How Did Bush Make His Billions?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

The following is by no means a complete analysis of your post. However, I did want to comment on a few things which might help you understand why you have some very flawed thinking

[quote]Gregus wrote:
Even if you watch the History channel[/quote]

Now what do you have against the History Channel? Is it because anything and everything “mainstream” is a lie? Some mainstream media lies, some bend the truth. Some tell it like it is some of the time. Thinking ALL mainstream media lie ALL of the time is not really consistent with clear thinking is it?

“Everytime?” It was only twice. Could something have happened twice by chance? Sure, why not?

Hey, I’m not trying to pick on you. We know that there are many on the board who have attempted to (shall we say) steer you in the proper direction. However, you don’t seem receptive. Do you think that there might be some illogic taking place in your thought process?

For example, let’s look at the following statement: “Everytime I try to train outdoors it rains.” Does it mean that training outdoors makes it rain, or somehow I caused it to rain? No of course not.

Think again now about your statement:

“Every time we had a Bush in office we had astronomical increases in gas prices accross the board.”

This does not in any way mean that there is a cause and effect relationship between a Bush and gas prices going up. See my point?

How does a President of the United States control the gas prices?

The President sure is a powerful guy, no question. However, his powers are quite limited when it comes to the manipulation of any business and what it sells it’s products for. The President has no more control over what Exon sells their gas at than he does what Hersheys charges for a candy bar.

In fact, most believe (and I agree) that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board has more power over economic matters than the President.

This statement speaks volumes regarding those who are usually caught up in conspiracy theories. They feel powerless and dub themselves as insignificant. Since they feel so unimportant they project that those who are indeed rich and powerful are constantly conspiring to somehow cheat them. Now that is not to say that rich and powerful people have never consipire to cheat those who are less fortunate. That has indeed happened plenty of times. However, to assume that it’s a natural state of affairs is another matter entirely.

I hope you take this post in the spirit in which it was written.

82

http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/./1/.1123943206005.Teachboththeories3.gif

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
True, they do, and the Republicans (or whoever they are) need to shut up about teaching intelligent design in public schools.[/quote]

Amen to that. :slight_smile:

It seems we finally agree on something.

83

[quote]DA MAN wrote:
to gregus i say tube steak boogie.[/quote]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Fucking Hilarious. RLTW

rangertab75

84

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
The only thing worse than looney theories is how they all get laid at the feet of “the left” as if many people actually pay any attention to them…

You are right. This is why the Democrats have to distance themselves from the Michael Moore types as soon as possible.

The Democrats need real debate on issues, not this kind of BS.

True, they do, and the Republicans (or whoever they are) need to shut up about teaching intelligent design in public schools.

[/quote]

Agreed. The Republicans are going to fuck up their run if they don’t quit pushing stupid isses like this.

85

[quote]
chadman wrote:
Just last night on the news they were talking about 3 of the major oil companies profit for the 2nd quarter. They all had $4-$7 billion in profit!! Not gross, profit!

Now maybe Bush isn’t directly receiving payments from any of these companies, but you can’t say he’s not extremely favorable toward big oil making even bigger profits. He could do a lot to either control prices, require better fuel efficiency, etc. However that would not serve his friends in oil, just the American public he claims to give a shit about.

We don’t need more drilling, we need less price gouging!

Gregus wrote:

Bahm, nail on the head. This is exactly my point if you read between the lines. Oil tycoons like the Bush’s having oil companies take in RECORD BREAKING profits during their administration. WHY? Price gouging in it’s finest.[/quote]

Without giving any credence to your theory about “record profits”, are we even aware of what these numbers represent?

Think about if for a second. There are at least two factors at play here that would give rise to very high nominal levels of gross revenues, and if you were going to compare apples to oranges by simply looking at “the corporation” and its nominal profits.

First I’ll assume we’re talking net profits – in other words, that costs have been taken into consideration. If costs haven’t been considered, and what you’re really referencing are gross revenues, and costs are rising similarly, then even if the company is collecting more money it might not be keeping more money.

But now on to the two factors you’ll need to control before you can compare net profits over time.

