Has Exxon been bought and paid for?
485872
No.\n\nIf Dick Cheney met with the three major oil companies, it would have been in the form of a hunting trip with the CEOs.  One of them would have been shot.  We would have heard about it in the news.\n\nDick Cheney is the Elmer Fudd of the Republican Party.
439808
The general breakdown is\n\n-59% crude oil price\n-10% refining\n-11% marketing and distribution\n-20% taxes\n\nSo, with 75 per barrel, they can make about 19.5 gallons of gas and a few other products.  That's the bulk of the cost.  The refining and taxes are pretty much fixed in the short-term, so that's another 30% right there.  The gas companies and Exxon usually split the last 11%, with the oil companies taking most of that and then the individual gas stations marking it up the last few cents.\n\nEven if the oil companies wanted to be "generous," they couldn't do much more than around 5-10%, which would be around 20 cents savings total, not the few dollars that everyone is hoping for.
687290
Never, they donate too much money to the campaigns of politicians and in outright bribes... they send them on (quite literally) million dollar vacations that no politician would ever give up, and pay millions to campaign "donations" and millions more to lobbyists.\n\nPeople are soo funny, buying into the propoganda of the oil companies... exxon makes 8 cents on the dollar at the point of shipping, gas companies have more than doubled their profits in the past 3 years... they make billions on refining, shipping, and selling the gas... that 8 cents is rhetoric and doesn't include a majority of the companies profits, only what they make from transporting crude from the mid east and south america to north america...\n\nAlso, the oil companies DIRECTLY control the price of refined gasoline... Do you know what the price of gas is in Venezuela right now?  Two weeks ago it was TWENTY AMERICAN CENTS per gallon... The cost of crude is ABSOLUTELY NOT UP THREE TIMES its cost in 2001, when gas was just over $1 a gallon... it's [crude] up less than double (a lot less than double) and yet the cost of gasoline is up about triple... how can anyone suggest that the oil giants aren't controlling the prices?  Federal taxes aren't up, nor are most state's taxes on oil/gas...
733698
Exxon Mobil is the largest in the world. Closely behind them is Wal-Mart
316612
If you can establish in court that it happened, yes it is legally binding.\n\nA contract does not have to be written (excepting certain contracts, ie housing, credit).\n\nWhether it's ever happened, I'm not sure. There was a case where an Oil company was sold "on a handshake" - this held up in court.
470999
The energy bill referenced below contained $2.6 billion in subsidies for the oil and gas industry, at a time when they are recording record profits. Big oil bought the US government through campaign contributions.
581179
Who do you think paid for it?
847127
Oil and gas contracts
357277
The whole system...OPEC on down to Exxon... all-time record profits for any company ever are EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS... regardless of the situation... and it usually points to violations of anti-trust laws... is there one... I don't know... but it's suspicious...
354140
It is NOT because of the war. It is because the people that run the oil companies are good friends of the President\n\nThe supply of oil is at an 8 year high. That means that we have more gas available today than we have had in 8 years.\nin any normal business, that would drive the price DOWN but, not oil.\n\nThe CEO of EXXON_MOBILE just got a $400 MILLION dollar bonus. That is 400,000,000 dollars in one year. That is his PERSONAL income, that dosn't even count the BILLIONS of dollars the oil companies make in PROFITS every year.\nIn the past 12 years the CEO of EXXON-MOBILE has made over  a BILLION (yes, a billion $1,000,000,000 dollars of personal income. We all paid for that by buying gas.\n\nThe reason we are paying so much is because the oil companies are greedy bastards that are making $100,000,000,000 of dollars in profits a year and our President is letting them get away with it.That is Anti-American!!!\n\nSome may argue that this is America and business people can charge what they want but in many cases, this one included, that is not really a fact. The oil business is supposed to be regulated. Not anyone can just decide to get into it. The government regulates who can join and who can't.\n\nThe fact is, we are paying WAY too much for gas and Bush'e buddys are literally "laughing all the way to the bank"\n\nAlso, we do not get most of our gas from the Middle East, that's what they try to make us believe. We only get 12-15% of our oil from the Middle East.\n40% of our oil comes from the US itself.\nWe also get a huge percent of our oil from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.
657572
Exxon currently, in terms of overall dollar. Profit margin though, don't know; probably Microsoft. exxon reported net income of 36 billion.
251686
Oil companies like EXXON earned hundreds of billions of dollars last year--posted all time high profits. Don't know any working class people on the board of directors, tho. Me, I get to pay for my own health care outta my pocket. At least Bush gave me a tax cut last year for $260. Course, it all went to my dentist for the first visit.
