What is the maximum profits are oil companies allow to make?

Question

Or what limit should there be on your pay check?

Same question really people don't like all the profits oil companies are allow to make.

So shouldn't all income be limited?

Another way to look at this if oil companies start losing money should be we be tax so they keep their profit margins up?

Answer 1

It isn't that oil companies' profits should be "limited," but there are laws against taking advantage of certain situations.  After natural disasters, such as Katrina, some people try to take advantage of the situation by charging exorbitant prices for things like water.  That is called "price-gouging" and is against the law.  How is that any different than oil companies taking advantage of the current volatile situation to charge exorbitant prices for gasoline?  

Further, in comparing corporate profits to private income, you are comparing two very different things.  In the first place, income is not the same thing as profit.  It is the profits that the oil companies are making, i.e., the difference between their income and their outgo, that has people riled up.  And the tax breaks you refer to do not keep prices down, they keep profits up.  

Look, I work for an oil company, the one that just posted nearly 12 billion dollars in profit -- again, not income, profit -- in the last quarter.  If my company only makes six billion in a quarter, or even one billion, that's still a lot of money, and it won't make an iota of difference in my paycheck.  The people who benefit when profits are so high are the top executives (our recently-retired CEO got a 400-million-dollar retirement package) and big investors.  Meanwhile, you and I pay high prices for everything related to oil (Yes, I pay the same price you do).  

Answer 2

We already are.  They get federal subsidies for a bunch of things, profit or no profit.

Answer 3

this is a ridiculous question. go to college (or high school) take a class in US government and a class in economics. better to waste your time than mine writing an answer to this question.

Answer 4

The truth about Exxon/Mobile

Exxon Mobil, in fact, is owned mostly by ordinary Americans. Mutual funds, index funds and pension funds (including union pension funds) own about 52 percent of Exxon Mobil’s shares. Individual shareholders, about two million or so, own almost all the rest. The pooh-bahs who run Exxon own less than 1 percent of the company.

When Exxon Mobil earns almost $12 billion in a quarter, or $41 billion in a year, as it did in 2007, that money does not go into the coffers of a few billionaire executives quaffing Champagne in Texas. It goes into the pension and retirement accounts of ordinary citizens. When Exxon pays a dividend, that money goes to pay for the mortgages and oxygen tanks and in-home care of lots of elderly Americans

I did not write this but I have done the same research.

Answer 5

Once we become a socialist country these problems will all be over. Vote Obama and the democrats to make that happen. Freedom isn't really that great anyway. Look how happy the people are in Russia. They don't even have to work. Just stand in the bread lines.

Answer 6

No, there shouldn't be a limit on income.  What a ridiculous idea.

Answer 7

There is no limit to the profits an oil company, or any other company, can make in a free market. It's been the focus of late because of the Idiot Obama (and before him, Hillary) acting like this is wrong, for a business to profit.

No one b*****s about the phone companies or Google or Yahoo and all the billions they make. It's just that people are up at arms and blame the oil companies for the price of oil, which is just more proof that the American public has no clue about economics, supply and demand, etc.

This is not Soviet Russia so no, not all income should be banned. Do you want your income limited, regardless how hard you work? Do you want the government involved in your business and to tell you when you have to stop making a profit because you will upset someone who has no ambition, education or future?

Give me a break.

I hope you're joking with this post. That's how ridiculous it is.

Answer 8

We are capitalists....there are no limits. We do have a check and balance system to protect the consumer and the economy....usually this is oversight....so as to not allow monopoly and price gouging. That oversight is laughable at best because most of the politicians on the various committees are in the companies pockets.

Exxon Mobil is posting record profits....I beleive they had a 34 billion dollar year.....yet a congressional panel could not find any evidence of price gouging. Hopefully one day we will not need them......

Answer 9

I think 1p  profit because they sell loads. If I owned an oil company that would be all I would ever want and ask for.

Answer 10

i just farted and there is nothing you can do about it

Answer 11

No maximums.  Trying to control industries is what has caused governments to get into trouble.  Something wrong will happen from this.  Either companies will raise prices to make up the difference in lost profit or they'll cut jobs or they'll even find ways to get around it.  Regulation is not the way to go.  Investing in alternate energy is, and is better than depending on oil or trying-without hurting the economy (which will occur if we regulate high amounts)- to regulate profits- max amount of those.,