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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (1673)	10/8/2000 10:58:51 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

There is nothing innocent about big oil when it has the opportunity to grab power. Excuse me? Did you attend the Joseph Goebbels institute for mass communication? I just provided you the evidence that "big oil" no longer exists except with respect to OPEC and other oil producing nations. They NATIONALIZED THE ASSETS OF THE BIG OIL COMPANIES in the '70s. (that means the Arab governments took their property from them). Now oil companies have to buy their product from these oil producers on the futures markets and pray that the price remains stable enough that they can eek out a profit. The dirty little secret behind Gore's claim that "big oil" profits have risen 300% is that most of them were not extremely profitable in the first place and any upturn equated to a large percentage rise. But it also has to do with the fact that when oil prices were plunging due to the Asian recession and over-production, US oil companies were out there buying up forward contracts for oil to be delivered 12-24 months out. They bought extremely low in order to support the oil markets, and when prices rose they were able to sell that oil at a nice profit. But NOW THEY HAVE A PROBLEM. They are having to buy at higher prices in the face of government attempts to drive prices down. Now they will be in a situation where they will be forced to deliver oil at a lower price than what they paid for it if they didn't adopt proper hedging strategies. As that article from the Washington Post pointed out, profit margins in the oil industry ARE HARDLY EXTRAORDINARY. Certainly not nearly as monopolistic as the 50% margins for MSFT. The Clinton/Gore energy policy has clearly failed... Having to release oil from the SPR is unmistakable evidence of that.