Something is wrong here...

[BreakEvenPlayer]

Today Exxon Mobil released its quarter 3 earnings and they have record profits of $10 billion. Also several other oil companies are showing major profits.

Yet at the pump we're still paying INSANE gas prices. Why aren't these companies sharing the burden in with the rising price of crude oil??? Ridiculous.

[Il_Mostro]

First of all, you are not paying anything like insane prices. You realise that a gallon of gas has about 600 man hours worth of energy, right? And you get it for 3$, that ain't bad, huh?

And secondly, that's the market. The end price has little to nothing to do with production price...

[whiskeytown]

he's not missing the fact though that while we're giving off subsidy after subside and prices are going higher and higher, some of these companies are reaping record profits and not passing it on to consumers -

If the capitalist forces that bear feel they can continue to exploit us like that, then they can do it without our tax-breaks and subsidities - Congress will just roll those right back, right?

Oh no, that's right - the Republicans and big oil work together to [censored] the middle class - finding a Republican who'll take on oil companies and big business is like finding a Hilton sister who wants to take a vow of poverty and become a nun. Good luck.

RB

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
First of all, you are not paying anything like insane prices. You realise that a gallon of gas has about 600 man hours worth of energy, right? And you get it for 3$, that ain't bad, huh?

And secondly, that's the market. The end price has little to nothing to do with production price...

[/ QUOTE ]

$3 is nothing, we are paying $9-$10 in the UK, nearly 80% goes to HMC&E, that guy who had a goal of being pissed on at college should move to Blighty and buy a car, the effects are much the same minus the hardon.

Mack

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
First of all, you are not paying anything like insane prices. You realise that a gallon of gas has about 600 man hours worth of energy, right? And you get it for 3$, that ain't bad, huh?

And secondly, that's the market. The end price has little to nothing to do with production price...

[/ QUOTE ]



$3 is nothing, we are paying $9-$10 in the UK, nearly 80% goes to HMC&E, that guy who had a goal of being pissed on at college should move to Blighty and buy a car, the effects are much the same minus the hardon.


[/ QUOTE ]

$9-$10 a gallon--why do you Brits punish yourselves so? Sorry, but taxes that high on petrol sounds really masochistic...Now I'm curious, exactly what benefits do YOU get from such high gas taxes, Mack? How can that much money possibly be returned to the drivers or citizens in form of benefits--I don't believe it can...

[mackthefork]

Hi MMMMMM

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First of all, you are not paying anything like insane prices. You realise that a gallon of gas has about 600 man hours worth of energy, right? And you get it for 3$, that ain't bad, huh?

And secondly, that's the market. The end price has little to nothing to do with production price...


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$3 is nothing, we are paying $9-$10 in the UK, nearly 80% goes to HMC&E, that guy who had a goal of being pissed on at college should move to Blighty and buy a car, the effects are much the same minus the hardon.



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$9-$10 a gallon--why do you Brits punish yourselves so? Sorry, but taxes that high on petrol sounds really masochistic...Now I'm curious, exactly what benefits do YOU get from such high gas taxes, Mack? How can that much money possibly be returned to the drivers or citizens in form of benefits--I don't believe it can...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe there are any benefits to taxes this high for citizens or drivers, this is the way it has always been, if the money wasn't raised this way they would find it from somewhere else, the alternative would undoubtedly be a lot fairer.

The government didn't sell access to North Sea fields, they taxed profits and levied duty of 12.5% I believe, the duty we paid on petrol was originally meant to make up for the fact we never raised capital from giving access to the oil fields. Generous capital expenditure reliefs are also available for North Sea gas and oil investment, all this was done in the name of making Britain a big force in the oil/gas industry.

These days the agenda has changed to the environment, the government argues that they add to duty to reduce consumption. It would be a good argument if it worked, however people are using cars more and more, the public transport system is of third world standards (with apologies to the third world), there is no real alternative to using a car if you want to hold down a job. The reality is they are just grabbing where they can, income tax is low (historically), for all the world this lot of crooks look like conservatives, until you dig a little below the surface and then you see the reality, we pay more in tax than we ever have before.


Fuel Duty/Price per litre breakdown (BBC)

Here is a BBC story from 2000

"By the time Labour came to power in 1997, the escalator was at 5% and had contributed a 11.1p rise to the cost of unleaded fuel. Tax as a proportion of total cost stood at 76.3%.

On taking office the new chancellor, Gordon Brown, increased the fuel escalator further and put 3p on a litre of petrol in his first budget.

That pushed taxes up to 81.5% of the total price of fuel.

Duty rose by a further 2p a litre in his last budget, but the chancellor, facing rising complaints from the road haulage industry, scrapped the fuel price escalator, saying that future increases should be decided on a year-by-year basis."

Things have got worse since then.

Mack

[vulturesrow]

There is something wrong here, you dont understand basic economics or the flucuations of profit in the oil industry.

[Utah]

Lets not pretend that these things are really guided by true market forces. I believe there is implicit or explicit collusion within the industry to keep prices at certain levels. The industry works to keep themselves out of pricing wars, which is counter to free markets.

This type of thing happens way more than free marketers think.

[jakethebake]

You do realize that >50% of what you pay at the pump goes to the government? If you want to pay less, convince the govt to stop taxing us to death.

[ACPlayer]

"Let them buy our stock" the CEO of Exxon was heard saying.