My WW III, Buy Gas, DO NOT Buy Anything Else, EVER!!!

[Daless2]

Buy Gas, DO NOT Buy Anything Else, EVER!!!


For almost three years now, every time the Oil Companies report ?earnings? (Read that Profits), they are reporting Record Profits.

And for three years I keep paying Record amounts to buy the gas I need to go about my life.

The oil companies say they are not responsible for the high gasoline prices, but rather the prices are high due to ?Market Forces.?


Well OK ?.. I was born at night, but it wasn?t last night, so I am going to do something about this rip off.

From now on, from this day forward, I will continue to buy the gas I need, at rip-off record prices that enable rip-off record profits for the oil companies.

I have to, I have no choice.

But?. I will NEVER, EVER again buy anything from a Gas Station Convenience Store.


Why?

Well, lets say I want to exercise my Market Forces to Force the Markets!

Gas Station Convenience Stores have a Profit Margin of almost 60% on items they sell in these stores from Candy Bars, to Soft Drinks, to Aspirins, to Hot Dogs and Sandwiches.

Financial annalists estimate the Gas Companies make 11% of their Total Profits on Convenience Store sales and that these sales are by far their Highest Profit Margins Sales.

I want to relieve them of the burden of having to count this money and calculate this profit (I?m a nice guy!).

I will not EVER buy ANYTHING, ever again in a Gas Station Convenience Store, in effect doing my part to reduce their record profits.


Please Join Me:

I ask you to exercise Your Market Forces to Force the Markets, to Reduce the Oil Companies outrageous Record Profits: NEVER Again buy anything for Any Gas Station Convenience Store, other then the gas you need.

If we can do this collectively, and ask others to join in I have no doubts this will be effective.

I believe people are tired of being ripped off and having little if anything to do about it.

I believe this is an effective (and peaceful) way to strike back.

Do it!

And please do what you can to spread the word using the Internet. (Societies great communications equalizer.) and word of mouth too.

The more people will take this action the more effective it will be.



God Bless all

Frank

[norcaljr]

That will only hurt the station owner, as most are franchises mot owned by the oil company.

My family used to own a AM-PM (ARCO) station here in Castro Valley, CA. We used to make about .12 cents per gallon, when we sold it in 1993 we were only making around .8 cents per gallon.

The only way I think the oil giants will start to do something about the price, is maybe when a CEO or 2 stand trial for ripping us all off.

[Daless2]

Originally posted by norcaljr
That will only hurt the station owner, as most are franchises mot owned by the oil company.

My family used to own a AM-PM (ARCO) station here in Castro Valley, CA. We used to make about .12 cents per gallon, when we sold it in 1993 we were only making around .8 cents per gallon.

The only way I think the oil giants will start to do something about the price, is maybe when a CEO or 2 stand trial for ripping us all off.

Actually no, that's not true.


While I certainly do not doubt your family ownership/ franchise opertunity, the Large Oil Companies still make 11% of their Total Profit from Store sales.

Being I beleive 11% is a very big number when pertaining to total profit, and 60% is an even bigger number when talking about just store sales, I beleive if you cut this off life changes.


I will never (barring an emergency) buy anything in a gas station convenient store again,

But that's just me, everyone else can decide what they want to do.

Have a great day.

Frank

[BlueJeeper]

Saying that they are enjoying record profits is about the same as saying oil prices are at record highs--it's only true until you put it in context.

Oil prices are not at record highs when adjusted for inflation.

Same as Exxon's profit is not any kind of a record to brag about when you contrast it against their revenues. They have huge 100B revenues--their gross margin is nowhere near the top of all publicly traded companies. Their profits are far from outrageous when you consider their enourmous revenues.

[Daless2]

Originally posted by BlueJeeper

Same as Exxon's profit is not any kind of a record to brag about when you contrast it against their revenues. They have huge 100B revenues--their gross margin is nowhere near the top of all publicly traded companies. Their profits are far from outrageous when you consider their enourmous revenues.

Exxon Mobil 2005 Profits
(As reported by Exxon Mobil in their Annual Report)

Revenue $338.61 Billion Dollars

Gross (Margins) Profits - $157.68 Billion Dollars, that is 46.54%

Gross (margins) profits are the difference between Revenue and the total cost of making a product (or providing a service) BEFORE deducting for Overhead, Payroll, Executive Bonuses, Stock Options, Taxation and Interest Payment.


EBITDA(Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization

EBITDA = 73.82 Billion Dollars, that?s 21.79 %.

Both Gross Profits, and EBITDA as I see it are a little above the S&P 500 EBITDA Average of 10.1 %.



