{OT:} Record Profits

Because our economy is based on oil. The price of oil goes up, the price of EVERYTHING goes up. The oil companies should basically be a service.

When the oil companies could meet demand, cover expenses and make a decent profit...not an OBSCENE profit. $40B at this point in time is way too much. And if you don't think there's politics behind it,guess again. If the Democrats get elected, watch out!

How much profit should they be getting? And how did you choose that amount?

Or, what is a decent profit?

XOM has an operating margin of about 18%, which is close the industry average, well run utilities (PPL, First Energy) have slightly higher operating margins (23%), utilities, on average, about 10%, and discount stores like Target and Walmart are around 3 to 10%.

XOM's profit margin was 11.65% (I used operating margin to compare companies, because that was faster to look up).

You keep saying that XOM's profit of $40B was obscene, but they also had huge revenues, in excess of $330B. It is a huge company with various operations in many countries. So, based on this and any other information you can find, how much money should their profit have been and why that amount?

People keep saying that the profit is excessive. No one seems to be able to tell me how much they should be making.

Jeff

=?iso-2022-jp?q?Hachiroku_=1B$B%O%A%m%=2F=1B=28B?= wrote in news:dkyZh.2167$kg1.514@trndny04:

So, what is the "correct" amount of profit?

"Jeff" wrote in news:rVyZh.5662$2V1.4126@trnddc08:

My point precisely. It is impossible to know what the "correct" amount is, other than that the "correct" amount is the one they actually ended up with.

If you want the oil companies' profit to go down, you must correct the political situations that have caused oil prices to go up. I outlined those political situations a few messages ago.