The first is simple inflation. A company of the same size today making the exact same economic profit (in terms of purchasing power) as last year would report higher nominal profits just do to inflation – and the effect is cumulative, so it gets bigger the bigger the time delta (assuming no deflation). So it’s completely unsurprising that a company would post “record profits” each year, even with anemic growth, if it were comparing nominal year-over-year profits. Of course, this is the same as for oil prices – we’re well below historical highs in real oil prices, which would have to hit somewhere around $100/barrell to get to the level of the late 70s/early 80s. [Note: If you can, you should also try to control for currency conversion costs - the oil companies report profits in dollars, but they collect money in a lot of currencies, and if they aren’t hedged they can get windfall profits or take losses depending on the currency fluctuations].

Secondly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there has been some large-scale consolidation in the U.S. oil sector, especially at the top. If you merge two companies, chances are pretty darn good that the profits of the combined entity will be larger overall than they were for either of the two component entities – even if its profit per unit goes down or stays flat. In other words, it’s not terribly surprising that ChevronTexaco would have higher – hell, “record!” – profits as compared with Chevron and with Texaco as individual companies.

So again, without even caring whether you’re right or not about “record profits”, did whatever sources you are using for that headline even make a meaningful comparison?

86

[quote]
mertdawg wrote:
…

True, they do, and the Republicans (or whoever they are) need to shut up about teaching intelligent design in public schools.

Zap Branigan wrote:

Agreed. The Republicans are going to fuck up their run if they don’t quit pushing stupid isses like this.[/quote]

I don’t even understand what they would “teach” – isn’t it basically just the theory that the processes currently theorized by science as being the origins of the universe and of species seem unlikely to have occurred by chance.

So what would that be, the same science as now, plus some statistical analysis?

87

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:

mertdawg wrote:
…

True, they do, and the Republicans (or whoever they are) need to shut up about teaching intelligent design in public schools.

Zap Branigan wrote:

Agreed. The Republicans are going to fuck up their run if they don’t quit pushing stupid isses like this.

I don’t even understand what they would “teach” – isn’t it basically just the theory that the processes currently theorized by science as being the origins of the universe and of species seem unlikely to have occurred by chance.

So what would that be, the same science as now, plus some statistical analysis?[/quote]

Yes, I.D. technically accepts all of the modern theories of geological history, the evolution of the universe, and modern evolutionary theory except they argue that evolution was guided in a specific direction and actively helped out along the way to lead to us-AND that that can be statistically supported-but its misuse of statistics. They often make up probabilities out of thin air. Its a lot like saying that the odds of getting a royal flush are 1 in 100,000,000, so it would take 100,000,000 YEARS for anyone to get a royal flush (really, they often mix variables unconnectedly like that). Sometimes they factor in the likelyhood over time, but not always. The simple fact is that if ID is to be part of a scientific theory, you have to at least propose a scientific mechanism for it that we could experimentally look for.

Then, I hear guys claiming to be ID proponents saying that its OK to believe in evolution, but that humans were specially created and did not evolve. They don’t even know what it says. They just want to open the door for all kinds of crap. I think the Religious right would be fighting ID tooth and nail if they really knew what it says.

If parents want their kids to know about intelligent design, then they can TALK to them.

And no child left behind says that teachers need to be “highly qualified” in the areas they are teaching. I sure as heck didn’t take a class in intelligent design in college, and I know of few (no reputable) colleges that have anything like that.

So what do we do? Read a prepared statement? “The government would officially like you to know that its OK to have religious beliefs in conflict with science, or at least that no one can scientifically dispute?” I think thats part of government class.

88

I think Gregus is mad about oil prices since it’s more expensive to huff gas fumes now that it was.

89

While I don?t know if there is a conspiracy; to say G.W. and his cronies have a conflict of interest would be a major understatement.

George W. started his first company Arbusto Oil with money given to him by Salem bin Laden. Cheney was president of the largest oil services company in the world. And Condi was a board member of Chevron and even had an oil tanker named after her. These three and many lower level players have guaranteed, high paying positions waiting for them when they leave office.

