Forum Post: Exxon and Chevron posted record 41% profits last quarter,
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 31, 2011, 1:15 p.m. EST by ivotetoo
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are you using their products? And, should you be able to invest, is your money in their stock??? Boycott corporations as much as possible!! Don´t shop at WalMart, think about what you drive, good investments can make bad corporations: drug companies, oil companies, Halliburton, McDonalds....... Do not spend money at those places, or invest in them!!!!!! They are rolling in profits!!!! Did any of that come from you???????
This post is an example of what I'm struggling with. I'm not a 1%er; however, my family has a substaintial amount of assets, including stock in all the mentioned corporations. I don't understand why/how profits are bad. Remembering back to Econ101, $1.00 payroll dollar turns 7x in the economy. The income afforded my family from stock price appreciation & dividends has allow us to accumulate many possesions and lead a very comfortable life. It also allows us to contribute to many charitable organizations, both financially and with the most important asset, our time. I don't/won't apologize for the financial success my family has achieved; it's a result of hard work & due diligence. We pay our bills, we educate our children, we contribute to society; and, until recently, feel we should pay our fair share of taxes. We will not; however, continue to support a society that is encouraging entitlement, foregiviness of personal debt, and lack of personal responsibility. I agree, there are inequities; however, no where on these posts am I seeing a call for personal resaponsibility.
OK pit master
I have stock in BP, anyone can buy stock from most of the oil companies. Sharing in the profits is the only way I can tolerate their evasion of taxes. I have to agree with OWS on that issue, its a fucked up deal.
The US Governemnt shut down the gulf of mexico, created a shortage and these guys made a lot of money. Shutting down BP and others, just helped Exxon and Chevron.
I worked at McDonalds until they insisted I cut my hair
I had another job at the time
Let them have their time because soon we won't have any oil left.
In response to the oil company's obscene profits this year:
Republicans Chose To Keep Big Oil Subsidies, Costing Americans Billions Of Dollars posted March 2, 2011
House Republicans voted yesterday to protect corporate welfare for big oil companies while cutting to the bone programs average Americans depend on. While the U.S. House of Representatives was working on a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown, House Democrats offered a motion that would have taken away tax subsidies from the five largest oil companies, saving tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. The motion was defeated with every Republican voting against it.
Two weeks ago a similar vote that would have saved $53 billion in taxpayer funds, taking it away from the biggest oil companies, was also defeated basically along party lines. The former CEO of Shell Oil, John Hoffmeister, recently said, "Big Oil doesn't need subsidies in the face of sustained high oil prices." The largest oil companies, between 2005 and 2009, have made a combined 485 billion dollars in profits. That's almost half a Trillion dollars.
House Republicans said yes to the subsidies, including 3rd District Congressman Chuck Fleischmann. The Democrats tried to keep your money from going to subsidize big companies making huge profits.
Who wants to reduce the deficit? Who wants to save taxpayer dollars? Think about that the next time you fill up your car. You're paying a lot more than just the price at the pump, and you have House Republicans to thank. Personally, I think the two parties keep the oil company subsides going.
Profits are bad because lots of people have told me profits are bad!
Corporations are bad because lots of people have told me corporations are bad!
Hey OP, who is your ISP, who made the chipset, RAM, CPU that you're using to post - who made your router?
The question is how the profits are amassed and how the corporations operate but your ilk insist on simplifying and generalizing and trying to undermine an effort that truly scares you.
The response was simple because the originating post was simple. Multiple punctuation. bare assertions, no capitalization are not signals of a well thought out post. My reply was making fun of the simplification and generalization of the original post and I would think this would be very obvious to most readers.
Have u seen there addvertiments how they care about the envierments.,what joke they pay mlions of $$$ to TV stations which really they own
Im all for that, but did you know that Chevron, 7/11, and IIRC Costco all gets its gas from the same place refineries? Same with Shell, and 76 I think? (I might be totally wrong on the groupings, I just know that for the probably dozen "Gasoline companys, theres only like what, 4? different Refinery companies in the US), and that regardless, over half our oil is all imported from saudi Arabia?
Vis a vis, many people could not live without the cheap prices offered at places like Walmart etc etc.
I sympathize with your sentiments, and I also recommend cutting back if you can (Its probably healthier for you anyway, particularly places like McDonalds <.< ), but were already stuck in a bad situation here.... Can't expect people that have been laid off, or are on a fixed income, to pay what they dont have, just so they can get away from corruption. These corps are going to hang on until the very end anyway, so we might as well let them while there are still so many dependent on them anyway.... Im all for weeding them out, or letting them die, but not until were ready for it.
aren't these companies supposed to make profits?
Well, if you're really concerned about profits then you might want to take a look at Apple. Their profit margins absoultely stomp any of the rest that you list. Also Google and the game producers who both make a ton of money and avoid most taxes through complicated off-shore structures and loopholes.
