The Petroleum Industry Earnings In Perspective

[cfg83]

Nrggeek -

Originally Posted by Nrggeek

Hi Mr. I,

Just curious why you're directing us to a link for oil industry propaganda.

Regards,
Bill

Hmmmmmm, yup, API is pretty oily, so to pun :

Why is Scholastic, the World?s Largest Supplier of Children?s Books, giving a Venue to the ?Dark Side?? - August 12, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0812-11.htm

....
API?s initial scheme proves embarrassing

The American Petroleum Institute is not fond of environmental education or data that puts their industry into a negative light. In April of 1998, oil lobbyists met to launch a $6 million plan to cast doubt on global warming and thrust a dagger into public support for the Kyoto Protocol, a global plan to squelch climate change. One sentence of a leaked memo summed up the intentions of API. ?Informing teachers/students about uncertainties in climate science will begin to erect barriers against further efforts to impose Kyoto-like measures in the future.? API would set up a $300,000 fund to dupe teachers and their students. Companies such as Exxon and Chevron attended this meeting and were key funders. According to API spokesman, Joseph Lastelic, ?Most of the time, the balance is not there on the environment. It?s (environmental education) harming us economically and harming our energy security.? Using free videotapes, posters, overhead teacher?s visuals and computer software, API had a goal: ?to get children to influence their parents? views and to create a favorable image in the minds of future decision makers.? In other words: lie to children, omit any substantive discussion on the negative effects of continued oil use and use teachers as unwitting accomplices in a ?big lie.?

...

The American Petroleum Institute is not a lightweight and will not surrender easily. Emboldened by their wealth and massively deep pockets, they have access to the likes of the Bush Administration. A 2003 EPA Draft Report on the Environment (2003) deleted references to the perils of global warming and replaced it with industry data provide by: the American Petroleum Institute. API is working hard to open public lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. API looks to manipulate the thousands of young teachers that will enter teaching this September. Scholastic is now the unwitting accomplice to API?s goals of ?giving teachers the business.?

...

Here's more info on them :

American Petroleum Institute
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...leum_Institute

...
Questioning global warming

An API "Communications Action Plan" from 1998 stated: "Victory will be achieved when ... citizens 'understand' uncertainties in climate science ... [and] recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the 'conventional wisdom.'" [1]
...
[1] - U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform , "Committee Report: White House Engaged in Systematic Effort to Manipulate Climate Change Science," December 12, 2007.
...

CarloSW2

[GasSavers_SD26]

Originally Posted by skewbe

I don't think any intelligent people take that link very seriously.

I thought there weren't personal attacks on this forum?

Petroleum is still the fuel of liberty until it's taxed to death by those that subscribe to the religion of "the state".

Yeah, petroleum has profits, but it's in volume, not in the margin.

Pepsi and Coke prices sure have gone through the roof of not so long ago, but I don't expect a lot of complaining or congressional hearings on that cost to the economy, children, the EPA or other groups.

Now that big tobacco is beat up, when can I expect them to save us from energy drinks?

[Big Dave]

The API is also the organization that sets all the technical standards of the petrochemical industry. All those oil ratings, the standard methods for determining octane and cetane. Fire safety standards.

They are generally knowledgable people with access to oil industry information that environmental extremists would just kill to have access to.

Is an organization that opposes the Global Warming stampede necessarily lying?

[skewbe]

In this case yes.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Originally Posted by Mr Incredible

More information is better.

No. Not really...

[GasSavers_BluEyes]

The information in that article might not be independently verifiable, but the general message is.

Look up the net profit margin for Exxon-Mobil on Google finance.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=xom&hl=en
A whopping 10.04% for 2007.

Now, I'd be happy if I made 10% on my investments but compare that to Bank of America (22.59%), Johnson & Johnson (17.31%), Merck Pharmaceuticals (13.54%), Pfizer (17.3%). Plenty of other guys are making a lot more money than Exxon-Mobil when you balance the tables by how much it takes to get that profit, and Exxon-Mobil does spend astronomical amounts of money to get the oil.

So, if Exxon was really smart they'd ditch the oil business entirely, put the same money into banking and get more than double the profit. Maybe we should be b!tching about our bank taking our money instead of the oil companies?

The reason gas prices are going up has nothing to do with people getting rich, because they aren't when you compare them with their peers in other industries. The supply of oil is getting harder to find and oil wells cost more to drill each year (even the dry ones). Combine that with an increasing demand for oil in the US and abroad (China, India especially) and as long as you didn't sleep through all of your High School economics class you should know the result.

[GasSavers_SD26]

Originally Posted by BluEyes

oil business entirely, put the same money into banking and get more than double the profit. Maybe we should be b!tching about our bank taking our money instead of the oil companies?

Exactly!

Honestly, they could double their profit margin, and it would still be an extraordinary value to have such a reliable, available supply of a commodity that is attainable by pretty any working person.

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by cfg83

Nrggeek -



Hmmmmmm, yup, API is pretty oily, so to pun :

Why is Scholastic, the World’s Largest Supplier of Children’s Books, giving a Venue to the “Dark Side?” - August 12, 2004
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0812-11.htm


Here's more info on them :

American Petroleum Institute
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...leum_Institute

CarloSW2

Let me quote for everyone this remark about science from a famous Nobel Prize winning researcher...

".....Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.....

....We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science. "

Richard Feynman, "Cargo Cult Science" (http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html)

Contrast this with the aforementioned quote...

""Victory will be achieved when ... citizens 'understand' uncertainties in climate science ... [and] recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the 'conventional wisdom.'" [1]"

So, we're left with this embarrassing question - Is the American Petroleum Institute iin harmony with Richard Feynman's ideas of how science should be conducted, or was Dick Feynman on API's payroll?

Before anyone objects, let me state that "global warming skeptics" are vilified, when in reality they are doing correct science.

Those who take the preliminary findings of human caused global warming as Dogma, and especially who take computer models as a substitute for experiment.... well... are they practicing scientific thinking? Are they being honest, or like as was cited in Dr. Feynman's article, are they in the game for more grant money?

I want to close these remarks by saying that I agree with the idea that there isn't enough oil for everyone to use as they see fit. Having said that, I'd rather stick with reality than push fairy tales onto the public to get it to see reason.

Gene

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by BluEyes

So, if Exxon was really smart they'd ditch the oil business entirely, put the same money into banking and get more than double the profit. Maybe we should be b!tching about our bank taking our money instead of the oil companies?

If Exxon were smart they'd be parlaying their money into investments for future energy distribution and generation.

If they were really smart they'd back guys like this bunch here...

http://www.commonheritagecorp.com/

Dr. Craven and I don't agree politically but he's a smart fellow and worth backing.

http://www.aloha.com/~craven/

Gene

[GasSavers_SD26]

Originally Posted by GeneW

If Exxon were smart they'd be parlaying their money into investments for future energy distribution and generation.

I think they probably are, but they are probably looking in house. Why not? Lower overhead. Or just buy someone out.