And as for so called record profits. ExxonMobile made $8.42 billion in the last three months of 2004, a record operating profit for a U.S. corporation.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/07/30/build/business/35-exxon.inc

This profit is partially because of the increase in price of crude oil but is also because the oil companies have increased their percentage markup on each gallon. So what they are doing at a time war is price gouging.
Example:
O.C. price Retail price margin profit/gal
$0.80… $1.00… 20%… $0.20
$1.60… $2.00… 20%… $0.40
$1.60… $2.30… 30%… $0.70

If the Oil Companies had just kept margins the same they would have still had greatly increased profits, but in their greed they have also raised margins

After analyzing the most recent quarterly statements of the domestic U.S. oil industry, it is not only clear that profits have climbed to record levels, but that the major source of those profit increases is the jump in domestic refining and marketing margins,? said Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America. ?Well over half of that increase in profits has come not from crude oil, but from profits on domestic U.S. refining and marketing.?
?While the media and the Bush Administration blame OPEC,? added Gene Kimmelman, senior policy director for Consumers Union, ?a close look at prices and profits shows that a large part of the problem is in domestic markets. As the Government Accountability Office recently concluded, mergers and the resulting concentrated markets have contributed to the problem.?
http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_other_issues/001541.html

G.W. could of at lest prevented this additional price gouging but chose not to do so.

90

Aside from the fact that the premise of this entire thread is utter bullshit (GWB didnt make most of his money from oil…He made it by selling his portion of the Rangers…from an anti-Bush website Bush Button News) I find it pretty amusing that some of the leftists on this board are so outraged at the price of gas. Lets say that you are right and Bush has that much control over private sector economics. Isnt that exactly what the Left has been advocating all along…more govt control over the market? This (if it were true) is exactly why some of us are scared to death of giving more power to the government. The power to do good can just as easilly be used for bad…

91

Why is it that conspiracy theorists always come across as loud, annoying, and lack basic education? Their arguments are never backed up with any data and they seem to draw conclusions from unrelated events or data.
Conspiracy theorists always appear to have low IQ’s, are not well read, and are wildly speculative in their accusations.

And the worst part is they have free reign to espouse their theories for hundreds of educated people to read on the greatest communications platform ever invented - the Internet. Funny how things work.

92

Greggus,

If you knew that the price of oil was going to shoot up, you should be absolutely rolling in cash! Did you buy oil futures or at least Exxon?

Look, GW is President, not a dictator. He can’t magically raise the oil price, prevent jobs going overseas, or save the auto industry. When you have 1/6th of the world rapidly industrializing, they’re going to consume more energy. (I for one am glad to see it. Would you rather have them starving and desperate, wanting to attack us?) Why does the oil price rise surprise anyone?

93

[quote]randman wrote:
Why is it that conspiracy theorists always come across as loud, annoying, and lack basic education? Their arguments are never backed up with any data and they seem to draw conclusions from unrelated events or data.
Conspiracy theorists always appear to have low IQ’s, are not well read, and are wildly speculative in their accusations.

And the worst part is they have free reign to espouse their theories for hundreds of educated people to read on the greatest communications platform ever invented - the Internet. Funny how things work.[/quote]

Now why would you want to screw up a perfectly good conspiracy theory with distractions like facts? Sheesh…

94

[quote]freemark wrote:
While I don?t know if there is a conspiracy; to say G.W. and his cronies have a conflict of interest would be a major understatement.

George W. started his first company Arbusto Oil with money given to him by Salem bin Laden. Cheney was president of the largest oil services company in the world. And Condi was a board member of Chevron and even had an oil tanker named after her. These three and many lower level players have guaranteed, high paying positions waiting for them when they leave office.

