sndsgood wrote:why is it when i just state that oil companies are profiting about the same or less then most other business you make some giat leap and assume i think they should be unregulated?????
your trying to imply things i never wrote or implied or even was thinking. basically all your saying is because its valuble to the U.S. we should be able to pay next to nothing and the oil companies shouldn't make the same percentage of profit as everyeone else. sure they made 3 trillion in profit. but you guys seem to forget at 10% profit that means they spent around 30 trillion dollars to make that.(if your averaging out to 10% profits)
Short Hand wrote:Question here.... do you consider yourself a Christian ? (I am not questioning your devotion or faith.). I just need a simple answer of yes or no.
Short Hand wrote:sndsgood wrote:so oil is only making 12-15% profit +/-. that right there kinda makes me laugh. now 33% is pretty good but not exactly raping you. and as you said, that was just the highest, which means there could be allot of companies down in the 10-15% profit margin, which isnt that tremendous. so many people scream about these companies stealing money when they are just turning a standard profit.
Oil companies have been posting record profits for decades. You can't look at it simply in a perspective of % per dollar. You have to look at the big picture and the BILLIONS of barrels of Oil produced. 15 % profit on billions if not trillions of barrels of oil = $$$$$$. Compare it to the profit margin on other goods such as items at Walmart.. and you see the big picture.
Greedy Capitalist Pig wrote:Short Hand wrote:Question here.... do you consider yourself a Christian ? (I am not questioning your devotion or faith.). I just need a simple answer of yes or no.
I can't wait to hear where you're going with this, although I have an idea.
Short Hand wrote:sndsgood wrote:so oil is only making 12-15% profit +/-. that right there kinda makes me laugh. now 33% is pretty good but not exactly raping you. and as you said, that was just the highest, which means there could be allot of companies down in the 10-15% profit margin, which isnt that tremendous. so many people scream about these companies stealing money when they are just turning a standard profit.
Oil companies have been posting record profits for decades. You can't look at it simply in a perspective of % per dollar. You have to look at the big picture and the BILLIONS of barrels of Oil produced. 15 % profit on billions if not trillions of barrels of oil = $$$$$$. Compare it to the profit margin on other goods such as items at Walmart.. and you see the big picture.
Spoken like a true socialist.
You can, and should look at the net profit margin as a percentage, and as I showed above, it's single digits, not 15%. Why is margin percentage important? Because people invest for a return as a percentage. If profits were squeezed to 1-2%, the risk would be too great to invest in, especially with today's volotile prices. But I'm sure you'd rather see the investors want to back out, so that the companies could collapse. They don't deserve to make billions of dollars on trillions of dollars invested.
Your view can be summed up in one simple word: jealousy.
Short Hand wrote:BUT as always you prefer the rights of a big corporation over your fellow citizens. You must have this feeling that their prosperity is going to trickle down off their ass crack and go to you .... ?.
Greedy Capitalist Pig wrote:Short Hand wrote:BUT as always you prefer the rights of a big corporation over your fellow citizens. You must have this feeling that their prosperity is going to trickle down off their ass crack and go to you .... ?.
See, this is where you have me, and most other capitalists all wrong.
I believe everyone should have the freedom to take the risks, and reap the rewards that they yield. It is not the right of anyone to have someone else's fortune spread out to them. And it sure as hell is not the right of the government to decide to take from one group to give to another.
And to your point about us being able to afford more if they spread some of that money around, think about this logically. Seriously, at 7.6% net profit, if you took all of that away from them and made them sell the gas with zero net profit, you're talking about saving everyone a few cents per gallon. The average person drives 10-12 thousand miles a year. At an average MPG (throwing this out there, I'm not sure of the actual number) of say, 15 MPG on the low side, that means their using maybe 700-800 gallons of gas per year. If the gas prices for a year averaged $2.50, which they could this year, that would mean a savings of maybe $100 per year, or more simply, just under $2 per week, and that's on a low MPG estimate. Do you really think this would mean people could "spend that money elsewhere.. say HEALTH INSURANCE........ Or buying goods from another industry"? Come on. You're missing the big picture because of the big numbers being thrown around.
Short Hand wrote:Your twisting the numbers here, you do realize how much 1 % is when it comes to an oil company don't you ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-exxon.html
11.7 billion from Mobil alone....... I am pretty sure the company would not go tits up if it say only made a profit of 2 billion instead....
