Super-rich oil companies offered nothing to automakers

Not odd at all. Brilliant. If people aren't buying new cars they are driving old cars. What uses more gas and oil, a new car or an old one?

This "hate the rich" mentality is getting old. Did you ever get a paycheck from a poor person?

I don't see where "hate the rich" enters into it. Actually, Rich raises an interesting point. (Mildly interesting.)

The oil companies may not make all of their money supplying the automotive thirst, but that has to be the huge majority of it. The oil industry soared as collateral to the rise of the automobile. The two industries are fully interdependent. It may well be in Exxon's interest to loan some of their profit to GM, but I doubt that Exxon would see it that way.

If anything, the oil industry has to be looking ahead to the day when the internal combustion engine becomes irrelevant and the demand for oil grows less and less. Like tobacco, they will probably shift focus to the Third World, where change comes more slowly, trying to milk whatever profit it can for as long as it can.

Automakers can move on without the oil industry, shifting to electric or hybrids, or developing clean-coal-burning engines (I thought for sure we'd have nuclear by now). Exxon isn't about to underwrite a move away from oil, nor is it about to reward the automakers for what has happened in the past.

And, to address Rich's point, if the oil companies WERE to loan money to the automakers, they would probably first target those cars that get the worst gas mileage (Hummer?), and refuse to help those that are getting the best. And if they help one, they'd have to help them all, from the U.S. to China. Even Exxon's profits weren't THAT big.

Just some random thoughts.

dwight

This is what Obama preaches half the time he is on television. Somehow successful people are now money grubbing scumbags that got what they have by stealing it from the poor and middle class. Most all successful people I know personally got their money by sacrificing, working 80 hour weeks for years and hardly ever taking a vacation. They also risked most of their life savings at some point to be successful.

While Rich may not be specifically targeting a rich person he is just promoting this "Robin Hood" theme of taking from those that have and giving it to those that don't have. Even if those that don't have don't deserve it.

I don't think that the oil industry will be impacted at all by the demise of GM, Chrysler and/or Ford. The reason is that everyone that is driving a car today will continue to drive a car tomorrow. The only difference is the next car they drive will be an import if the Big three go under. The oil companies are in a secure position for the foreseeable future, IMO.

As cars move away from using petroleum my guess is the demand from other developing countries will start to pick up the slack. I think oil demand will flat line as this transition occurs. It will be governments like Venezuela, Mexico, Iran that suffer the most from this transition. They need ever increasing oil revenue to keep there economic engine running. I think the domestic oil companies will adjust and get themselves into other energy resources. Also, with all the oil they buy from others it will take a long time before their actual internal production operations will see a reduction, if they ever do.

As for tobacco, they are doing a booming business in foreign countries. Especially, China. I doubt they need much of a US market anymore. Especially considering all the hassles they get from lawsuits.

The automakers have always been a reactionary industry and this is especially true since the early 1970s in regard to oil prices. I don't see that much of a collaboration between the oil and automobile industries. They both function in a manner that will increase their profits. I think they both keep each other in check by adjusting their prices and products according to market demand. If we ever get a decent battery developed then this will fundamentally change their basic relationship but then look for the oil companies to counter with some product to keep their revenue up.

One energy source I think the oil companies will eventually move to exploit in a big way is methane hydrate. It is more plentiful then oil, burns clean and they can use the existing delivery infrastructure that oil uses. Since methane hydrate is on the sea floor getting it would use much of the technology that oil companies have developed for deep sea drilling. Also, the current crop of internal combustion engines can be modified to burn it like they can do with propane.

I think a collaboration between oil and automakers can't work just for the reason you gave. Their interests are not compatible unless they can exploit a monopoly on sales of automobiles. There are too many foreign automakers for this to occur. What most people fail to realize is that the government makes more money from a barrel of oil than the oil companies. Sometime far more money. We will bash the oil companies for making a profit but give the government a pass. Now how f'ed up is that?

.... and good ones at that.

While many think the two sets of companies are in bed together everything I've learned indicates they don't get along well with each other. Big oil doesn't want to bother making the fuels the automotive companies want while the automotive companies would likely build cars that ran on water, dark energy, solar, wind, anything else if they could and they would sell.

