Re: Diesel prices

On Mar 8, 11:35 pm, JD <jdblackwe...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
trad...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

So, the Saudis split their oil revenue 50-50 with Exxon?   According
to whom?   Reference please.

Check out the history of ARAMCO. It's a 50/50 split


Maybe you should check it out. Two minutes on Google would have kept
you from making an ass of yourself. Below is the reference. Pay
attention to the last line, which states that what was ARAMCO has been
100% owned by the Saudi government since 1980.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Aramco
Saudi Aramco's history dates back to May 29, 1933, when the Government
of Saudi Arabia signed a concessionary agreement with Standard Oil of
California (Socal) allowing them to explore Saudi Arabia for oil.
Standard Oil of California passed this concession to a wholly-owned
subsidiary called California-Arabian Standard Oil Co. (Casoc). In 1936
with the company having no success at locating oil, the Texas Oil
Company purchased a 50% stake of the concession.
The company name was changed in 1944 from California-Arabian Standard
Oil Company to Arabian American Oil Company (or Aramco). In 1948
Standard Oil of California and the Texas Oil Company were joined as
investors by Standard Oil of New Jersey who purchased 30% of the
company, and Socony Vacuum who purchased 10% of the company, leaving
Standard Oil of California and the Texas Oil Company with equal 30%
shares.

In 1973 the Saudi Arabian government acquired a 25% share of Aramco,
increased this to 60% by 1974 and finally acquired full control of
Aramco by 1980. In November 1988 the company changed its name from
Arabian American Oil Company to Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi
Aramco).









"In many ways the recent rise in gasoline prices reflects the fuel
playing a bit of catch-up to oil, which has been above $85 for more
than four months, said Ken Medlock a research fellow at Rice
University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.  Based on the historic
price relationship between crude oil and gasoline, Medlock said,
retail gasoline should be priced closer to $3.63 per gallon if oil
remains at $100."

That's about where prices are right now.   Clearly not that far out of
line.   And oil is a worldwide commodity, with production relatively
fixed and worldwide demand from countries like China and India
growing.

The denials didn't hit the news
for about a week, however, and in the meantime, the futures market bid
oil up over $100 per barrel based upon the "uncertainty of supply"
because of the comments of Chavez that he actually had not made.

Welcome to how free markets work.  Of course they react to news.
They reacted when OPEC, which BTW Venezuela is a member of, stated
they would not increase production.  They reacted when it looked like
Venezuela might get into military conflict with Columbia.   They react
when a refinery catches fire or a hurricane heads for the Gulf of
Mexico.

Yes they react with astounding efficiency at the chance to raise prices but
seldom are so assiduous about passing on savings to consumers.



Yep, welcome to the real world. Prices in most markets don't come
down quite as fast as they can go up. But, over many decades, oil
and derivative prices have responded nicely to supply and demand in
both directions. The only thing is guys like you don't seem to pay
attention when crude goes back down to $12 to $20 dollars a barrel
like it did for most of the 80's and 90's. The essential differences
then were OPEC, which controls a significant share of the worlds
output, couldn't get it's act together and some members were always
cheating. And worldwide demand was lower.






Then when the Chavez speech where he denied the comments finally broke
through the iron curtain and got in our media, the media started a
story that OPEC was probably going to cut its output at its upcoming
meeting in May, which conveniently coincided with the futures market
decisions, and, again a story that was a pure speculative fabrication,
sending oil to its current record levels.

The story of possibly reducing the target below that of Q4 was
reported by multiple news organizations and was based on OPEC
SOURCES.   What do you expect reporters to do?    BTW, if OPEC wanted
to deny the story or increase the quotas, they are free to do so.
What is this a worldwide conspiracy?   Let's see, it's Exxon, Saudi
Arabia, the media which can range from NY Times to Fox news, wall
street, .... who else is in on this big conspiracy?

Now the money to pay for roads and schools and health care (which, by
the way, is the most expensive in the world in the U.S.), has to come
from somewhere.  There is no free lunch, as the capitalists like to
say, so when a citizen in Germany or England pays taxes at the pump,
it replaces taxes or other expenditures that have to come from
somewhere.  In other words, we pay for our low gasoline prices in
bumpy roads and collapsing bridges and lack of health care, etc.

Spoken like a true liberal that see higher taxes as the solution to
all of life's problems.

When we spend money on things using borrowed money at the Federal
level that money also has to come from somewhere.  It comes from the
same people who are not paying their fair share in taxes.

Here in NJ federal and state income taxes top out currently at 44%.
Social security taxes take another 13%, split between the employer and
employee.   We have a 7% sales tax.  I pay 10,000 a year in property
taxes on a 3200 sq ft house.    So, tell us, how much more money do
you want to take to fix problems.   Want to go back to 70% federal
rate, like we had in the 70's and the economy that went with it?

 That> increases the National Debt, which means that more and more of
the tax
money taken out of the wages of working people goes straight into the
bank accounts of the same rich people who have had their taxes cut.

Taxes were cut at all levels.   It's a blatant lie that they only went
to the rich.   The top 1% of incomes pay 39% of all the federal income
tax.   The top 5% pay 60%.   Guess how much the bottom 50% paid?   A
whopping 3%.

Now there's something to be proud of. Look at the numbers a different way;
the top 10% control 72% of the wealth leaving 28% for the majority 90%. Now
even if you're at the top of that bottom 50% you mentioned that pays only a
piddling 3% of the revenue, your income for a family of four is $40,000.
Not much left to pay taxes on, is there? And that's at the TOP of that
bottom 50%. The way I see it the rich aren't paying proportionately to
their wealth




Yes it is something to be proud of, because it shows that contrary to
misinformed populist beliefs, the top 5% of income earners are paying
60% of the income tax burden and the tax system is already
progressive.

