Big Oil Profits Go To Investors, Not R&D

Big Oil Profits Go To Investors, Not R&D

www.cbsnews.com

As giant oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips get set to report what will probably be another round of eye-popping quarterly profits, just where is all that money going?

The companies insist they're trying to find new oil that might help bring down gas prices, but the money they spend on exploration is nothing compared with what they spend on stock buybacks and dividends.

It's good news for shareholders, including mutual funds and retirement plans for millions of Americans, but no help to drivers already making drastic cutbacks to offset the high cost of fuel.

The five biggest international oil companies plowed about 55 percent of the cash they made from their businesses into stock buybacks and dividends last year, up from 30 percent in 2000 and just 1 percent in 1993, according to Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

The percentage they spend to find new deposits of fossil fuels has remained flat for years, in the mid-single digits.

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Did any6one really believe that all those unexpected profits from oil rises were going to be spent on R&D?

Well, here's the proof that it wasn't - indeed, most of the profits go to investors in the form of stock buybacks and dividends.

How much longer are the public going to put up with being lied to?

www.cbsnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Hey Budski..you do realise that if YOU have a pension..Its probably YOU thats reaping the benefits. 68% of oil company profits are pension holders and they're pension funds and are tied to OIL PROFITS. Its you and me and every other retired or about to be retired person in this country and other countries that are your so called profiteers!!

Zindo

You know that the oil industry doesn't rake in as much money as some of you think. Software companies are making half again as much, do you want to tax the hell out of them too?

reply to post by ZindoDoone


Just for the record, I'm neither retired, nor about to be

Even so, it still comes down to profiteering and manipulation of the system to enrich a small percentage of the population.

Originally posted by ZindoDoone
Hey Budski..you do realise that if YOU have a pension..Its probably YOU thats reaping the benefits. 68% of oil company profits are pension holders and they're pension funds and are tied to OIL PROFITS. Its you and me and every other retired or about to be retired person in this country and other countries that are your so called profiteers!!

Zindo

No its not.Your pension fund gets MASSIVELY skimmed.The majority of those profits go to fund managers and executives.Pension funds get such a small drop.The oil company's are in it with them.Its there own little personal market manipulation get rich(er) scheme.

reply to post by budski


Of course they do... and that is one of the reasons why off shore drilling or any other in this country will do nothing to relieve the current mess..... because it will go into the international pool and be sold from there... we will only get as much as we can or are willing to pay for, not a drop more, not a drop less... and it is the profits for investors is the reason why.... they will always get more internationally for their oil and having us to bid for it, than they ever would selling it directly to us.

AND that is the biggest argument in favor of nationalizing our nations oil reserves.

reply to post by grover


Except you increase the supply, which brings down the price.

Grover,
Ya, thats just what we need. Socialist Oil Companies! Like that will lower the prices?? Not even close!!!

Zindo

Don't forget the "stock buy back" part, either. By buying back their stock with these "windfall" profits, the oil companies drive up their stock price and consolidate their control of the money the government has helped them steal from us.

reply to post by Unkle Greggo


You think international oil companies are going to allow that? Besides with our pathetically weak dollar we only have so much buying power left...

And Zindo... as for socialized oil companies.... like we are benefiting from the current system???

[edit on 23-7-2008 by grover]

Grover,
What government entity has ever been run correctly for the populace?? None that I can think of. They usualy end up being overblown with beauracracy and never actualy work. The regulation would triple overnight, and the price would double at the very least. What we need is to force a true free market for resorces, not regulate so much that the process stops forward motion. Allowing mergers the way we do is whats screwing us. We need more small companies. Get the damned government out of the way so there are more players in the game. The market would work that way.

Zindo

reply to post by ZindoDoone


That sounds more like rhetoric than reality if you ask me...

besides nationalizing national oil reserves doesn't mean drilling automatically becomes a nationalized company... I didn't say that, you can still have private companies drill but the oil would belong to the nation and not go into the international oil pool... we could have first dibs at it and what is left over, then pool it for sale. It would benefit us far better than the current system in which we are just one of many buyers.