These are the numbers reported by Exxon Mobil in their annual report for 2005 which I just pulled from the Wall Street Journal.

These 2005 Numbers are UP 45% from 2004.

2004 was up 37.6% from 2003

2003 were up 24.2% from 2002.

I can go on but I think the pattern can be seen.

I just want to reduce the Gross (margins) Profit, and EBITDA by the 11% that comes from Store sales, thats all. They'll still make money.

Can you imagine the effect on XOM alone by doing this?

I can. I can do math! (With a calculator!)

Frank

[BlueJeeper]

Yet if you take many financial services S&P components and compare their gross margin on a relative basis to those of ExxonMobil, they blow it away. Take Goldman for example. ExxonMobil is ahead of the average but not leading the pack. I don't understand why ExxonMobil is the focus here other than they are an easy emotional target.

[DanB98TJ]

I think most people have no problem with oil companies making a profit - hell, that's why they're in business, right? My issue with oil companies is they're making record profits when prices are at record levels because they are taking advantage of disasters or shortages, real or fabricated.

[speaceman]

Originally posted by DanB98TJ
I think most people have no problem with oil companies making a profit - hell, that's why they're in business, right? My issue with oil companies is they're making record profits when prices are at record levels because they are taking advantage of disasters or shortages, real or fabricated.

I'm not sure that can really be true or at least not wholly true, since demand for gas is at a high point as well.

[Robert J. Yates]

Some of you folks need to keep your eye on the ball and remember that the oil industry has been signficantly restructured from even 5 years ago.......

Lets start with Econ 101 and ask....what usually happens when 2 companies merge? Answer....the portions of the newly merged entity that are not seen as either core or profitable, are shut down.

Now, lets sit in on PolySci 101 and look at the governments' role in managing the economy and ensuring the safety of the people by making calculated decisions about the infrastructure needed for our daily activities. Here we learn that "they" are to ensure that there is no monoplistic behavior and they are also responsible for developing sound policy in order to promote certain corporate behaviors and investment decisions for the good of the people.

Finally, we end our day at school with some simple protest action out in the courtyard where we voice our collective displeasure with the government in not protecting the 4 spotted 3 tail horny owl toad from corporate greed. We are afterall, exercising our god given right under the first amendment.

Eventually after we graduate, we work for environmentalist lobbies and get laws changed that make it extremely difficult for either the business community to build infrastructure, or the government to permit it.

Others of us go into commodities trading and specifically concentrate on the rather unregulated futures market wherein our decisions are based on un-proven or unstated reserve capacity of that commodity so that nobody really knows what the true nature of the thing we are trading in really is.

Lastly, some of us go into agribusiness selling corn and our business lobbies are really busy protecting our market from outside competition while we get to shove our product down the thoat of consummers as a favor from a President for our help in getting him elected.

Cliff notes to the above: A perfect storm of jacked up prices resultant from a situation wherein government has colluded with producers...... while at the same time is stymied by legally imposed impediments in the permiting of new facilities......while allowing a rather unregulated futures market to exercise its free market tendencies.

Hold on to your ass people....its only going to get worse.

[William]

Looking at the profits they make, I think it is time I opened my own oil buisness.

So, I'm gonna get a shovel, a bucket, and a siphon hose. I figure I'll sell the oil I dig out and siphon as "all natural, 100% organic gasoline, un proccessed, vegetarian". And sell it to the Sierra club, but to others too.

Anyone want to invest in me?

[Daless2]

Originally posted by BlueJeeper
Yet if you take many financial services S&P components and compare their gross margin on a relative basis to those of ExxonMobil, they blow it away. Take Goldman for example. ExxonMobil is ahead of the average but not leading the pack. I don't understand why ExxonMobil is the focus here other than they are an easy emotional target.

Hi BlueJeeper (Sorry I don?t know your name. What is your name?)

My apologies if I appear to be picking on ExxonMobil. I only did the little bit of research on their profitability because you had used them as an example in your post. I do not believe that ExxonMobil is alone responsible for Record Profits while gas cost me Record Dollars. I believe all the major and minor oil companies can be found equally culpable in this.

In the interest for being totally transparent, I am an XOM stockholder.

My position is very much like Dan?s, in that I have no problem with a business making a profit, I do however have a problems with having the public held hostage to a ?commodity? that we have to have, and squeezing every last possible penny of profit out of the pockets of the consumer.

Let me give you an example with a question.

If ExxonMobil (Substitute the name of any oil company you wish here) raised the price over night by 20 cents a gallon would you still buy it? How about if they did it again next week, another 20 cents per gallon?