This is how it has increasingly been since the 1930s. (to some degree before, but FDR really got the ball rolling) It's not the merits that matter but how well one can use government to better himself and hurt his competition. The result of that is that the USA is increasingly fascist (merger of corporations and government definition) as well.

Rothbard and Basstiat as well as others covered this. There are two ways to wealth, one can earn it through productive means or take it through the political means.

Everytime I think of starting a business I realize that I'll be crushed with one government regulatory body or another. The best way to riches is simply to find a business on the cutting edge somewhere before it's on anyone's radar and then get out before the regulation comes in.

BTW, you might find

Obama is also using the "bash the rich" rhetoric as a diversion for his plans to tax the hell out of everyone else. While everyone is cheering him on about taxing the rich into the middle class, he is busy passing Cap-in-Trade, nationalizing health care, jettisoning his promised middle class tax cut etc that will yank TRILLIONS of dollars from EVERYONES wallets for generations to come. By the time his lemmings figure out the game he is playing it might be too late to keep him from ruining this country and especially our currency. He can't come close to paying for all this bullshit he is proposing even if he taxed the wealthy 100% so who is left to tax? It is the poor and middle class.

....... or steal it. ;)

It depends on the business. I am self employed but it took getting rid of my employees to really enjoy it. IMO, the real burden government puts on most small businesses is they make it too difficult and painful to have employees. If he ever gets heath care nationalized watch what it does to small businesses and how many jobs it will eliminate. Obama has been nothing but poison to this country since he was sworn into office.

I'll check it out.

Michael Johnson wrote in news:gt094d$22j$ snipped-for-privacy@news.motzarella.org:

Jeez, Michael.

You know me, Joe. I call it as I see it. ;)

Michael Johnson wrote in news:gt0u41$id0$1 @news.motzarella.org:

somewhere

regulation

difficult

Heh - all too true.

You know, being on the "short" side, I have no problem with nationalization, as I'll always be a recipient rather than a contributor. ;)

But therein lies the problem with socialism. The definition of who is on the long side will keep changing as the government runs out of what they consider wealthy people today. Eventually, EVERYONE will be on the long side. Then when there are no more people to tax, what you "receive" will start to get rationed. For example, you or a family member might need a medical procedure and the government will decide for you that your definition of "need" and their definition of "need" aren't the same. Or they may start to decide that some people are just too old to get treated for cancer, heart bypass surgery etc. Margret Thatcher is a great lady and leader. When asked her thoughts on socialism she replied, "Socialism is just fine until you run out of other people's money." Truer words have never been said.

Anyone with kids should be retching in horror over what Obama is proposing. It is our children who are going to be shackled paying for all this reckless spending. Obama is planning to take the national debt from where it stands today at around $160,000 per person to over $400,000 per person at the end of his second term with it accelerating beyond that point. This simply cannot be sustained and it will destroy the value of out currency. Some people say we shouldn't wish Obama to fail. I say we can't afford to have him succeed. Anyone that complained about Goerge Bush's budgets should be horrified with Obama's budgets. Obama is proposing more deficit spend in just his 2009 annual budget than Bush saw in all his budgets COMBINED during his two terms. Bush's budgets even included 9-11 and fighting two wars!

True. But the elements of facism that we live under also play a role.

It is rationed from day one. That's the point of it. The power goes to the state. Instead of new equipment being purchased because it will make money in the long run, new equipment isn't purchased because it's a cost. That's why one can get a MRI in the US quickly but wait months in countries with socialized medicine.

It all too often comes back to eugenics. (note, that eugenics lives on today, they just changed names after WW2)

government prints money until it has taken everything from all those not connected to the state.

If were only that. Money is not enough for the state and those attached to it.

Boobus americanus still hasn't grasped that it's two-headed one party rule. When it does, all hell is going to break loose one way or another.

PS. want to see an obama supporter irrational and angry at you? Go through all the bush policies that continue, grow, and/or have been enhanced. (which from what I can see, is all of them) Most people are too emotionally invested in their 'team' to ever see that all we are getting is more of the same.