One of the lefty blogs I visit posted this headline with the commensurate condemnation of corporate greed and ill gotten gains of oil companies.
AP
ConocoPhillips 2Q Profit ClimbsWednesday
July 26, 2:43 pm ET
By Kristen Hays, AP Business Writer
ConocoPhillips Reports $5.1 Billion Profit for 2Q, Shares Rise 3 Percent
So there's your headline. But what does is really mean? Lets look closer...
"ConocoPhillips closed its $33.9 billion acquisition of Burlington Resources in the first quarter, expanding its gas reserves and boosting its North American natural gas production."
So, last year they spent 34 billion dollars. Even at the current income levels, it would take nearly 2 years to pay off that acquisition.
"ConocoPhillips' chairman and chief executive officer Jim Mulva said Burlington Resources' assets contributed $385 million to the exploration and production segment's $3.3 billion in net income..."
At the rate the acquisition is contributing to the bottom line, it would take over 7 years to break even on what it cost them.
"Mulva said changes in tax laws in Canada and Texas added $363 million to the company's second-quarter profit."
Those dang Canadians! You'd think they'd have a better handle on taxing greedy companies than this. Tsk...
"The company produced slightly more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day in the second quarter, up from 932,000 barrels a day a year earlier. Its natural gas output totaled 5.5 billion cubic feet a day, up from 3.2 billion cubic feet a day a year earlier."
Ohhh, and they actually worked harder this year than last, to make more money. Well, that just tears it for me!
All about greed and oil? You bet it is. That's why 20% of my retirement money is in that sector. Please don't consider that advice or a recommendation, BTW.
You want to pay less for gas? Slow down. Drive less. That's what i do. If everyone did, the demand, and price, would go down.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Didja' hear that?
All those other Arab countries coming to Hezbollah's rescue? Its 1967 all over again, right? Oh wait, things have changed since then. When the USA and Israel actually get fed up and start taking out countries like Afghanistan, decimating terrorists organizations like Al Qaida and Hezbollah, everybody else in the region (keeping in mind Iran is actually Persian and not Arab) shuts up and sits down. There's hope yet...
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Lincoln and Coolidge Said it!
This from Abraham Lincoln's speech of July 10, 1858, responding to Steven Douglas's speech of the 9th. Douglas had this take on what the Founding Fathers had meant:
"I am free to say to you," Douglas said, "that in my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine."
His also was perhaps the first call for tolerance of diversity, that is to say, half slave and half free.
Mr. Lincoln answered:
Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it?
And this from Calvin Coolidge on the 150th anniversary of 1776
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Happy Independence Day
"I am free to say to you," Douglas said, "that in my opinion this government of ours is founded on the white basis. It was made by the white man, for the benefit of the white man, to be administered by white men, in such manner as they should determine."
His also was perhaps the first call for tolerance of diversity, that is to say, half slave and half free.
Mr. Lincoln answered:
Those arguments that are made, that the inferior race are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow. What are these arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will---whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent, and I hold if that course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of convincing the public mind that we should not care about this, should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it where will it stop. If one man says it does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man? If that declaration is not the truth, let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out! Who is so bold as to do it?
And this from Calvin Coolidge on the 150th anniversary of 1776
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Happy Independence Day
Ironically, this from the NYT as well.
KATHARINE GRAHAM, the publisher of The Washington Post who died in 2001, backed her editors through tense battles during the Watergate era. But in a 1986 speech, she warned that the media sometimes made “tragic” mistakes.
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.
Cooperation?
Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.
“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.
Cooperation?
Monday, July 03, 2006
The British already knew, didn't they?
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