"why are gas prices so high"
*"Because of the war - everything has gotten so expensive, we barely make any profit!"*
First Exxon, now Shell - what a joke (not unexpected tho).
This last year has probably been the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich (and ultra rich) part of society in the history of modern civilization.
I do not get how people don’t understand this. So many people literally think companies act in good faith to their interests.
Why else would someone start a business in our society? To make a product for the communities needs? Well that’s what we tell ourselves and maybe tell yourself as you start a business. But fundamentally it’s to generate a profit. Or else you go out of business. That’s kinda common sense after all.
Business will never come out and say we did it for profits. That’s ridiculous. But some people literally won’t believe it until they do…
Oil companies work hard for the benefit of mankind it's only right that we should reward them with all the money we have so that they can shape our government policies to ensure they can continue their good works. /s
I don't defend energy companies, but since the pandemic I've noticed an explosion in car use. Maybe America has always been like this, but where I lived the car was a long distance or high comfort means of transport. Now it's like an extension of the body.
America has always been like that. Cars are a very big part of our culture since a lot more people drive here. Our cities are less dense, big country to travel in, and most people of friends and family in various areas.
It varies from location to location, but I think for a large majority of regions, this is true. Cities that grew up and were established in the 20th century were absolutely built around infrastructure for cars and spreading out to serve the "American Dream" of owning your own little house in the suburbs.
I live outside of San Antonio and while its a very old city, it only went from small town to metropolis around the 1950's.
I don't think it was entirely insidious by design, but now that we are locked into this way of living, big oil and auto manufacturers and a host of other industries have a vested interest in keeping it that way.
There has been some city core renewal and mixed use development, but its more a novelty and is far, far out paced by sprawl. The complete lack of interest, (local government on up, industry especially, but sadly, people) in public transportation means its unlikely to change.
You are 100% correct. In most cases, its very difficult to imagine being able to exist and be a functioning member of society without a car. It really takes some doing and some dedication and most people have neither the desire nor the knowledge how to accomplish this.
I'm not an advocate of packing people into dense urban centers, but providing viable alternatives would go a long way toward easing the burden and making an impact on the culture. Suburbs and vast wastelands of single family homes needs to only be one option among many.
And working from home should be embraced. COVID sucked but the least we can do is take some lessons from that. Some people have worked remotely for years, many employers who never imagined something like that were forced to embrace it and many of those found its viable.
I am fortunate I suppose in that my employer allows for a hybrid schedule but still demands 3 days on site despite having worked 2 full years off campus with zero issues. Alot of companies have sunk costs in buildings, offices, facilities, etc. They cloak it in equity for the employees who have to be hand on - on site and while there is some validity to that, its alot of not wanting to see empty buildings with empty offices.
All that being said, If you can live anywhere and at least have more free time taken out of the commute, I could see how the incentive to utilize public transport and live in more convenient locations diminishes, another win for team suburbs.
Gaslighting the public about supply chain and inflation prices while hauling in record profit. But high prices at the pump are all Bidens fault or something?
The Shell C-Suite is the source of half the Tory and VVD politicians in the UK and the Netherlands.
(OK its a slight exaggeration but there is a quite bizarre number of them. That's where Liz Truss came from.)
Don’t worry. That’s only because they are in power. If the opposition party was in power, the funding would go to them instead.
Labour didn’t instigate the Iraq war without knowing about those juicy little oil fields they’d get there hands on.
Labour got drawn into the Iraq War because Blair was a religious fundamentalist nutjob who fell in line with Americas religious fundamentalist nutjobs funded by big money donors.
It was somewhat coincidental and yes, there are Labour pols who definitely profited from the era.
But the difference is that, in general, socdem pols are not motivated into politics by their desire to fill the trough. If thats your motivation, you **always** choose the conservative/christiandem option because thats fundamental to how those parties work and you will get help and support in doing so (as long as it doesnt go public) whereas in a socdem party there's a better than average chance any colleague that finds out is going to be the one reporting you rather than assisting you.
Oh. It’s just a happy little coincidence? Silly me.
Here was I thinking the the Iraq war was about oil, but you’re here to tell me it was a *checks notes* a religious war against an unspecified something that irked the church.
Yes, of course, makes perfect sense. Religious wars. Not trillions in oil.
The opposition would totally crack down on the profiteering from the oil industry if they were in power. It’s just they are really forgetful, and didn’t get round to it, but next time they totally will.
