John.... You are making too much sense.....


Drill, baby, drill!!



Parf in 5,4,3,2.........

Drilling here won't make a dime of difference. Oil is traded internationally. And what surplus oil we drill here will probably go to China.

Haven't checked the math, but recently read...

Chevron’s $26.9 billion profit translates to $3 million every hour or $51,000 every minute of 2011.

But-but-but...., that's not what Sarah Palin said! :)

Guess you better read the post again. Pity that you felt compelled to back out the numbers. But, it's $4.06/gal and I get 12MPH

The 100 miles attributed to this job start from home and end at home because I go to a store at the beginning and at the end of the day. The 100 cost me $33.80. 33 bucks is 12% of my take home pay after allowing for taxes. Of course the taxes may vary from year to year. But consider guys like Hugh and I pay 15.(something)xx% to self employment tax before we take our personal deductions like the standard deduction and mortgage interest. That's a big bite considering state and federal taxes are yet to be figured.

What I get to take to the house for food, shelter and essentials after buying gas (or in this case allotting for gas, Denis) amounts to less than $10/hr for all hours spent in reference to the job, background (shopping, traveling, making phone calls, estimating) and hours spent at the job with the truck parked (which will inevitably include a lot of time with non billable customer discussion time).

Ok, I was just going by the "20 gallons/$100", which is $5 a gallon. Didn't need a pencil and paper to notice that. Doing any type of self-employed contracting work involves a certain amount of time away from the job but I've never had a problem estimating it and calculating it into the cost. Sometimes it winds up being more, sometimes less. It's all in the game, as the old saying goes.

the oil market is precarilously balanced in that OPEC and other suppliers are carefully tip-toeing the fine line between just enough production and too much, It would not take much additional production to cause a significant drop in prices.

Offering up an additional million bbls/day would be enough to send the marketters scrambling and drop the price of oil 10 or 20% immediately.
Even if other suppliers pulled back to compensate, we'd still be spending our money here instead of giving it to uncivilized countries who hate us.
No offense Canada ;) j/k

But here's the rub: THE US GUBMINT MAKES MONEY ON OIL!
The higher the price, the more revenue the gubmint makes on the oil. on gubmint issued leases like in the golf O'meheko, the percentage the gubmint takes goes up exponentially with the price, is is not directly relational.
When hte price is $50/bbl they might take 9%, but when it gets to $80/bbl they might get 12%, or when it hits $100 they might get 18%. it varies with the lease but the idea is the same, they get lots O'money for every gallon produced.
They don't want the price to go down, they want it to go up.

In addition to that, the current gubmint hates oil and loves green energy even though green costs way more.
So they influence the market where and when they can to make oil MORE expensive so their pet green projects don't look quite as ridiculous as they really are.
So by increasing domestic production they'd cut revenues and justification for green stupidity and they don't want that.

Plus there are certain groups in gubmint who believe we should be burning through everyone else's oil so that when they run out we'll still have some and will have an advantage. That's a ridiculous notion but they still believe it.

As long as we're throwing numbers around, it also equates to a profit margin (ttm) of 11.55%

In other words they made $11 on every $100 of product they sold, and that in a near-record year.

For comparison, and using that math, Apple's $40.13 billion profit translates into $4.6 million every hour or $76,000 every minute, but that's perfectly OK to the same folks who see an oil company being profitable as an evil thing.

BTW Apple's profit margin? 26.97% Nearly three times as much as Chevron's.

One company supplies us with an incredibly efficient and cheap source of energy which drastically raises our standard of living and provides us freedom to go where we want and live where we want and how we want, and the other supplies us with crap electronic gadgets so mindless zombies can stare down into them instead of making eye contact with each other.
I manage to live just fine without apple products in my life, but I cannot imagine what my life would be without petroleum products. Similar to being back in the stone age I would imagine.
LOL the irony is that without petroleum products they would not be able to MAKE apple products, much less distribute them or sell them.


So what was your point again?