The oil companies are raking in billions in handouts. That I would call government entitlements.
They're not taking "handouts" they're using tax provisions that are the same as those used by many other companies. No difference. And companies like those that I mentioned are some of the worst. They make the breaks that oil companies get look like nothing. lol
I just found this on the web:
$100 Billion. That’s what the big 5 oil companies have made in profits since January 1. $102.85 billion to be more precise, according to my own calculations (see table below).
That means that they’re on course to top $140 billion for 2011. More if oil prices keep rising. And that’s in a year when unemployment has soared and unrest has spread to all corners of the world driven by economic and social inequity.
Yet as these mega profits are extracted from us in the course of our daily lives, the U.S. government continues to grant subsidies, tax relief and royalty relief to the U.S. oil industry.
The industry tells us that if we take their subsidies away then they won’t be able to afford to drill as much as they do and oil prices will go up even more. I don’t know about you but I’m feeling just a little bamboozled by that one. If there’s any sector out there right now more able to pay a little more in tax I’d like to know about it.
But are we going to see oil and gas subsidies cut in the trillion dollar budget cutting plan being hammered out by the super committee? Given how much campaign money the committee gets from the sector it’s not looking good.
Indeed as Matt Price so eloquently describes in today’s Tyee, the industry continues to defend its subsidized existence without irony in a manner reminiscent of a certain genre of B movie. Yes, the zombie cry of “Oiiiiiil” can be heard from Alberta to Texas and Ottawa to Washington as the North American oil industry digs in against the nascent clean tech era.
As Matt describes, “the ideology of oil is that because oil exists, it must be got, and it must be burned. Any critics must be deranged, damaged, discounted, discredited, and dismissed. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of “Oiiiiiil…”
Over at Transition Voice, where the vision of a world free of oil zombie domination is daily discussed, Erik Curren writes that Big Oil has so far gotten off lightly in the Occupy movements spreading round the globe. Perhaps surprising in the face of such lavish profits. Not that the Occupy protesters have ignored them completely but that the focus on banks has dominated for obvious reasons. Erik argues that Big Oil’s role in the corporate fleecing of the 99% is easily as pernicious as Wall Street’s.
Erik lays out 5 key ways to Occupy Big Oil. Perhaps with the implementation of these 5 principles the world may one day be safe from the zombies that threaten to change the face of the planet.
Get oil money out of politics Cut direct subsidies to oil companies Cut indirect subsidies for oil through ARSE (auto/road/sprawl) Complex. Remove barriers to renewable energy Conserve and localize. It’s still not too late to vanquish the zombie curse. Trick or treat anyone?
Big 5 Oil Companies 2011 Profits in $Billions
Q1 Q2 Q3 Total BP 5.48 5.30 5.14 15.93 ConocoPhillips 3.02 3.40 2.63 9.06 Chevron 6.22 7.73 7.82 21.78 ExxonMobil 10.65 10.68 10.33 31.66 Shell 8.78 8.66 6.97 24.41 Big 5 34.16 35.78 32.90 102.85 Source: Quarterly results announcements from company websites.
Now go look at what Apple made in the last quarter (which was a "disappointment" btw) and also compare their profit margins versus those for oil companies.
Hint: They beat 3 of the 5 above, have profit margins that dwarf all of them, hold more cash, employ a fraction of the number of people, and pay less taxes.
Profits are one thing.
I'm not against a business making money. I'm, along with the 99%, against subsides to the rich corporations. I can't figure why Big Oil would get subsides??? Maybe I should ask my congress person!!!
Despite the rhetoric, the actual "subsidies" that are specific to oil companies are relatively few and small. Actually, they are not direct subsidies, they really are tax breaks and just referred to as subsidies by opponents since they represent "subsidies" in a general sense but are done through the tax code.
Most of the above relate to enhanced production and were intended to promote greater domestic production of oil from economically marginal sources (which at a practical level we need at this point like it or not). End those and you end some percentage of that production and we make up the difference by buying and transfering economic wealth to non-domestic sources. Or you can cut use by the same amount which really is more the true goal of most of those making the "subsidies" case (or at least was originally before it became all twisted around now).
The remainder all are "subsidies" in the same sense made through the tax code that are available to ALL businesses. Accelerated depreciation, R&D credits, etc. You could kill those for all businesses but you'll pay the price in various ways including lower economic activity and less competitiveness. You could target the oil companies to "punish" them for whatever reason, but again you'll pay the price in lower domestic production and, without cutting demand, what you bleed out in transfer of payments to outside sources reduces the relative wealth of the country versus those sources (i.e., we make Dubai and China even more rich relative to us and increase the costs of units of true value to us in competitive markets for such commodities/goods).