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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (256197)	10/18/2005 5:16:00 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572500

re: I'm no expert on commodities, so was Exxon's actions out of line? Do steel, iron, copper, cocoa, coffee, lumber and other commodity firms hold gross margin dollars constant in times of rising prices, or do all of them maximize their profits? I would imagine the latter. It depends on the competition in those other industries, but yes, in general, when commodities become more precious the manufacturers make more money. In the gasoline business, price fixing, not in the criminal sense, is a way of life, so competition isn't really a factor. re: And, if you think they have some unfair advantage, I also don't understand why one can't just buy Exxon stock and benefit from the supposed "gouging". So you are proposing that the average citizen hedge his cost of gasoline by trading in and out of energy stocks? What are you, nuts? He would probably lose even more money. re: And its hard for me to understand how Exxon is viewed as more of a "gouger" than the great monopoly MSFT. Why does Office, which costs MSFT a few bucks per copy, cost consumers ~$250? That's gouging! Microsoft is a monopolist, remember? They are the gatekeeper, they can charge whatever they want. Listen, are the energy companies making windfall profits, Yes. Are they doing something great and different to earn those profits, NO. Are those profits coming out of the pockets of virtually every US citizen, Yes. Are their increased profits hurting the US economy, Yes. You can call them "gougers", or you can call them "greedy", or you can say they are just woking in the best interests of their stockholders, at the expense of their customers. I really don't care... I was just trying to shut you up, you asked the same question a half dozen times. John