Posted by
The Crawfish on Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:16:06 AM
Debunking the claims of the left, AGAIN!
The Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) keep bleating about the huuuuuge profits of the eeeevil and greeeeeeedy oil companies. Of course, anybody who actually understands economics and the business world can see that the oil industry only has a 10% profit margin, which is much lower than some other industries that the left never whines about (Microsoft has a profit margin of 23%), and no other industry has special taxes placed upon it by the feds so that the government makes as much profit as the companies without doing any of the work. (Of course, The Messiah is still saying that all of the experts agree with his that proper tire inflation will save us 3% of our total oil usage...these are probably the same experts who say that there's no disputing that all Glo-Bull Warming is man made and will kill us all in the next decade)
The Crawfish has, in his greedy capitalistic hands (he's definitely not rich...he's active duty and enlisted, not an officer) a report from September 2007 called "The Distribution of Ownership of U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Companies" by Dr. Robert J. Shapiro and Dr. Nam D. Pham. Here's the link: http://www.energytomorrow.org/media/resources/r_477.pdf
This report gives an overview of the health of the oil industry and who really owns and profits from them. While the left wants Americans to believe that a few fat cats are the ones who own and profit from Big Oil, this report clearly states that "insiders" (officers and board members of those companies) only own 1.5% of the total shares of these companies, and this holds true throughout the industry. Individual investors account for 29%, mutual funds and companies that have mutual funds have 42.7%, another 18.1% is held by asset management companies that do not have mutual funds, and 8.7% is owned or managed by pension funds, insurance companies, endowments/foundations, banks, and other financial institutions.
The conclusion section (page 12) states that the vast majority of the ownership is by middle-class American households. Here's the kicker....the final paragraph.
"Further, we find that while the oil and natural gas industry has recorded very strong profits for the last three years, this recent record follows more than a decade in which real oil and natural gas prices declined and the industry's profits and returns lagged those of the rest of the economy. In both periods, concerns that company insiders capture a substantial share of those profits are unfounded. The data strongly suggests that most of those profits go to the industry's majority shareholders, who are middle-class U.S. households with mutual fund investments, pension accounts, other personal retirement accounts, and small personal portfolios."
Now, before any liberals try to say that this report was written by the oil companies or right wing Republicans (are there any right wing Republicans left?), here's the bio on Dr. Shapiro from the end of the report. It clearly shows which side of the aisle he's on, so The Swamp considers this report to be, as Fox News would say, "fair and balanced."
Robert J. Shapiro is the co-founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, a private firm that advises U.S. and foreign businesses, governments and non-profit organizations. Dr. Shapiro has advised, among others, U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair; private firms such as AT&T, Amgen, Gilead Sciences, Google, MCI, Inc., Corporation, Nordstjernan of Sweden, and Fujitsu of Japan, and non-profit organizations including the American Public Transportation Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is also Senior Fellow of the Progressive Policy Institute, Senior Policy Fellow of the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy, director of the Globalization Initiative of the NDN, co-chair of American Task Force Argentina, and a director of the Ax:son-Johnson Foundation in Sweden. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Shapiro was U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs. In that position, he directed economic policy for the Department of Commerce and oversaw the nation’s major statistical agencies, including the Census Bureau while it carried out the 2000 decennial census. Prior to that appointment, he was co-founder and vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute and the Progressive Foundation. He also was the principal economic advisor to Governor Bill Clinton in his 1991-1992 presidential campaign and a senior economic advisor to Vice President Albert Gore and Senator John Kerry in their presidential campaigns. Dr. Shapiro also served as Legislative Director for Senator Daniel P. Moynihan and Associate Editor of U.S. News & World Report. He has been a fellow of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and an A.B. from the University of Chicago.
Are there any libs who want to refute this? Bring it on!