Petrol price action

[Tarbicus]

Matt who are we to say that a company is earning too much? Corporations are in the business to make money for the shareholders, and not to pander their investments to Joe Schmoe.

Stockpilling profits could be seen as a savings account, just like the one you and I have.

But there lies the problem. All speculative exploration has already been paid for - there's no debt. The "villified speculators" have already financed that with their up front payments. Most of the big oil corps are debt free to the point where they're buying back shares from "outsiders" (how anti-capitalist can you get?) and have billions and billions of dollars sitting in a bank. How many "free market" corporations do you know of who are in a position to do that?

Now here's the real rub for me - as a northern Einglander, I personally think those types of corporations can quite simply f**k off and die. If you admire Rockefeller then "whatever"; but these f*****s laugh at Rockefeller. When they push the prices up of every single thing I need to quite simply live day to day (some south eastern hauliers are going to France to fill the tanks), and those of my family and friends, and also the rest of my compatriots (I'm not an island), they make themselves the enemy to me.

Perhaps the UK government overtaxed the oil, but the tax has always been a percentage of the price. If the price of the commodity is high then the tax is high, and if the profits are viewed to be utterly unreasonable then there will be more tax.

The irony is that petro-chemical components are the real profit maker, and this entire thread has focused on petrol/gas for obvious reasons (see the very first post in the thread - it's dead simple; do it or don't, but it ain't spam). Petrol is, quite simply, a pain in the arse for the likes of BP and Shell (that's near quotable and can even be found online). The whole bitching about tax is a complete red herring - they get their real big profits from other sources.

I WILL still say the thread is not about politics - it's about commerce. Any uncomfortability about the subject is ignoring the fact that many potentially political subjects have not been raised that would make it thus far political. If anyone makes it thus it will only be to get the thread shut down IMHO.

At then end of the day it goes like this, to my mind based on the simple hard statistics; when OPEC push up the price of crude oil the price at the pumps worldwide goes up. Or, when they withhold oil from the market, the price goes up, because at the end of the day it's a commodity, and if there's a scarcity of a commodity when it's an essential then it becomes highly valuable (more so than gold). When speculators see this and only need to put 6% up front (but they need to pay it off at the end of the day) I can only blame the shareholders and OPEC and governments for allowing that to happen. If a government tried to step in and stop it then, guess what - they're accused of inhibiting a free market and bully to the consumer - hard kack on them.

There's no peak oil problem - oil will be around long after we're gone. The 'peak' is down to speculators and therefore shareholders (you buy shares you're a shareholder) ceating a false economy because OPEC are witholding stock and not making the most of the fields they could tap into - deliberately, because... it pushes their share prices up.

No matter what, when OPEC and their shareholders push up the price of crude, the price at the pumps goes up. It's nothing to do with taxation, because taxes are always present regardless of what you're selling. The tax rate is transparent and can be accounted for. The reason for 'supposedly' greedy tax is because those rates are based on projections that even OPEC speculated on the price of oil being in 'x' years of time. But if the price goes up then of course the tax will be higher. Hence, the recent widfall tax in the UK, and possible one soon in the USA. Don't try and tell me that Gordon Browne, George Bush, and even Obama are clueless as to how the system works.

What I find really offensive is the idea that oil companies are providing a public service and should be respected for that, as if they're trying to save the consumer and altruistically benefit mankind. I will categorically and unashamedly say they are in it for monetary profit, de facto. There is no commercial corporation on this earth that has any other objective, because, quite frankly, it's actually almost illegal for any executive of a commercial corporation to not have the company's and shareholders profits at heart. Any other suggestion is pure and utter bol****s.

The smart players are the oil companies in world commerce.