Let's take a look at that family of 4 making $40,000. Using the
standard deduction, they would be paying $2700 in income tax. That
works out to 6.8% of their income. On the other end of the scale,
incomes above $330K are paying the top rate of 35%. That sure sounds
like a progressive tax system to me. But you're not satisfied, you
want it all.

Here's two thoughts to ponder. Do you think just maybe most of the
people earning higher incomes are there because they made the right
choices in life and worked hard? That they paid attention and
stayed in school, spent years working on successful careers or started
businesses that keep the economy expanding and create jobs?

And the second thought is this. Guys like you like to rail on about
the family of 4 making $40K, as if it were the same family, forever
fixed in time. In reality, in a free economy, people are not
static. Many that are that family making $40K in 2008, will be
making $75K five years later. Now, I expect the rejoinder to that
will be that the economy is SO bad today, that unlike any other time
in history, it's impossible to get ahead making the right choices and
with hard work. Which of course is nonsense.









BTW, in 1980, when the top fed rate was 70%, guess how much of all
income tax the top 1% paid?   Answer: 19%  That's right.  With today's
rate that is close to half of what it was in 1980, the highest income
folks pay twice what they did back then.

The class warfare argument that you're making goes like this.   Guy A
pays 30,000 in income tax.   Guy B pays 3,000.   So, we give everyone
a 10% tax cut.   Now, A pays 27,000 and B pays 2,700.   Guys like you
try to maintain it's unfair, because the cuts are only percentage wise
equal, and both guys didn't get a $2700 cut.

Try that argument next time your in a store when they have a 10% off
sale.   But a $10 item and tell them you want the same discount that
the guy who pays $100 for something gets.   Tell them you should get
your item for free.

Your argument only works in a flat tax situation


No, it works in any situation where you want to cut taxes. You can
either do it by giving a straight percentage cut off the existing
taxes that are paid. The guy that pays $30,000 gets a cut of
$3,000. The guy that pays $3,000 gets a cut of $300. That gives
everyone an equal cut based on the taxes they already pay. If you
were cutting a sales tax what would you do? What guys like you
want to do is use every opportunity to wage class warfare and try to
make the tax system MORE progressive, by fooling around with how the
cuts are distributed.

And that's because of very different views. The class warfare experts
view all the tax money paid in as the govts and that people should be
lucky to get any of it back. Guys like me view it as the people's
money and if it's gonna be returned, it should be in the same
proportion it was paid in.











they have to get the money somewhere, and the only place
is from people who have money, the rich, so then the rich get back
interest payments on the money they should have been paying in taxes
in the first place, raising the taxes on you and me and just about
everybody else.  (Most people are not rich and have no chance of
becoming so.)

As if the "rich" are the only ones investing in US govt securities.
US debt is widely held by people across the board, around the world.
Bond funds that little investors are in own them.   Individuals own
them through savings bonds.   Institutions around the world own them
as do foreign central banks.

Do a little research. I think you'll find that that top 10% is far more
heavily invested on a per capita basis. Never mind the idiocy of selling so
much debt to the Chinese that they could sink our enonomy with a mass sell
off.



Sure the top 10% is more heavily invested in US govt obligations. So
what? They are also more heavily invested in stocks, real estate and
other assets. What would make you happy, pass a law preventing higher
income people from buying US govt bonds?





When we pay more at the pump it all goes to Exxon/Mobile and their
executives and stockholders so they have more money to lend the
Federal Government so we can pay them even more in interest on their
money.

You really do sound like Hugo Chavez.   Maybe even worse.  The biggest
contributor to the cost of oil is crude.   Sure Exxon is making money
on the oil they produce themselves from wells they paid to drill.
But that doesn't equate to the lions share of the money we are paying
for gas going into Exxon's pocket.

How else do you explain the absolutely obscene level of profits they
reported this year? With an administration so heavily vested in the oil
industry don't you think it's a little strange that we can build a Ford
Ranger turbodiesel pickup that gets 30mpg in the US that you can't buy on
these shores? Who stands to gain the most by high fuel consumption? Both
the oil companies and the government would lose billions in revenue if CAFE
standards were in place.


The profits are explained in basic economics. You seem to have a
problem with percentages whether applied to taxes or economics.
Take a look at any business. Suppose you have a plumber who is
quoting a job for a new boiler. The boiler costs him $3000. He adds
on his markup and quotes it to the customer at $4000. Labor is
another $1000, for a total of $5000.

A year later, you call him up for the same boiler on another job.
Only now the price of boilers has risen so his cost is now $4000. Is
he going to only add a markup of $1000 to this boiler? Or is he
going to mark it up by the same 33% that he marked up the other
boiler, meaning the boiler cost is now $5330 and the total job
$6330.? At the end of the year, his income has increased, just like
Exxon's

How much per gallon of the $3.60 price of gasoline do you think
Exxon's profit amounts to? It's a few nickels.







Wake up people.  The common man is getting completely screwed under
this system and will continue to get reamed out as long as the current
mass ignorance of what is actually happening continues!

Yep, keep railing against a system you don;t even understand.    Try
taking an economics course or two.

How about a course in economic history. You might find that wars and
revolutions are nearly never about ideology but about money. This from my
PhD SIL who teaches economics at Georgetown.

JD- Hide quoted text -




And what does this have to do with a lack of knowledge about basic
economics and fondness for failed socialist ideas?
.

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