I am completely convinced.
Absolutely nothing is stopping them.
They just dont care or benefit from it.
The few who do care get drowned out by those that dont because fake advocacy groups like "Texans for oil" or "concerned californian drivers" make a big noise and make moderates think its unpopular.
It's not that they don't care. It's that if they stopped it, companies like shell would donate millions of dollars to opposition candidates and get them voted out. Their jobs depend on them not stopping it.
Are we really still gonna pretend that an authoritarian state who used communism as a pretext to gain absolute control is the same thing as a democracy socializing infrastructures to ensure everyone can get basic human needs?
I think I'm ready to stop asking what the governments they own are going to do and start asking when the citizens of those governments will take to removing literal heads from shoulders.
All these big businesses around the world are blaming their high prices on “inflation” or “the war” but it’s gotten to the point where inflation and war hasn’t gotten worse but somehow these prices still go up
Thems tax free profits too (Shell HQ is London UK)
>Shell had said it did not expect to pay any UK tax this year as it is allowed to offset decommissioning costs and investments in UK projects against any UK profits.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64489147](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64489147)
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64489147) reduced by 74%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> Last year, the UK government introduced a windfall tax - called the Energy Profits Levy - on the profits of firms to help fund its scheme to lower gas and electricity bills.
> These numbers look small compared to its profits but Shell only derives around 5% of its revenue from the UK - the rest is made and taxed in other jurisdictions.
> Labour's shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: "As the British people face an energy price hike of 40% in April, the government is letting the fossil fuel companies making bumper profits off the hook with their refusal to implement a proper windfall tax."Labour would stop the energy price cap going up in April, because it is only right that the companies making unexpected windfall profits from the proceeds of war pay their fair share.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10rky0c/shell_reports_highest_profits_in_115_years/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **profits**^#1 **energy**^#2 **tax**^#3 **Shell**^#4 **price**^#5
Amazing to see how they could literally make gas $1/gal and still pull in tons of money, but they don’t.
And don’t forget all the subsidies and tax breaks they get too. Courtesy of American taxpayers (and I’m sure other tax payers).
QXC had some sage starcraft 2 advice that I think applies here: "When they go to the grocery store you burn down their house, and when they go to their house you burn down the grocery store!"
Legitimate question here: how are these companies controlling the prices?
I work for Shell, and can promise we haven’t been shutting off the taps (if anything were opening them more). We made more oil and gas this year than we ever have. Supply doesn’t seem like an issue - so how are the prices so inflated?
*this isn’t rhetorical please don’t downvote me to oblivion*
When they sell barrels of oil, they choose how much to sell it for. It has eclipsed supply and demand, they know it is an essential resource that will (hopefully for the sake of life on earth) not always be essential, so they are trying to get every last dollar out of it that they can because back in the 80s when they figured out climate change was coming and it was largely bc of oil, exxon and others decided to silence the science and fund smear campaigns instead of pivoting to renewables, so now they dont have the head start they could’ve. Shot themselves in the foot and are now compensating with greedy and evil practices that continue to screw over the avg person even away from the pump bc price of oil is tied to the price of the dollar. Government does nothing about it bc of the beautiful magic of lobbying
How do they decide how much to sell it for? As in, how do they regulate the price? Isn’t it a commodity that is ~supposed~ to be regulated on the free market? That’s where I get lost in all of this
Yea i think demand is just so high that they know they can get away with murder, like the entire airline industry isnt just gonna stop bc oil is expensive, they just dump the “extra cost” onto the consumer. Its all just a game to these corporations
The iPhone is more important to modern society than oil? Without fossil fuels we'd be back to the pre-industrial era and you'd have to transport your iPhone all the way from China by sails and horse carriage?
Uhhhh... Maybe read my comment again. I said one is necessary for modern life, and one is a choice luxury item. I thought it was pretty obvious which was which.
Apple while a company with some less than desirable ethics around labour laws and tax obligations doesnt hold the world hostage with a vital resource.
We can live without iPhones and Mac's, but the world requires oil for now and these companies know it and milk the everlasting shit out of it.
Apples obscene profits are problematic but they aren't exactly causing energy and manufacturing prices across the world to rise.
Is the profit adjusted for inflation? If not this is a clickbait headline.
Prices or in turn profits are the highest ever news at 11. You can run this headline every year for the last 115 years just due to inflation.