Short Hand wrote:
Your twisting the numbers here, you do realize how much 1 % is when it comes to an oil company don't you ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-exxon.html
11.7 billion from Mobil alone....... I am pretty sure the company would not go tits up if it say only made a profit of 2 billion instead....
sndsgood wrote:shorthand, do you really need a tv. i think its greedy of you to have a tv when i dont. i think its unfair that you work every day and have enough money left over to buy a tv. that is so greedy of you. does that make sence? thats kinda what your saying, you feel you have the right to tell the oil companies how much they can profit. no diffrent them me telling you that i dont care if you work 2 or 3 jobs and bust your ass and make money.
image you work 30 hours a week and say take home 1000$ a week, now imagine working 40 hours and only making $1000 a week. does that make sence? would you work 40 hours if you new you could just work 30 hours and get the same amount of cash???????
now take your oil companies. they spend trillions of their own money, in the hopes of making 10% profit. now if we take your stance, you feel that they should only get say 2% of that profit. now what would you do as the oil company. would you keep working as hard as you were to make that 10% and then have the goverment take 8% away. or would do like you would at your job, just only work enough so that you only make 2% profit. problaby cutting the worlds oil supply by a good amount, causing prices to rise and a possible oil shortage?
do i think an oil company really needs to make 10% profits, sure i do. no diffrent then a guy down the street, do i feel he should have a tv in every room of his house. hey if he has the money then more power to him. you say you want them to give their profit from their work to you so you can go out and spend on another companies, like a companie like microsoft that has profits in the 25% range. that seems odd. i still can't wrap my head around the fact you feel a company that profits 10% is worse then a company that profits 25% the amount of money is irrelevent. but you can't seem to get away from that.
Quote:
On topic though. You can be accepted for insurance even if you are in bad shape. I had an uncle pass a few months ago that ran out of coverage because he had been out of work so long with cancer issues. Another company did accept him knowing what was happening to him. It does happen. One of his doctors was from another country that had a socialized health system and even told him that if he had been in that country he would not have received half the care that he did.
Listening to Obama speak and what he wants to do with some of the tests that are performed just kind of scares me a bit. With some of what he wants to do it will leave the door wide open to malparctice suits because a test was not performed that could have found something. He even said in one interview that some tests need to be eliminated even if they do help 1 of of every 100 people. What do you think is going to happen when that 1 person does not get that test and ends up severly ill or dies? Yes there is a lot of wasted tests but they have to be done as a CYA, otherwise in this sue happy society you risk winding up in court.
Short Hand wrote:(AND GCP/QUickLilCav.. give me a break on insulting the WHO.. it has the finest medical minds in the world involved.. I highly doubt you have the qualification to insult such a group or judge its efficiency. )
Greedy Capitalist Pig wrote:Since when does he need qualifications to ask you what YOUR qualifications are? Apparently they must be sufficient that you are some how qualified to judge the WHO's rating system...Short Hand wrote:(AND GCP/QUickLilCav.. give me a break on insulting the WHO.. it has the finest medical minds in the world involved.. I highly doubt you have the qualification to insult such a group or judge its efficiency. )
First, I never insulted the WHO, I argued the premise of their ratings system, and I stand by it.
Now, if you want to start calling me out on my qualifications, back up your qualifications to judge me on it.
Quote:There is more to that article that I didn't copy
Driven to despair by skyrocketing insurance premiums and malpractice woes, US physicians are marching in the streets for tort reform. They're demanding federal legislation that, for starters, would limit noneconomic damages in malpractice suits to $250,000.
Some legal experts, however, say America should look beyond its borders for a more drastic solution. So what can we learn from how the rest of the world handles malpractice cases?
Stunned by huge awards handed out by juries? In Canada, judges try the vast majority of malpractice cases.
Outraged by the contingency fees of plaintiffs' attorneys that gobble up one-third or more of court-awarded damages? Germany bans them, while the United Kingdom limits a victorious plaintiff's attorney to twice his customary fee.
Skeptical of dueling expert witnesses? German judges appoint their own neutral experts.
Sick and tired of litigation, period? In New Zealand, malpractice cases bypass the courthouse. They're adjudicated through a no-fault system run by the government.
To be sure, foreign legal systems may not hold the key to resolving the US malpractice insurance crisis. Some experts argue that steep premiums stem more from the business cycles of malpractice carriers and the financial fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks than from frivolous suits and swollen jury verdicts. And the approaches that other countries take don't always produce the results you'd expect. Nevertheless, the way the rest of the world treats malpractice claims challenges long-held assumptions about the American justice system.
bk3k wrote:Since when does he need qualifications to ask you what YOUR qualifications are? Apparently they must be sufficient that you are some how qualified to judge the WHO's rating system...
bk3k wrote:As per your explanation of our worse health, how do you explain things like infant mortality rates and such?! Are our infants eating too much McNipple? I don't think so. Our lifestyles - while they contribute greatly to the matter - are not the whole picture. The notion that we have the world's best health care over any other nation - that is propaganda plain and simple. It just isn't true.
bk3k wrote:In a partially related matter though - here are some good malpractice reform ideas I found while searching for something else(that I forgot to bookmark and never found in the end).