What Bush didn't say

[Sayj]

I was at work and unable to see the speech (saw part of it online). I'm still at work, so I can't really spend the time to chase down the transcript. However, I saw this article, and thought this would be a good place to share it....

http://komo4.com/stories/41609.htm

[Post]

I have no clue as to if komo.com is conservative / liberal / whatever, I haven't read the link beyond the title, and I didn't get a chance to hear the State of the Union Address tonight; but I'll bet dimes to doughnuts that I know how Bush is going to fare in the article just from the title "State of the Union Fact Check" :)

[MickeyFinn]

Komo is local to the seattle area, they're on the same channel as ABC. That's a liberal one I think?

[Sayj]

it doesn't matter really. for the record, ABC is owned by Disney. And KOMO is an ABC affiliate. I really didn't think the message deliverer mattered as much as the message did. Thus I hadn't really made comments, only put the info out there....

[Post]

"I really didn't think the message deliverer mattered as much as the message did."

Oh, I agree. I read it, and it made good points - most of them are issues that I feel are something that politicians do in general, though, and not really specific to Bush. ie, although I personally feel that Bush and his administration made stupid decisions to put him in the place that he is now, I also feel that once in that spot, just about any politician would do the same (conveniently ignore the big picture and just point out the stuff that helps him save face).

My whole original statement was a little jab about how well Bush has fared in the past when going up against facts :)

[Bedpost]

I actually totally forgot about the speech when I got home. However, I'm fairly certain he tried to say things about a whole bunch of stuff that people are somewhat irritated about. IE gas prices...

Ignoring the fact that Exxon posted the largest quarterly profits in the history of any company, maybe if they didn't price gouge we wouldn't have this high of gas prices.

[Murrie]

to sum it up:
Some stuffs good, and I did that!
Some stuffs bad, we are working to fix it, but its not my fault.
Terrorists, ya i killed them all, im a cowboy!
Iraq, stupid hippies, blah blah blah
Energy, stupid hippies, blah blah
Social security, stupid democrats, blah blah blah
Taxes, too many numbers, blah
Can i have a pretzel?

[Bedpost]

He asked for a pretzel??? sweet at least he's combating his fear of pretzels. I say he gets elected for another term!

[Murrie]

I am going call Bullshit on this point bedpost:
Ignoring the fact that Exxon posted the largest quarterly profits in the history of any company, maybe if they didn't price gouge we wouldn't have this high of gas prices.

Exxons profit MARGIN is lower than the same quarter last year, they made LESS MONEY per transaction in 2005 than they did in 2004, while at the same time seeing their cost of operating rise by over 20%.

stupid evil fuckers how dare they make a profit when i still have to pay for gas!!!

[Bedpost]

Ummm you can call bullshit all you want... I didn't make up the press releases that stated it.

here is just one article about it

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2005/01/31/cx_ab_0131video2.html

edit: and I am in no way tryign to state I think they shouldn't make a profit... I just don't think that they should take advantage of every opportunity to say oh shit this going to make oil prices go up.

Too many people took a piss yesterday that means oil prices are going up.

Here is a better article about it from the washington post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013000261.html

[Murrie]

i still call your complaint BS as dont see anything in either article that indicates price gouging of any kind.

[Bedpost]

Heh I'm glad you didn't notice... those articles are from last year.

i'm not saying that it's blatant price gouging... but recording the largest profit in american history like that due to taking advantage of the middle east situation is what bugs me

here is 2005 results.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/exxonmobil/index.jsp?epi-content=GENERIC&newsId=20060130005592&ndmHsc=v2*A1072962000000*B1138658390000*C410249159 9000*DgroupByDate*J2*N1001106&newsLang=en&beanID=2030803304&viewID=news_view

[Murrie]

thats good stuff, really wish i had some exxon stock!

[Figtoria]

I like pretzels.

[Bedpost]

Don't get me wrong Murrie, I'm all for companies making huge profits whenever they can. That is what they are in business for. The thing I don't like is how they are going about raising their prices.

OMG the gulf was hit by 10 hurricanes this year we need to raise prices. Ok that's great once the cost for the lost damages due to the hurricanes have been recovered prices should go back down.

I guess I don't know why they should? people are still paying it and so am I, and I will be paying whatever price at the pump there is because I have to.

[MickeyFinn]

I find it very short sighted that a person can point out how one company is posting record profits when our country, in the end, is losing its grasp as #1 in the global economy. The dollar is starting to drop in value again because companies recognize the value of low cost of living and thus cheap labor in foreign countries, and why shouldn't they? That is something we just plain can't compete with.