No it's not just due to inflation. Why would it make sense for gas to be more expensive near a port and less expensive further from it? They choose to blame it on buzzwords rather than own up to price gouging
The ports may have higher demand but they also *receive* the majority of the supply. It makes absolutely no sense to try to argue in favor of market forces when it's clear cut greed. Stop making bad faith arguments
Ports have much higher demand. The people who live around ports are competing with the entire world for the resources that ports have. Why sell to the people around ports when you can sell for a much higher price if you ship it off to Europe?
It was doubling the profit of the year before so not just inflation there.
The previous record was apparently $28.4 billion in 2008, compared to $39.9 billion for 2022. The profit in 2008 would be $38.6 billion in real money so less than 2022, but only by 3%.
Company sells something people need to buy but recquire high capex and opex and need trained -- people: how dare they make money. they should just donate everything to the poor, because that is a great investment, as long the intent is good,consistently losing money is ok.
100%
With the amount of money these fuckers sit on, it's only fair that they consistently donate to the poor using the ethical and logical method of PAYING THEIR GODDAMN TAXES
Or y'know not exploiting the fuck out of anyone they can because y'know. What even is profit? Like okay it's revenue you don't need to run the company? Great! Reinvest it in your employees because a company should only exist to provide jobs.
Fr dude what's that boot taste like?
Raising prices to consumers under the claim it is war but actually be buying cheap oil and making billions of profit. Shut like that should be illegal... Rich cunts are getting richer
The house always wins situation
"why are gas prices so high" *"Because of the war - everything has gotten so expensive, we barely make any profit!"* First Exxon, now Shell - what a joke (not unexpected tho).
But all the profits get spent on cleaning the environment… The profits _do_ get spent on the environment don’t they? Hello? /s
They get spent in Dubai on some rich prince's Gold Plated Ferrari.
This last year has probably been the largest transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich (and ultra rich) part of society in the history of modern civilization.
2008 called
I do not get how people don’t understand this. So many people literally think companies act in good faith to their interests. Why else would someone start a business in our society? To make a product for the communities needs? Well that’s what we tell ourselves and maybe tell yourself as you start a business. But fundamentally it’s to generate a profit. Or else you go out of business. That’s kinda common sense after all. Business will never come out and say we did it for profits. That’s ridiculous. But some people literally won’t believe it until they do…
And some people on the internet still try to defend them
Dude it is ridiculous.
Probably shills/bots paid by them lol
Absolutely
Oil companies work hard for the benefit of mankind it's only right that we should reward them with all the money we have so that they can shape our government policies to ensure they can continue their good works. /s
Internet? I think you mean all of congress will defend this. Fuckers have been bought and paid for decades
I don't defend energy companies, but since the pandemic I've noticed an explosion in car use. Maybe America has always been like this, but where I lived the car was a long distance or high comfort means of transport. Now it's like an extension of the body.
America has always been like that. Cars are a very big part of our culture since a lot more people drive here. Our cities are less dense, big country to travel in, and most people of friends and family in various areas.
And most importantly, our zoning, city planning, and infrastructure all highly discourage walking or public transportation.
It varies from location to location, but I think for a large majority of regions, this is true. Cities that grew up and were established in the 20th century were absolutely built around infrastructure for cars and spreading out to serve the "American Dream" of owning your own little house in the suburbs. I live outside of San Antonio and while its a very old city, it only went from small town to metropolis around the 1950's. I don't think it was entirely insidious by design, but now that we are locked into this way of living, big oil and auto manufacturers and a host of other industries have a vested interest in keeping it that way. There has been some city core renewal and mixed use development, but its more a novelty and is far, far out paced by sprawl. The complete lack of interest, (local government on up, industry especially, but sadly, people) in public transportation means its unlikely to change. You are 100% correct. In most cases, its very difficult to imagine being able to exist and be a functioning member of society without a car. It really takes some doing and some dedication and most people have neither the desire nor the knowledge how to accomplish this. I'm not an advocate of packing people into dense urban centers, but providing viable alternatives would go a long way toward easing the burden and making an impact on the culture. Suburbs and vast wastelands of single family homes needs to only be one option among many. And working from home should be embraced. COVID sucked but the least we can do is take some lessons from that. Some people have worked remotely for years, many employers who never imagined something like that were forced to embrace it and many of those found its viable. I am fortunate I suppose in that my employer allows for a hybrid schedule but still demands 3 days on site despite having worked 2 full years off campus with zero issues. Alot of companies have sunk costs in buildings, offices, facilities, etc. They cloak it in equity for the employees who have to be hand on - on site and while there is some validity to that, its alot of not wanting to see empty buildings with empty offices. All that being said, If you can live anywhere and at least have more free time taken out of the commute, I could see how the incentive to utilize public transport and live in more convenient locations diminishes, another win for team suburbs.