If I'm understanding this right you pay $4.09/gallon and 15% employment tax, you don't know how lucky you are :D

Try paying $8.93/gallon and nearly 50% employment tax and see how you feel then http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...leys/smi10.gif

Perhaps you can put that into context. The absolute minimum house payment in SoCal is 3K/mo. A 2 bed apt where the gunshots don't keep you awake is $1500. Bread is 4 bucks a loaf. Health insurance for one single person self employed is $12,000 a year. Car insurance will be $100/mo for nothing.

And at 40% total income tax including the 15% SE tax is not that far from 50%. We also have 9% sales tax and tax on utility bills. With some incidental state fees added to the taxes, my phone bill is 10% tax. There are similar taxes on water, gas, electric, trash and sewage.

Care to compare?

Be careful. I once complained about taxes in this fine state of Ct and Wayne chimed in with "If you don't like the taxes vote the officials out". Unfortunately, as you so well know, it ain't that easy.
OK back OT, petrol here is $4.13 for 87 octane.
And to the Apple fellow... There is a HUGE difference between the luxury of HAVING an Apple computer and NEEDING Chevrons gas. And btw, the company I work for has double the profit margin of Apple. I'd be fired if I only got 27%. The point being no one NEEDS the product my company needs.

Be careful. I once complained about taxes in this fine state of Ct and Wayne chimed in with "If you don't like the taxes vote the officials out". Unfortunately, as you so well know, it ain't that easy.
OK back OT, petrol here is $4.13 for 87 octane.
And to the Apple fellow... There is a HUGE difference between the luxury of HAVING an Apple computer and NEEDING Chevrons gas. And btw, the company I work for has double the profit margin of Apple. I'd be fired if I only got 27%. The point being no one NEEDS the product my company manufactures.

Not a lot to compare when it comes to the cost of living between Long Beach and Northern Italy

Not sure about house payments as there is no way I can afford one but it depends on where you live. Car insurance is at least $200/month (not even for fully comprehensive cover) annual car tax can range from around $600 upto $8000 depending on what you drive. You have to pay to drive on any freeway. You have to pay anything from $500 to $1500 just to change ownership on a car.

Sales tax or VAT as its called here is 21%

As a better comparison

Italy has no natural fuel resources so any utilities are going to be a lot more expensive, I would guess 2x what you pay as its about 50% more than the UK.

Tax dodging, corruption and bureaucracy are endemic so all the tax I pay is basically wasted.

Its not all bad, the weather, people and food is great and there are more expensive and less safe places to live

Jyl baby Jyl!

LOL, Milt, have you actually been to other parts of the world? The U.S. IS DIRT CHEAP for practically everything.

Totally agree Richard. Only once you travel around the world does someone realize how good we have it here. Not saying that it could not be improved upon, but we are lucky.

re "I got paid in cash"

Not that I have any experience in such things, but I have heard there are people not reporting something like that to the IRS.
Jim

"Offering up an additional million bbls/day would be enough to send the marketters scrambling and drop the price of oil 10 or 20% immediately. "

So what? Oil price fluctuates 40% routinely. Appx $75 to $115 over the past couple years. World oil production also routinely fluctuates 2MM bbl/day, over most years.

Yes, suddenly dropping an extra 1MM bbl/day would briefly move price. Then the asset allocators, hedge funds, investment banks, and commodities speculators would do what they do and oil price would do whatever it does, regardless of that 1MM bbl/day.

The issue is not what company makes what profit....the issue is what the company is making profits on. There is a huge difference in Apple making profits on "gizmos" that are not necessary for daily life and an oil company making record profits quarter after quarter on something none of us can live without in modern society.
I am all for free enterprise and believe that less government involvement is better for us all...but...breaking the back of working people for a commodity is neither ethical or moral. We need to use our energy sources for our people...PERIOD!!! Petroleum produced here should be used only for our use..oil, coal, natural gas, etc.. If a company wants to sell domestic oil on the world market, there should be a massive tax...say 60%...foreign oil brought into America..yep 60%. It would be amazing how quickly we would fine viable alternative sources of power within our own borders and develop the necessary technology to extract our "unprofitable" sources of petroleum.
Again, not anti corporation or anti profit...just getting sick of hearing about the record profits from oil companies which just happen to correspond with record prices at the pump.