Oil passes $120 for first time, gas prices slip more than a cent

You could start with a written budget. Write it all down, in come outgo, look and see where it's all going. Every earned dollar has a place to go that's on the budget. Then you'll find a lot of crap that can be cut. Do you really need to eat out every weekend? Is it really necessary to have a $400 car payment on a brand new $20000 car when a paid for $3000 car will do the same job just as well? That $400 a month in a mutual fund would make you a rich man some day, hope you like the car. Cancel the credit cards, cut em up, and pay em off. Live within your means. Maybe listen to this financial guy on the radio (does a three hour show every weekday all over the US it's free - also on XM channel 165 from 2-6pm) and get inspired by others who used to live paycheck to paycheck and don't anymore or are working towards that goal. Been there, done that.. www.daveramsey.com That guy became a millionaire selling real estate before he was 25 lost it all and went broke then became a millionaire again by the time he was 40 just by applying common sense principles that anyone can do that get discussed with callers on his show over and over again. You've been doing finances your way for a while and look what it's got you. Takes a lot of sacrifice to get out of debt, it's not easy, but once you're there it's all downhill... Don't think you can't do it. The question is do you want to? Anyone can. I've heard too many single moms and other ordinary people in really desperate financial situations call into that show to thank the guy for showing them how, I'm one of them... You asked for it, probably only tongue in cheek, but here is your start anyways cause just maybe you really are sick of it...

 

Well umm... ok... well maybe we could predict that general weather for the 100 year forecast. The effect of no ice cap at the polar regions could be very very bad for the entire world. I decline to comment too much on this, or I could just give the official word that the government gives. The difference between climate and weather. As a meteorology student and forecaster for the last 10 years I have noticed that the weather is far too specific to get right for an entire area. But forecasters are getting better. Now I'm not going to say that forecasters are perfect, because I have need many "busts". You know when we forecast sunny skies and 75 degrees and you get snow. Ok, so it was a little off.

But a 100 year climate forecast is a general look at a large area in space and time. Usually when a forecast is wrong like the 75 degrees and snow forecast it is because a front moves further south than was expected. You should see the math that models do, that's why I am running from college as fast as I can! I hate math more than anything. Anyway this was all in good fun for me to reply, not griping. But you are right forecasts are hard to get right.

 

Get a better paying job!!!!!! I know prices have increased but I still have money leftover at the end of the month.

The "poor" people in this country need to stop purchasing big TV's, drop cable TV, stop smoking, stop drinking, stop eating out, and learn to live on the money you make. Our biggest problem is that people live on credit and live pay check to pay check, until that stops will always have this problem.

Mark

 

I have never doubted the investment opportunity of oil.

I have no problem with a company getting a reasonable return on their investment. Nor do I have a problem with a reasonable profit of 10% of revenue.

HOWEVER, please note the word reasonable. If you were to examine the financials in accounting mode to look at the rate of return for investors and all, you should make an adjustment for reasonable compensation. This does not include the massive bonuses and salaries that have been taken. These should be added back to the profit and then if you factor back for the profit it is no longer at 10 %.

You can have your theory on what it is from an investor standpoint. Mine is from a user standpoint and from looking at the financials with an accounting thought. We will most not likely agree. But that is life.

 

Either they are making too much, or I am making too little, or both.

I have owned & ran several small businesses not related to OTR trucking. A profit margin can be manulipated to appear as any number you want.

Lets say in one year my corporation buys widgets for $500,000.00, and sells them for $1,000,000.00. Most would say that is 100% profit, (some would say 50%, it is acording to what method you use). Now I have to count in expenses such as building, lights, heat, rent, transportation, insurance, taxes, and so forth. Lets say that accounts for 25% of the gross sales. Now we are at 65% gross profit.

Wait a minute, I forgot to pay myself. I run this one man corporation, so I deserve CEO salary, vacations, bonuses, retirement, and anything else I can think of. I deserve to live well, so my salary is set at $200,000.00 plus bounses tired directly to gross sale figures. This figures to a salary of $245,000.00.

We now have a net profit of $5,000.00 to the corporation. This appears to be a very low margin, but in reality I made a lot of money in salary when compared to the gross sales, as the net profit reported by the corporation is only 5% of the total gross sales for the year, while my salary is 24.5% of gross sales.

Numbers can say anything you want them to. I want to see a schedule C & E to see where the money really is. That is the same papers a bank wants to see when a small business person wants a loan. Profit margins don't mean anything to them unless they know how you got there.

 

Well then try these numbers, Exxon Mobil paid $30,000,000,000 (billion with a B) in taxes in 2007.

That's more tax than the bottom 50% of American taxpayers combined.

They also pay at a 41% rate.

 

What has that got to do with what I posted?

Bully for them, they pay their taxes, so do I. I am saying the 8-9% tax rate is all smoke and mirrors. If they make money, good for them, just don't give out phoney numbers with a straight face. I was an oil, gas, and diesel distributor in the 90s, and I know how these companies work.

Someone farts in the middle east, and the fax machine is spitting out new increased prices for all fuel at the farms and what is in the pipeline. Now, let the price of a barrell drop 10-20% in a few days, as it has before, I call and ask when is this going to be reflected in my wholesale cost? The answer? "Well, the lower cost product has to work its way through the refinery, pipeline, and tanks, and this takes a few weeks".

Funny, the higher price did not have to "work its way through the system", the price jumped immediately.

I always got new price sheets faxed to me every day for all the companies I bought from, and each was competitive with the other. I have gotten as many as three faxes in one day for price increases when things were shaky in the middle east, never one for a price decrease.

The problem with the oil prices is the same thing that's wrong with trucking. Too much power held by too few companies. There were at least 12-15 companies I could choose from to buy my product years ago, now they are only 3-4.

Think of how many different gas brands there were 10-15-30 years ago. Where did they all go? Mostly bought out by bigger companies, or Wal Marted to death, meaning the smaller companies were undercut on price until they had to sell or quit, then prices went up.

In '98 I could sell regular gas retail for 92.9 and make the most money I ever had on gas. I was buying fuel oil in the .30 something price range, now it is almost as high as gas is before the gas tax is added.

OPEC and big oil are not going to lose money again, they learned a lesson in '98 when a barrel oil was in the teens.

 

As you previously posted, "numbers can say anything you want them to".

The fact is that Exxon Mobil paid as much tax as the bottom 50% of taxpayers combined.

Can't say they fudged those numbers.

Sounds to me like you want oil nationalized, or don't believe in companies making a profit.

I don't hear people clamoring to nationalize or impose windfall profits on Banks, Google or Big Pharma, their profit margins are double or triple that of Big Oil.

 

I don't know where you come up with some of the assumpions you get. Did I say I wanted anything nationalized? You are trying the old debaters tatic of changing the subject and putting words in peoples mouth. I stand by what I said, and people can make out of it what they want.

The oil companies are crooks, plain and simple, but so are most mega-corporations. I don't care how much taxes they paid, as taxes were not part of the original post. Now if were were talking about taxes, then I would give my opinion. Free enterprize is a wonderful thing, just as freedom of the people is also. But, this premis only works as it should when everyone is honest. I don't want a socialized government. Why should I? We have the best government money can buy.

 

How can a business that makes 7 or 8% profit be considered crooks?

If I had a business that had $1 million in sales for a year and I made a $70000 profit, would I be a crook?