I suspect you would. (We have, We Have too!)

Why?

Cause you and I need it to get on with our lives. Right or wrong, we are captive to this need and the oil companies know it. I think it is intuitively obvious that they know it and price their product in a way that causes two things to happen, two factual things to happen.

1. They get to make Record Profits. (Is that a true statement? Everyone?s head go in a North South Direction now.)

And

2. The Consumer is paying record amounts per gallon of product. (I think that?s a true statement for me. How about you?)


I appreciate you pointing out that XOM is not the leader of the pack in EBITDA earnings, but in truth I wouldn?t expect them to be when compared to a?Services Business? of any kind. (XOM and Goldman may both be fruit, but one is a tomato and the other a chili pepper.)

Services Companies have virtually no production cost to lower Profit Margins and thus have historically higher EBITDA eranings.

A better comparison would be to compare where XOM lives in regard to EBITDA earning to other Producing companies,

or

Even better still, how ExxonMobil compares to ITSELF just prior to the Iraq war.

(Yes, you have to know I just looked that up!! LOL!)

For 1999, 2000 and 2001 EBITDA earning for Exxon were in line with the S&P 500 average of 10.1%. (Actuals were 10.06%, 10.92% and 10.65%)

Today they are more then double that.

But that aside, here?s the deal.

Profits are good. I own several companies and I make a profit in each of them. Profits help insure a company will be there tomorrow to provide goods and services when needed then too. But Profits that are really ?RECORD? when Prices are REALY Record have a tendency to tick customers off. Especailly if they have no choice but to grin and bare it.

If there were an alternative, customers would run away in droves. But there isn?t, thus customers KNOW they are being ripped off and have to take it.

Maybe that emotionals. Maybe it is just common sense.

In truth, if gas goes up another 20 cents a gallon tomorrow I will still buy it.

Also in truth I can afford it, but don?t like it.

And another truth is there are actually people out there who can?t afford it, and are struggling and want to be able to hit something back, but they can?t.

Therefore I have come up with a plan.

Hit the Oil companies back in the pocket book where you can. (ExxonMobil, and all the rest of them.) Don?t buy anything, every in their convenience stores.

Will it affect the price of gas?

Probably not, but being the buisness man that I am I believe an 11% (or fraction there of) reduction in RECORD Profits sure as heck will hurt the bottom line and stock value and I consider that a plus!

If nothing else, it gives folks an honest, non-violent way to hit back, create some level of discomfort, just as Record Gas Prices are creating some level of discomfort to them.

And if my ExxonMobil stock goes down, Good! Things are suppose to cost you something when you take a stand, else it's nothing more then flapping ones lips.

Perhaps some Market Capitalization will evaporate, let say a few Billion Dollars. I'd be happy! Wouldn't you?

I sincerely hope you have a wonderful night. Tomorrow we can use BP instead of XOM in our examples if you?d like. They have Record Profits while we have Record Prices at the pump too!

And Most Importantly, they have Convenience Stores too!


God Bless,

Frank

[Daless2]

Heck, now that I think about it, I believe just the rumor that Consumers are going to stop buying anything, ever again from gas station convenience stores, (putting that 11% profit at risk) just might be enough to drive the stock value down, erases a few billion in capitalization.

Life is good, Life is simple too!



Frank

[Daless2]

Originally posted by William
Looking at the profits they make, I think it is time I opened my own oil buisness.

So, I'm gonna get a shovel, a bucket, and a siphon hose. I figure I'll sell the oil I dig out and siphon as "all natural, 100% organic gasoline, un proccessed, vegetarian". And sell it to the Sierra club, but to others too.

Anyone want to invest in me?

William,

Aren't you into Soy?

I think we can get some gas there, or at least some bio-diesel.

I'll invest my freind!

Frank

[Iceman]

all the profits free enterprises make should go into my savings account ... and when I visit CA I'll buy you guys a burger and a beverage

[William]

Originally posted by Daless2
William,

Aren't you into Soy?

I think we can get some gas there, or at least some bio-diesel.

I'll invest my freind!

Frank

I've been a little soy shy. When I was in Hong Kong I had some soy that didn't sit well with me.

I tell you what, I made gass out of it alright. But it violated the clean air act, and a few laws of nature as well.

Ever seen the Vanwilder movie? The scene with the guy and the trash can?

It was pretty close. I am reasonably sure that part of my lower intestine was left behind.

[Daless2]

Originally posted by William
I am reasonably sure that part of my lower intestine was left behind.

Ouch!!!!