OT: Our Economy (US)

[Wardad]

Yea, Well... I thought it was simplistic too.

My wife has always bought Texaco, and to please her I buy it too. Now that Mobil bought them out it's time to reconsider. I might buy Citgo from now on.

Ok, some OIL companies are intergrated operations and have mideast holdings etc... or just can't avoid mideast oil. These companies have regular oil shipments to their refineries.

Some companies like Armanda Hess are smaller and do buisness elsewhere. Psst.. they also had a great P/E of 5 Last year, with a decent dividend, and healthy 3 yr grotwth rate. Damn, I wish I bought their stock.

Other independant refineries and stations buy on the spot market or contract for whatever is available. So they could be selling mideast oil and oil products if the big companies can't move it.

Also in Texas years ago because of Gov regulation the local crude would get higher prices than the imported crude. So some oil brokers just forged paper work and made a bundle.
So I don't believe everything the oil companies report to the DOE. If we make an issue about mideast oil, we will get lied to and have to pay extra for the lip service.

I remember the Valdez disaster when nearly everyone stop buying Exxon. It really hurt the Exxon station owner/operators, but had little effect on Exxon corporate income. BUT... I still do not buy Exxon and I still feel good about it.

So maybe boycotting outlets for mideast oil won't do much, but I'll feel a little better when I'm pumping gas.


P.S. I do not expect gas to go to $3.00 a gallon in the US anytime soon. I also did not expect 9/11 or the new Israel/Palistenian war either.


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Damn, Want to buy yesterdays tech stocks? Please?

[Wardad]

NOT PC!!! SENSE OF HUMOR REQUIRED:

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and
retire on the income.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your
brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption
for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority
shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option
on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The
public buys your bull.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You
are surprised when the cow drops dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times
the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month , and milk themselves.

A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.

A HINDU CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest
the newsman who reported the numbers.

A TEXAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute...

[Growltigga]

Like it except for the reference to British companies

[Cyrien]

That is funny. I especially like the Last one.

Note where I am posting from.

[tesco samoa]

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in modern business, because of the heavy investment factors to be taken into consideration, often other strategies have to be tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Appointing an intervention team to reanimate the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase the riders load share.
9. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
10. Changing the form so that it reads: "This horse is not dead."
11. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Donating the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost.
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Doing a time management study to see if the lighter riders would improve productivity.
16. Purchasing an after-market product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declaring that a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better.
18. Forming a quality focus group to find profitable uses for dead horses.
19. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for horses.

and if all else fails:

20. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

[wr8th]

quote:

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Originally posted by tesco samoa:


and if all else fails:

20. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

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Now how many of us have seen the "Peter Principle +1" in action?:

Promoting a dead horse to one level above his incompetence.

[oleg]

Back to capitalism jokes: politicaly correct capitalism:
You have two cows. You got sued for $1000000000 for sexualy harrasing them. You did fondle their breasts, did't you ?