The Most Profound Quote Of The Year

[SilverHamer]

WITHOUT A DOUBT, THIS WILL END UP BEING THE "QUOTE OF THE YEAR"

"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world.

I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." -- Barack Obama


Hmmm...these are very scary times we are in now. IMO, our entire federal government could use a really good enema at the ballot box...every last one of them need to be flushed out and replaced...political party doesn't matter. And I don't know about you, but the current lineup of presidential candidates basically puts me to sleep.

Here is some food for thought with regards to the incredible rising costs for a gallon of gasoline...the oil companies are posting record annual profits with just 7% of the price for a gallon of gas. There is a much larger portion of that price which is tax...and without having the figures sitting in front of me I will just pick an arbitrary number and say that 20% of the price is tax. Ok...so if Exxon/Mobil, Shell, BP, and others are posting record annual profits from just 7%...WHAT THE FUK IS THE GODDAM GOVERNMENT DOING WITH THEIR PORTION...and better yet, HOW MUCH PROFIT (dollar amount please) ARE THEY MAKING ANNUALLY FROM THE SALE OF GASOLINE???? I mean...the amount I have used for the tax is just a shade under 3 times the amount which is considered to be the oil companies' margin of profit....THREE GODDAM TIMES! Where is the media on this? Where is this money going? Why is there a national debt if the oil companies are making BILLIONS in profit from just 7% and the government gets almost 3 times that much from the sale of a gallon of gasoline???? THINK ABOUT IT.

I submit to you that THIS is why nobody in the government is truly outraged...yea they call the CEO's of the major oil companies to the carpet to reem them out...but it is all for show. Most of the congressional leaders feigning outrage didn't have a clue about what they were delving into because the oil company CEO's were prepared. Bottom line, there were certain 'outraged' congressmen who could not/would not respond to pointed questions about these taxes as posed by the CEOs. Basically what it amounts to is these congressional assholes WANT the price of gasoline to be outrageous so that they can have something to blame the oil companies for...while at the same time they will enjoy huge benefits of the appropriation of those record profits from the tax monies. OPEC isn't the only entity ripping us off...our own government is as well. Don't look for anything to be done about it anytime soon. Bush wants to do something...others criticize his actions and plans, while at the same time they offer no plans of their own. There is an underlying motive there.

Yep, Washington needs a really good enema!

[SilverHamer]

Ok, after I came down from my 10 foot hover I realized that it would only be fair of me to get some hard facts and attempt to substantiate my rant about the gasoline prices. I think if you crunch the numbers you will find that I wasn't very far off, but I WAS sort of firing from the hip and relying on my memory of what I had gleaned from the televised congressional inquiry from a couple of weeks back. Here are some numbers which are published by the state government of California...and they are self-incriminating if you ask me.

Estimated Gasoline Price Breakdown

Branded Gasoline (major companies)

For June 16th, 2008


Distribution Costs,
Marketing Costs and profits*...........$0.08

Crude Oil Cost..............................$3.21 (Thanks to OPEC)

Refinery Cost and profits**..............$0.58

State Underground
Storage Tank Fee.........................$0.01

State and Local Sales Tax...............$0.34

State Excise Tax...........................$0.18

Federal Excise Tax.........................$0.18

Retail Price.................................$4.59

* What we are unable to differentiate on this figure is how much is cost and how much is profit. I think this column is a bit ambiguous because I don't know how you could have a profit from marketing and distribution...profit comes from selling the product...but I'm no economics major either.

** What we are unable to differentiate on this figure is how much is cost and how much is profit. Another ambiguous column because I don't see where there could be any profit simply from refining crude into gasoline. In fact, I would guess that since there are only 2 or 3 refineries for gasoline in the entire country that they are probably paying out lots of overtime to employees due to the demand for gasoline. If they would build a few more refineries it would help us out at the pump a little bit...this is another argument though.

I apologize for not using hard figures in my first post. I do, however, clearly recall the figure of 7% being the oil companies' margin of profit on a gallon of gas. If my math is correct, the amount for taxes (both State and Federal) comes to just over 15%, with about 4% of that being Federal Excise Tax. So I stand corrected a bit on my previous post.

However, the question is still valid...if the oil companies are posting such record profits on just 7%, the State & Federal taxes are raking in over twice that much at 15%!!! So where is it going? HUH??

The above figures are extracted from a table found at this California government website:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html

[SilverHamer]

To add insult to injury...on May 21st of last year, Iran's government said it planed to raise the price of gasoline to the equivalent of 42 cents per gallon. That might not seem like much in the US. But Iranians WERE paying about 34 cents per gallon...so that's an 8 cents per gallon price increase.

Ok...let's contrast that...The National Average for the price of gasoline in the USA on May 6, 2007 was $3.07 per gallon. On May 18th, 2008, the National Average was $3.79 per gallon. That's a 72 cents per gallon price increase. So in May of '07 we were paying $2.73 MORE per gallon than Iran...and as of May '08 we were paying $3.37 MORE per gallon than Iran.

I suppose I shouldn't be TOO pissed off about this because our good friends in Europe and the UK have been paying almost $10.00 per gallon already. This would tend to put a damper on one's attitude but I believe it is completely wrong for people all over the world to be helping the Shieks and Barons of Dubai to build their new $500 per-night resorts.

http://www.bentbay.dk/dubai_construction.htm

[Tracy]

I submit for your observation...

Dated Late Feb'08...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EWwrK0VQkY

[Tracy]

On another note, I do believe that the gas prices are a bit of 'wag the dog' means of taking attention off of the thousands of people that are demanding Bush and company impeachment AND imprisonments. And of course in the mean time, it's making some folks a nice tidy profit.

I'm sure all of us older folks recall the big "gas shortage" in the early 70's...during that time, the Tricky Dick problems were going on in Washington. right after that, Nixon and co were impeached. Then all of a sudden, all was Fine in the oil world. What happened to the "shortage'?

Our government is so crooked, it's ridiculous. And what's even more ridiculous is the amount of people that believe the propaganda they read and see on the news. It pisses me off to no end to see/hear Bushites.