I’ve been wondering how long it would take for the general public to notice that as prices have tripled over the past 3 years, profits have tripled as well…
I guess the general public finally caught on.
theres the falsity right there…
no offense, but i am quite a bit more qualified to speak on this topic than you are, i can virtually assure you of that.
now that thats over…
profits are not illegal. however, situations in which a monopoly exists, or monopoly-like conditions are present, ARE illegal. collusion is two parties overcoming a mitigating control to commit a crime. thats not what is happening here. it isnt collusion
this is what is happening… market conditions exist that make it so the suppliers dictate the supply to those who demand it. that is certainly one of the conditions that would support monopoly-like conditions. whether or not the oil industry actually has a retail monopoly over the US market is another story entirely.
knick is gonna shit a brick when he sees that
unless he does market and industry research for goldman sachs or jpmorgan, or he works for one of the big oil companies in some form or fashion of finance/mkt/acct function, i stick with my statement. also, regardless of what the company you do work for tells you the “customer” is, they are obviously using the word customer as an emphasis of importance, not in a literal sense. by stating the shareholders are the customers, they are placing increased emphasis on them. HOWEVER… without ACTUAL customers purchasing products or services, there is no company, there is no stock price, there is no return on investment.
im not trying to be a prick. i just happen to know a decent amount about this stuff and i dont think that terms such as shareholder and customer should be crossed.
I’m not going to debate semantics and syntax.
…and, of course, I suppose my series 6, 63, 7, LAH, job description, certs, and training were for nothing.
Sucks to be me eh?
/
Can we just agree to disagree and move on? Nikuk, don’t get all butt-hurt on me…
:lol:
No sand in my 'gina… It’s not easy to upset me via internet, hence the “/” and the end of my post.
That’s my version of agree to disagree snookums. :kisses:
This guy obviously knows more then me and I am out of my league, so why should I continue in this topic? 
you are right it is semantics. however, i think that in this case it is important. i think that we are looking at the same situation through two different business lenses… mine is from an accounting/consulting standpoint, yours is more from a finance/brokerage standpoint.
in the words of ron burgandy, “agree to disagree”
again, i didnt mean to be a dick about it… i apologize if i came off that way…
either way, i do think that there is a trust present in the US retail gasoline market, and something in the way of legislation needs to be done about it.
You are a dick and should be apologizing. :hay:
I think that’s a really good statement. However, it doesn’t sound like that’s how the government wants to approach it. If they want to force some kind of breakup to force competition, I’m all for it. There is plenty of historical evidence looking at the phone companies to show this can be done and benefit both the consumer and the corporations. But if they just want to tax the profits and give it away to the poor I think it’s stupid and an extremely bad precedent to set.
So if Tops and Wegmans have a really good year should we force them to kick some of the profits back to feeding the poor? We all have to eat so food should be cheap right?
What about pharmaceutical companies? Sure they can spend their profits from their last big drug on coming up with the next big drug, but maybe it would be better if we just taxed those profits so we could give free drug coverage to the poor?
Government programs that force corporations to take up the roles those very governments are supposed to be doing scare me.
shut up old man river!!! :lol:
now back on topic before i ban you! 
j/k
im not saying that any company that has a large profit should cough it up… not at all!
what im saying is that there should be some profit margin regulations… i think that would be a good starting point. that way, oil companies could maintain steady profits while passing on any market fluctuations to the consumer…
profit margin directly related to consumer needs/wants
If you do it for all the products on the market, a lot of businesses who are making a decent buck on unecessary items would be pissed.
For example - profit on food, fuel, and other NEEDS should be regulated.
XXXXXL t-shirts, fashion clothes, CF wings… should be marked up cause they are gay.
see i dont think that we should regulate “needs”… i think the markets that are dominated and monopoly like conditions exist as a result of that domination should be regulated…
:word:
I mis-spoke (again).