Software Engineer ranked #1 as Best Job in America........

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat I just saw on the news where the retiring Exxon CEO got a $400 Million retirement package. Can we elect any politicians that can stop this insanity?

I think he's retiring to BE a politician.* Maybe he's discovered that he can earn more in "campaign contributions" than he can in "salary" or "pension".* Or else he's worried that Exxon is going to slice away his medical benefits over the next few years and he wants Congress' healthcare plan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat How have your computer expenses vs. your gasoline expenses over the last 15 years compared?

Well, let's see.* I waited for the computer to boot up this morning (I only use 32 of its 64 bits), downloaded the latest "extremely urgent crisis fire explosive hazard" updates, coped with Internet Exploder, and noted that there are easily another couple dozen man-hours of adjustments & fixes that I could tweak to turn this into a usable machine.* Oh, yeah, and do a set of backups before anything in there catches fire or eats its way out of the box.* Then I can go shopping for cheap RAM & graphics cards, 'cuz apparently those have to be separate items to make more room on the CPU for those 32 bits that I'm not using.

Then I went to the gas station, turned in my credit card, filled my tank, and drove.* I didn't have to reboot, fix, update, install, remove, reconfigure, defrag, backup, clean, clear, or reset anything.* I did have to remember to screw the gas cap back in.

If oil companies are making so much filthy stinkin' money, then why do they have a P/E lower than computer companies?* They're priced like commodities, not techs.

[wildcat]

C-T -

What is your proposed solution?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Wasnt it not that long ago that the oil co's were losing money or barely breaking even?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildcat C-T - What is your proposed solution?

Break up the U.S. Cartel and enforce the rule brought against Standard Oil in 1911. The record price gouging of last year was criminal.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

So, buy their stocks.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Most of us do. #1 holding in the S&P 500, the TSM, any Energy fund, and many other active and passive funds.

[Cool Dood]

They should really teach basic economics in elementary school

[samclem]

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Well, I had been driving for quite a few years by then. I am not sure what you mean "they helped fix things' the only thing that was done was done by the oil companies. - Nixon enacted Wage and Price controls in 1972. The Arabs created the oil embargo.
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The Arabs did create the embargo, but Washington did a lot to create the gas lines.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_energy_crisis

" The crisis was further exacerbated by government price controls in the United States, which limited the price of "old oil" (that already discovered) while allowing newly discovered oil to be sold at a higher price, resulting in a withdrawal of old oil from the market and artificial scarcity. The rule had been intended to promote oil exploration. This scarcity was dealt with by rationing of gasoline (which occurred in many countries), with motorists facing long lines at gas stations."

The price controls exacerbated the scarcity. Same thing happened after Katrina, when there was less oil and gasoline (due to oil processing being shut down on the coast). Localities that enacted price caps (to prevent "gouging" i.e. pretend that the laws of supply and demand don't apply) had no gasoline, while other places had enough.