364987
The boycott will work, Exxon won't let themselves go out of business!  We're not asking for free gas, and we're not trying to run them out of business!  We just want them to stop getting away with so much profit!  And there is no way anyone can dare tell me that they don't make profit, here is a NY Times article about the CEO's freakin salary, this gets me so FIRED UP!!!\n\nhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/15/business/15pay.html?ex=1302753600&en=89993dc20e1e7e97&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
563613
Nope, even when Standard Oil was the reputed monopoly, it didn't own all of it--but it did own so much that it was seen as a threat to free enterprise.\n\nHere is a link to a summary of the decision which permitted the company to be broken up because of the "conspiracy": http://www.ripon.edu/Faculty/bowenj/antitrust/stdoilnj.htm.\n\nYou may quickly notice that there were a pile of companies, the problem was the common control and ownership.  In one way, Standard Oil was the Enron of its day, except it has substance.  It didn't try to look profitable--it was profitable.  Microsoft, sitting atop mountains of cash and influence, is a closer comparison.\n\nI like the part about how in 1872 there were 34 oil refineries in Cleveland, Ohio and the Rockefellers didn't own three or four.  It makes me wonder how many refineries there are in the whole country today.\n\nYou've heard it said that we went to war in Iraq over oil, but the United States produces 8 times as much as Iraq ever did.  We get oil from Africa, South and Central America, Canada, Europe (mostly the North Sea between Norway and England), and various parts of Asia (including Indonesia).  There have to be transportation means (pipelines, tank trucks, and ships), and most of them have to be huge, or long.  Then comes the refineries.  Oil makes a lot of stuff besides gasoline, but they try to rearrange the molecules to get more of the chemicals they want.  You may hear about "crackers" when reading on refineries, the oil has these long molecular chains, and they would try to crack them open in ways to get preferred chemicals like octane for gasoline.  Too much and you get lighter stuff like kerosene, which we don't use as much of today (Stanley Steamers used kerosene), and it is hard to put it back together.  Think of it like cooking the merangue for a pie, you have to be careful or its suddenly garbage.  Then you need to find someone to buy it and transport it--back to different trucks and pipelines.  Then there are tank farms, big fields with big tanks for holding the various fuels or whatever (like what the chemical companies use to make plastics or fabric yarn for clothes or carpets).  Then it is sent to distribution centers commonly called bulk stations (I had an uncle who owned one).  These then delivered the fuel and oil to gas stations and special buyers like factories and farms.  Then you drive up to the pump and pay for all of this, plus the better part of a dollar for state and federal taxes.  (Interesting project for you, look at ExxonMobil's financial statements because while they made enormous profits they were even more profitable to government, which got more than the stockholders did.)
422897
It depends on the company. BP, Shell, Total and Chevron agree that global warming is a problem and are taking steps to mitigate the problems. Exxon is still in denial, but with a recent change of upper management this might change as well. The biggest debate still present within the oil industry (from my persective within the industry) is still whether the largest component of global warming is a result of greenhouse gases or other natural processes that have no anthropogenic input.\n\nYou might be interested to know that both BP and Shell are the two largest manufacuturers of solar cells in the world. Shell is also the largest manufacturer of biodiesel in the world, and is one of the largest producers of wind energy, owning many of the wind farms in the U.S. Outside of the U.S. the largest producers of alternative fuels such as ethanol are in many cases oil companies. Oil companies are also actively involved in researching carbon sequestration. \n\nLest I sound like too much of a cheerleader for the industry, I must add that I am often appalled by continuing practices such as burning natural gas (flaring) from oil wells in areas where no infrastructure exists to transport natural gas. Reinjection of natural gas is the most common solution to the problem. I have even seen cases of this where the company involved in the flaring of gases uses the regulatory requirements of building pipelines to justify the burning. Apparently some US government regulations make it easier to flare gas than to sell it. Prices of natural gas are still increasing so these practices are likely to end due to pure market pressures, except in third world countries where cost of infrastructure will continue to leave natural gas stranded.  Even the oil companies who have accepted global warming are still guilty of some greenwashing- attempting to look more environmentally friendly than they  really are.   \n\nI believe it is wrong to blame oil companies for most of the problem. As consumers of oil products, WE are ALL part of the problem.\n\nI really don't know much about the coal industry's attitude toward global warming. I do know that a great many states that produce coal are investing heavily in research to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants, as most of them see the revenue and jobs from coal mining as significant parts of their economy- so at least indirectly the coal industry accepts the problem. Since coal stands to benefit as one of the cheapest sources of hydrogen, there is probably a faction within the coal industry that does accept global warming as a problem and is not threatened  by the idea of acknowledging it.  I can't say I've heard much from the big coal companies. Looking at the websites of Peabody and Consol I see only issues like emissions of NOX and SOX and reclamation being mentioned. The National Mining Association which represents the coal industry seems to acknowledge global warming by suggesting alternatives to regulatory carbon caps such as new technology.
565013
the whole point is that the companies might be talking to each other about what price to put so their prices are soo close you can't tell, the second problem is that if a gas station finds it cheaper to buy from exon then from BP then it will go with exxon, so you can't tell where it's always coming from. \n\nthe other problem is that if you boycott one company the other gas stations will be swarmed with too much demand and will have to raise prices or  buy from the guy that you are trying so hard to boycott.\n\nride a bike, ride the bus, walk, anything but drive.
1002060
The oil companies do I'm sure..