It is my opinion that our only salvation for the economy is a huge overhaul in education and resource management. Right now the country depends on the hard working guy; the construction laborer, the janitor, the supermarket cashier. Mindless work can be found anywhere. The only way we can stay on top is to be so renowned for our education is when any company on this planet needs somebody *smart* (and I mean, damn smart) they immediately think, "We need an American".


(Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to have a strategic hold on all of the oil in the middle east)

[Post]

Although it's not very popular, I feel that anything that can make or break the livelihood of our society, such as water and electricity, should be heavily regulated (if not downright controlled) by government. Oil falls into that category.

And just to make it clear, it wasn't simply a matter of selling more product. They were also making more money per barrel.

[Murrie]

Well there is a supply and demand issue - the supply was lowered (by the 10 hurricanes) but the demand didnt go down - price goes up... nothing wrong goign on here as far as I can see, especially since their profit margin remained similar to their quarterly average.

You want to blame someone for your high gas prices, blame a hippy that cryes everytime someone trys to suggest drilling in anwar or pulling oil from the oil shale in the midwest. blame the asshat environmentalist thats prevented new nuclear power plants, or oil refinerys from being build in the past 25 years.

Dont blame the Exxon, they are just profiting from the retardedness of the policies and stances of the american public...

[Bedpost]

"Well there is a supply and demand issue - the supply was lowered (by the 10 hurricanes) but the demand didnt go down - price goes up... nothing wrong goign on here as far as I can see, especially since their profit margin remained similar to their quarterly average. "

There would be nothing wrong there if after the crisis was over that the price went back to what it was before hand. The price has not adjusted back at all since then

Edit: Mickey, i think alot of that reason that we are droping is because of things like this that are causing the dollar to be worth less. What determines the value of a dollar? the amount that you can purchase with it correct? if a higher percentage of every dollar we make has to go towards our gasoline, that means we have that much less to be going towards everythign else that we have. So grocery store workers can't afford to go out to eat as often, which causes the restaurant owners to not be able to buy as many new clothes, which finally means there is less money for each person to invest in things, etc etc... you get my point I'm sure.

If our necessities cost to much that is going to make the value of the dollar worth that much less.

[Allison]

Haha ... blame the hippies for high gas prices. Good one, Murrie. :rolly:

[Bedpost]

Just thought I should clarify that I'm not trying to say that Exxon is causing our economy to drop. Just saying it's all part of the equation.

[Post]

"Well there is a supply and demand issue - the supply was lowered (by the 10 hurricanes) but the demand didnt go down - price goes up..."

That doesn't explain the fact that profit has consistently been going up. This isn't something special because of the hurricane issues.

"nothing wrong goign on here as far as I can see, especially since their profit margin remained similar to their quarterly average."

That's not true. Their profit margin has consistently gone up.

Businessweek Clicky (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_21/b3934114.htm)

...pushed the profit margin for that industry up to 9.1%, from 7.5% for the first quarter of 2004.

So let's put that in perspective: just in one quarter, their profit margin went up by 21.3%. One quarter! And that's been happening. And remember, that's a percentage of how much that they sold. See, if gas costs $2 a gallon, and they make $1 per gallon profit, then if gas went up to $4 a gallon, then they're making double profit for the same amount of product sold, and the profit margin didn't go up at all.

So they're making more money per gallon just from the raising prices not counting the profit margin of over 21%. And they're getting more tax breaks.

But I guess I should blame that on the hippies.

[MickeyFinn]

I feel that anything that can make or break the livelihood of our society, such as water and electricity, should be heavily regulated by government.

Well, at least we know the government's current administration is paying very, very close attention to the oil industry ;)

That being said Hep, I'm more a believer of the Publilius Syrus in that "Everything is worth what its purchaser is willing to pay for it". If I were in the position the USA is in, I would treat oil companies like a big business deal. To further the interests of the populace you could surely come to a deal to put a cap on it.

[Sayj]

I am going call Bullshit on this point bedpost:


Exxons profit MARGIN is lower than the same quarter last year, they made LESS MONEY per transaction in 2005 than they did in 2004, while at the same time seeing their cost of operating rise by over 20%.

stupid evil fuckers how dare they make a profit when i still have to pay for gas!!!

I think I mentioned this before on the list... It was in the summer when I met with a woman who said that her nephew was planning to put his company out on the market (U.S. Petroleum) soon because it made too much money last year. Absolutely what she told me. Because he had made so much money, he figured it was time to sell.

[Bedpost]

Wow is this something Hep and I agree on?

there's a shock for ya