It's incredibly disingenuous to make irreverent comparisons between luxuries that are entirely voluntary and have zero bearing on the economy or inflation, and commodities that are unavoidably essential to the economy and directly contribute to inflation all while being publicly subsidized.
Move those goalposts. Driving a vehicle is a luxury and voluntary. You can ride a bike, walk, take public transportation, etc. Around here, there's even Amish on horse and buggy. I know people that don't own cars, no one is knocking on the door forcing them to buy one.
You can't say company A making profit is bad, but company B making profit is good. All companies are in business to make money. Don't like it? Don't buy the product. Does your car only run on EM gas?
In reply to Steve_Jones :
Oil prices have an outsized impact on inflation. Besides fuels, they contribute directly to energy, transportation, and even food prices. About the only parts of CPI that aren't directly impacted by oil prices are the services sector (including real estate). Oil/Gas prices directly impacted the top 4 inflation drivers in 2022, with groceries being the only other one to see double digit increases in 2022:
I don't think the issue is profit alone. I think it's the timing of record profits that are directly contributing to the highest inflation in 50 years in multiple sectors. And the record profits are benefiting wealthy shareholders at the expense of those lower on the socioeconomic ladder.
In reply to STM317 :
I don't disagree with your points about the adverse impact.
It's the root cause that we differ on...you seem, please correct me if I'm wrong, to be assigning cause to corporate greed.
As has been shown repeatably in this thread, energy companies don't set prices, market forces do.
I believe the primary reason energy companies made large profits in 2022 is attributable to an unintended consequence of COVID induced supply and demand fluctuations interacting with "policy" changes.
I was accused of being disingenuous a few posts ago...I'm not able to defend myself as identifying who is actually being disingenuous would violate our "no polities" rule.
I care much more about promoting a healthy community and showing our landlords respect than winning a debate.
Bottom line...energy is expensive not because of corporate greed but because of reasons I won't discuss.
RX Reven' said:In reply to STM317 :
I don't disagree with your points about the adverse impact.
It's the root cause that we differ on...you seem, please correct me if I'm wrong, to be assigning cause to corporate greed.
As has been shown repeatably in this thread, energy companies don't set prices, market forces do.
Why couldn't the energy companies sell oil at below market rates, thus reducing their profits but also reducing inflation and vastly reducing Russia's income?
GameboyRMH said:RX Reven' said:In reply to STM317 :
I don't disagree with your points about the adverse impact.
It's the root cause that we differ on...you seem, please correct me if I'm wrong, to be assigning cause to corporate greed.
As has been shown repeatably in this thread, energy companies don't set prices, market forces do.
Why couldn't the energy companies sell oil at below market rates, thus reducing their profits but also reducing inflation and vastly reducing Russia's income?
Because a commodities trader (middleman) would immediately buy it and resell for market price, shifting the profit from oil companies to wall street. Which, if we're going to start crackdowns and regulation, i would LOVE to start there.
I admire your altruistic aims, but i don't think what you're proposing would work.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
As pointed out, their net profit is 31 cents a gallon. If they cut it 80% it's a 25 cent per gallon cut. The average American uses 55 gallons a month, for a $13 a month savings. $13 isn't breaking anyones budget. They make a small amount off of a lot of people, so any cut, while looking like a huge number, is irrelevant to the end user.
Steve_Jones said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
As pointed out, their net profit is 31 cents a gallon. If they cut it 80% it's a 25 cent per gallon cut. The average American uses 55 gallons a month, for a $13 a month savings. $13 isn't breaking anyones budget. They make a small amount off of a lot of people, so any cut, while looking like a huge number, is irrelevant to the end user.
That $13 a month doesn't include the inflation effects, or the increase to Russia's budget, or the budget hit to all of Earth's non-Americans. In other parts of the world where gas costs a lot more and incomes are a lot less, that $13 a month will be much more painful.
RX Reven' said:As has been shown repeatably in this thread, energy companies don't set prices, market forces do.
"Market forces" determine the price that any product or service ultimately sells for, and every company is trying to balance a bunch of factors (not just price) to hit their target profitability. No, oil companies don't set the sell price. So they lose out on one variable that traditional companies have. However, they make up for it with a virtually guaranteed (except during a once/century global pandemic) minimum sales volume large enough to support the industry almost regardless of price, which traditional companies don't have the luxury of. So I'd call that a wash. Cost is a difficult one for anybody to to make drastic changes to on short notice. But the other variable they have at their disposal is that (except during a once/century global pandemic) there is also virtually no possibility of true over-production. But as we all know, they don't just crank out as much of any given product as they can. They make capacity planning and timing choices for their production, based not only on what they can do, but on what they predict the rest of the industry will do as well... Because understanding the complex set of interactions and playing it to their best advantage is how they ultimately control what their profitabilitywill be. The real question in my mind is whether it's more that their bets were 'that wrong' (unintentional) or their bets were 'that right' (intentional) on profit margin?... Which isn't something anybody here actually has the answer to.
Just for the record, I was calling the arguments disingenuous, not the people. I know you're capable of better arguments than that. They were just the latest in a long list of disingenuous arguments coming from BOTH sides in this thread, and others like it. The most prevalent pair here being one you are effectively also (accurately) calling out as disingenuous that "oil companies can directly set the price it sells for"... But also there's its equal and opposite that "Oil companies are helpless to the prices the market forces set". As usual, the truth lies well in between. It requires a nuance that neither side is generally prepared to take off their black-and-white blinders, open their mind, and acknowledge. It's all because doing so would undermine their preconceived notions of what they want to think 'other' side believes, so they can make wildly inaccurate accusations about the extremism of those purported beliefs.
