Tom Price SOLD OUT!
Do you think our energy policy supported by lawmakers like Congressman Tom Price is nothing more than a pork payoff to multi-national oil companies! The sad part is Congressman Price voted (Energy Bill) to give away a 100 billion dollars in tax payer money while gas prices soar!
100 billion of Pork in Energy bill
Why don’t you just announce your candidacy John? Never know, you might actually get to 20% this time!
Bart
Why not defend Congressman Tom Price’s sell-out vote for the ENERGY BILL?
I think that’s just pathetic. I’m sick and tired of listening to stupid republicans, (BTW I am republican, I’m just not stupid) defending the oil companies that rip us off. It’s not being pro business when you mindlessly support price manipulation by big oil. Oh and you think it’s just a coincidence that all the refineries are falling apart while Exxon etc. post record profits. Wake up people. They have been ripping of America since Standard Oil. It didn’t stop when they busted them up. That was just the government pretending to do something, just like this immigration bill today. Yea…..we want action, but not the compromise of our nations integrity to satisfy the needs of BIG BUSINESS for cheap legal labor who don’t want a fence. That is not an American right or principle.
Okay that’s my rant of the day!!!
ejwoodall
GREAT POST!
So ej, do you support govt. price controls on oil companies? And if so, will you also be just as adamant against milk suppliers since the price is increasing dramtically…MILK COMPANIES RIP US OFF!!! Time to regulate Mayfield, Borden, etc.
Bart
I did not see your defense for Congressman Tom Price’s pork filled lobbyist driven vote for the Energy bill?
I guess you must agree Congressman Price sold all of us out for campaign donations!
We had that debate many times John…this is old news.
I am curious as to how far you big govt. supporters are willing to go to regulate business. The cost of Budweiser is $7 per case higher in Atlanta than in Supply, NC. Do you think new regulations should be imposed to ensure I can buy my Budweiser here just as cheap as I can when on vacation in Supply, NC?
Bart
I am glad to hear you agree CONGRESSMAN TOM PRICE SOLD US OUT WITH HIS VOTE FOR THE PORK FILLED LOBBYIST DRIVEN ENERGY BILL!
The government has to have big profits for big tax revenues from big profits. The tax cuts had to be made up they gave for workers somewhere and they did. They increased profits and sales of stocks with a up and down market that creates more selling and buying on rumors of interest rate changes.
We didn’t get tax cuts, we just got higher prices on food and energy with the type of policies we have had.
And no, I don’t want price controls. That will just make things worse. That will be just another dumb attempt to fix a symptom instead of the problem, socialism, corporate welfare and socialism, quasi monopolies because on the biggest in some sectors can survive all the new regulations and lines in the tax codes, government intervention in healthcare, runaway entitlement costs for social security and Medicare, etc.
Only hitting bottom and turning around and going up again is going to solve this because the voters aren’t going to support the needed reforms until we do hit bottom.
Anybody know the profit margin of oil companies? My research shows about 10% which is probably below average for multinational companies.
Commodities (under free market conditions) generally produce low profit margins. Hence the desire to receive special breaks, consolidate, monopolize, collude, limit supply, and eliminate the little guy. (competition)
Think of the upfront costs now for drilling in the Gulf. The rigs they use lease for $500,000 a day and then you have the salaries, insurance, pipes, power, helicopters, boats, drill bits, computer systems, etc. to get started.
How can a small company even think about competing?
For a refinery, 10 years of expense to just get a permit to build, then more years to startup with huge construction costs. The more regulation and restriction, the more only a big company with huge cash resources or ability to have a heavy load of debt can even consider competing and making a profit.
You could get a lot of competition with a reform of our energy polices. Without that competition, we are at the mercy of state owned oil companies that dominate the top largest oil companies. In the top 11, 2 are U.S. privately owned, 2 or privately foreign owned and 7 are State owned and they have the top 4 positions. The top one is Saudi Arabia that produces 3 times as much as the first private owned company.
No matter how much U.S. oil companies produce or allowed to produce in other countries by those governments, the state owned companies can cut or raise production to keep prices in this range we are now in.
It will take a major discovery and free marketing of that oil to make a difference. There is 1.2 trillion barrels in the “heavy oil” belt in Venezuela but there again, you have a state owned oil field and a madman that hates the U.S.
Here is a site with a lot of stats too. Also, quite a ways down is Sept. 2005 cost breakdown of a gallon of gas compared to March 1981.
http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html
Anybody here ever pay a high price for gas, anyone at all?
$4/gallon doesn’t count . . .
Yes and no.
The gasoline isn’t the problem as much as consumers who are spending too much on other things that don’t leave them any flexibility for gas price increases.
If you are maxing out credit cards and home equity loans when gas prices are low, what happens when they go up?
The price of gasoline is so much higher around the world that most people don’t know about, they are only using last year’s price here to go by.
However, Brazil is announcing a breakthrough that according to them, will let them produce ethanol from the “fiber” instead the “crop” that is higher in the sugar now needed for effective ethanol production for about 50 cents a gallon.
Quote:
This is why the Brazilian scientists’ announcement is so important. They claim the process they have perfected reduces cellulosic ethanol production costs down to the realm of 10 cents to 15 cents per liter (35 cents to 50 cents per gallon). Furthermore, though the biochemical processes for ethanol production vary based on feedstock, they are not fundamentally different. Sugarcane is the easiest crop to turn into ethanol, but corn is only slightly more difficult, so a sugar ethanol breakthrough would be only a few steps ahead of other breakthroughs — such as making cellulosic ethanol from nonfood crops like switchgrass — that would democratize the technology globally.
Cheap ethanol — meaning cheap enough to compete favorably with gasoline in a side-by-side comparison — is one of those world-changing technologies that comes only once in a generation.
http://www.investorsinsight.com/otb.aspx
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Should be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming years.
Jan
I owned some shares in Devon Energy, which bought bought out PennzEnergy. PennzEnergy was involved in offshore drilling in the Gulf. For simplicity’s sake I suppose Devon would be considered small (relatively speaking) And large enough to be involved in offshore drilling.
Yup, they are small
$10 billion for last 12 months on revenue compared to $336 billion for Exxon.
But, you are correct they are large enough to afford $500,000 a day rigs given current prices for the return on that investment. Total debt is only about $7 billion or less than one years revenues. Not bad.