And as for so called record profits. ExxonMobile made $8.42 billion in the last three months of 2004, a record operating profit for a U.S. corporation.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/07/30/build/business/35-exxon.inc

This profit is partially because of the increase in price of crude oil but is also because the oil companies have increased their percentage markup on each gallon. So what they are doing at a time war is price gouging.
Example:
O.C. price Retail price margin profit/gal
$0.80… $1.00… 20%… $0.20
$1.60… $2.00… 20%… $0.40
$1.60… $2.30… 30%… $0.70

If the Oil Companies had just kept margins the same they would have still had greatly increased profits, but in their greed they have also raised margins

After analyzing the most recent quarterly statements of the domestic U.S. oil industry, it is not only clear that profits have climbed to record levels, but that the major source of those profit increases is the jump in domestic refining and marketing margins,? said Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America. ?Well over half of that increase in profits has come not from crude oil, but from profits on domestic U.S. refining and marketing.?
?While the media and the Bush Administration blame OPEC,? added Gene Kimmelman, senior policy director for Consumers Union, ?a close look at prices and profits shows that a large part of the problem is in domestic markets. As the Government Accountability Office recently concluded, mergers and the resulting concentrated markets have contributed to the problem.?
http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_other_issues/001541.html

G.W. could of at lest prevented this additional price gouging but chose not to do so.
[/quote]

Oh, I don’t know about all of that. I do note that that’s all from one special interest group, but I’m not really interested enough to look at it.

What I do know is that The Wall Street Journal ranked the top 50 companies for shareholder return (i.e. combination of dividends and cap gains one would get from owning the stock – “record profits” should probably be reflected in the stock price). They did it for one, three and five year returns. Now, you’d think that maybe ExxonMobil would show up on the list, but it doesn’t – not on any of them. In fact, while a few energy companies are on the various lists, none of the big ones are, and they are far from dominated by energy companies.

In fact, Taser International comes out first for both 1- and 3-year returns. The first energy company mentioned for 3-year returns is Southwestern Energy at number 14 (with a 69.5% return); the first energy company mentioned for 1-year returns is Tesoro Corp. at number 19 (118.7%).

So I guess all the other industries have figured out how to price gouge just as effectively – hey, maybe even more effectively – than the big oil companies. It’s probably Bush’s fault – the world would be much better if corporations weren’t allowed to make profits.

95

[quote]Kuz wrote:
Gregus wrote:
Because in case you didn’t get it, i started a topic not for the fact of establishing anything. this is the internet and everything discussed here is pointless dribble meant to stimulate, inflame, piss off and humor. I started this thread for the entertainemnt value of watching and participating in developing ideas. This is not supposed to be rigid, because ultimately no matter what point you make or prove you can only give yourself a pat on the back.

So your defense to the fact you cannot back up any of your arguments now comes down to this was for entertainment value?

Just… wow. Uber-weak.
[/quote]

It?s Ueber-weak… get it right next time :slight_smile:

96

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
bigflamer wrote:
The problem with the democratic party is that they can’t have a debate on the issues until they can offer something other than crying about the Republicans. What they lack is a vision for the future with a viable plan for implementing it. Right now they remind me of the Chicago Bears, all defense and no offense.

Way to go–football analogy! It all makes sense now.
[/quote]

Lets all put our hands together for yet even more lack of intelligent debate from the left!

If I was to break it down for you barney style, I doubt you would be able to make sense of it.

97

Just to resurrect an old argument:

I heard on WTOP this morning that small businesses can write off the purchase of an SUV for up to 25K.

It was on WTOP, so it must be true!

98

99

[quote]rainjack wrote:
shorty_blitz wrote:
You can yawn all you like dude, but when you are payin something like $1.6 for a litre of fuel here in the UK then all of a sudden you forget about yawning and other emotions come to mind.

You ever stop to consider how much of that $1.60 is taxes?

How in the hell is that even a U.S. problem? [/quote]

Taxes are good they would allow us to go to cheaper sources of fuel quicker and get people to drive SUV’s and useless pickups less by driving the cost up but they are just a few pennies on the dollar spent on gas. Right now the US gov subsidizes about a buck or a buck fifty as a conservative estimate for every gallon sold so the real price of gas is about $3.50/gallon.

I could give a sheet if the economy temporarily slows as long as it would put pressure on people to buy smaller cars, hybrids , and use mass trasportation more. Either the US gov is going to subsidize which it gets from taxes or taxpayers are going to pay at the pump i think the latter would be better. If we could use those canadian tar sands and find more oil in the gulf of mexico it would be great to reduce the amount of money sent over to the middle east. We may get to the point where OPEc’s decisions to raise or lower oil production is largely irrelevant.