And no, I'm certainly not immune from this effect either. It's simply a fault of human nature that we can't become better about if we aren't at least willing to face it. Picking a side and being blindly unwavering and unwilling to open your mind to both understanding the other sides perspective, as well as the possibility of being brought towards the middle along the way, is one of the biggest problems we face today.
RX Reven' said:In reply to STM317 :
I don't disagree with your points about the adverse impact.
It's the root cause that we differ on...you seem, please correct me if I'm wrong, to be assigning cause to corporate greed.
I don't know that I'd call it corporate greed. I was just trying to point out what I think contributes to making anger for "Big Oil" profits more prevalent than anger for "Big Pharma" or "Big Government" or "Big Hotel" which have been thrown out as comparisons in recent posts.
"Big Pharma" has it's problems, but has a much smaller impact on inflation, the rising prices of all goods, and global warming.
"Big Government" certainly has it's issues too, but at least taxes lead to things that generally benefit society rather than share buybacks that only benefit the wealthiest segment of society thanks to the remainder of society being bent over the barrel (literally).
"Big Hotel" is discretionary spending that has limited impact on inflation (even though it's a very hot job sector with increasing wages). And their entire business model doesn't require consuming a bunch of natural resources just to harm the environment even more when their end product is used.
None of them are good comparisons for "Big Oil". None of them have the bad optics of record profits during record inflation that they directly impact and an ongoing war that's being funded primarily by Oil and Gas. I don't know that I'm personally outraged by it or even suggesting a change necessarily. But I understand why people are bothered by it given the circumstances and impact of those record profits, who is benefiting from them, and who's being negatively impacted by them.
GameboyRMH said:Steve_Jones said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
As pointed out, their net profit is 31 cents a gallon. If they cut it 80% it's a 25 cent per gallon cut. The average American uses 55 gallons a month, for a $13 a month savings. $13 isn't breaking anyones budget. They make a small amount off of a lot of people, so any cut, while looking like a huge number, is irrelevant to the end user.
That $13 a month doesn't include the inflation effects, or the increase to Russia's budget, or the budget hit to all of Earth's non-Americans. In other parts of the world where gas costs a lot more and incomes are a lot less, that $13 a month will be much more painful.
The price is irrelevant because we are talking about the cutting the profit per gallon. If it's 31 cents on a $4 gallon, and 31 cents on an $8 gallon, they can still only shave the 25 cents.
It also won't be $13 a month because they don't use as much. The USA is by far the biggest amount per person, so that $13 is the most it will be.
The clear leader in terms of gasoline consumption is the U.S. with over 4 liters of gasoline per person per day. Have in mind that this number includes the entire population: every man, woman and child, old and young. So, with 314 million people living in the U.S. the total amount of gasoline consumed is well over 1 billion liters per day. Canada comes in second with 3.62 liters per person per day. The top rankings are rounded off mostly by oil producing countries.
At the other extreme are less developed countries with Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Laos at the bottom of the chart where the average person consumes only 0.01 liters of motor gasoline per day. Most European countries are somewhere in the middle of the global rankings with about 0.5 to 1 liter of gasoline consumption per day.
So the cut is 6.5 cents a liter. That means the average European will save $1.95 a month, and the poorer countries will save 1.7 cents a month.
Yes, it is entirely understandable to be mad at big oil profits during an inflationary period and high oil prices, but it's an emotional argument, not a rational one. The aspect of it's part in inflation is irrelevant in this argument since, as has been noted, they (US companies) have almost no control of the global prices. It sucks, but you really can't blame them.
As noted, there is clearly manipulations (and war profiteering if you want to call it that) in the oil market, but it's not coming from the US. As a result of the Ukraine war and the Russian oil being off most of the market (lower supply = higher cost), OPEC decided NOT to increase production significantly to counter at that. Which keeps supply low and prices high, so they can maximize profits. Likely rationalized by the huge losses they took during the COVID oil price crash. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at them, they have the most control.
I think the real question here is:
How would a US oil company NOT make record profits from a spike in global oil prices?
(selling it at a lower price, again, is not an option, that is not how the market works)
Driven5 said:As usual, the truth lies well in between. It requires a nuance that neither side is generally prepared to take off their black-and-white blinders, open their mind, and acknowledge.
Very well said my friend!
I think a lot of people misunderstand the power and influence of "big oil" on the market. Someone else earlier pointed out that the publicly traded companies that make up Big Oil are not so big on the world stage compared to the vast state run oil companies. This chart puts that into a bit of perspective...
This is a good article that goes over the ups and downs of the last couple years to put this volatile time in the market into perspective. Full disclosure, it is by the American Petroleum Institute, so I would expect some bias/omission. However I could find nothing to refute the data, and I found the breakdown on where the profit goes informative. I'd prefer a more neutral source, but all of the "news" seems to omit much of what is presented here...
Note their 2022 Q4 numbers are projections, and profits exceeded projections as shared earlier.
aircooled said:I think the real question here is:
How would a US oil company NOT make record profits from a spike in global oil prices?
Pre-pandemic US oil production was in the process of skyrocketing. I understand that it's not as simple as throwing a switch, but they made choices that quickly and dramatically cut production when oil prices plummeted. The choices they made then and since have made choices that have not even returned production back up to the pre-pandemic peak, let alone where production would have been today had the pre-pandemic growth continued. It's not like oil prices rebounding was a completely unforeseeable inevitability. Had they chosen to more aggressively return to max production, and/or made choices that allowed them to more aggressively return to max production, it would have at least shown them doing what is within their control to help mitigate inflation and it's economic impacts at the expense of cutting into their (record) profit margins.
Again, we can't know just how intentional vs unintentional the outcome of these choices were, but it's certainly not a great look.
Oil companies make more than gasoline. Don't know why we always go there. But just about everything you are touching right now has some petroleum products in it.
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