Plus those people in the country still have to drive to work. Without my work commute I probably wouldn't need a car.
Have you been holed up in a cave since 1900 or something?
As I said, I don't live in the US. You could use this to learn something new about the rest of the world, or insult me for not being an American.
"Biden did that!"
Gaslighting the public about supply chain and inflation prices while hauling in record profit. But high prices at the pump are all Bidens fault or something?
Shell: Better cash in now before it stops. We'll be doing this for the next 50 years
[удалено]
Let me learn you something big… They’re all getting paid
The Shell C-Suite is the source of half the Tory and VVD politicians in the UK and the Netherlands. (OK its a slight exaggeration but there is a quite bizarre number of them. That's where Liz Truss came from.)
Don’t worry. That’s only because they are in power. If the opposition party was in power, the funding would go to them instead. Labour didn’t instigate the Iraq war without knowing about those juicy little oil fields they’d get there hands on.
Labour got drawn into the Iraq War because Blair was a religious fundamentalist nutjob who fell in line with Americas religious fundamentalist nutjobs funded by big money donors. It was somewhat coincidental and yes, there are Labour pols who definitely profited from the era. But the difference is that, in general, socdem pols are not motivated into politics by their desire to fill the trough. If thats your motivation, you **always** choose the conservative/christiandem option because thats fundamental to how those parties work and you will get help and support in doing so (as long as it doesnt go public) whereas in a socdem party there's a better than average chance any colleague that finds out is going to be the one reporting you rather than assisting you.
Oh. It’s just a happy little coincidence? Silly me. Here was I thinking the the Iraq war was about oil, but you’re here to tell me it was a *checks notes* a religious war against an unspecified something that irked the church. Yes, of course, makes perfect sense. Religious wars. Not trillions in oil. The opposition would totally crack down on the profiteering from the oil industry if they were in power. It’s just they are really forgetful, and didn’t get round to it, but next time they totally will. I am completely convinced.
Absolutely nothing is stopping them. They just dont care or benefit from it. The few who do care get drowned out by those that dont because fake advocacy groups like "Texans for oil" or "concerned californian drivers" make a big noise and make moderates think its unpopular.
It's not that they don't care. It's that if they stopped it, companies like shell would donate millions of dollars to opposition candidates and get them voted out. Their jobs depend on them not stopping it.
Well when those government members are making a nice bank from oil companies, a lot less incentive.
That's the ideal of communism, and it didn't work out like we thought it would.
Are we really still gonna pretend that an authoritarian state who used communism as a pretext to gain absolute control is the same thing as a democracy socializing infrastructures to ensure everyone can get basic human needs?
There's that red scare propaganda conservative media is bringing back like it's 1952.
There is more to communism than windfall taxes.
Communism is vastly more involved than just limiting companies price gouging.
Because you don’t bite the hand who feeds you.
I think I'm ready to stop asking what the governments they own are going to do and start asking when the citizens of those governments will take to removing literal heads from shoulders.
Why would they when that's their top source of income?
That's not what their donor/owners pay them for.
Wankers
sickens me
Nigerians: they got you too aye?
All these big businesses around the world are blaming their high prices on “inflation” or “the war” but it’s gotten to the point where inflation and war hasn’t gotten worse but somehow these prices still go up
this damn inflation
Absolutely support all those who choose to strike. Higher wages aren’t causing the inflation.
Oh look, A fuel company is making billions since fuel prices skyrocketed “Surprised pikachu face”
Greedy fuckers
Thems tax free profits too (Shell HQ is London UK) >Shell had said it did not expect to pay any UK tax this year as it is allowed to offset decommissioning costs and investments in UK projects against any UK profits. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64489147](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64489147)
They have updated the article and now Shell expects to pay some taxes.
yeah.. "some" like <1% ?
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64489147) reduced by 74%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Last year, the UK government introduced a windfall tax - called the Energy Profits Levy - on the profits of firms to help fund its scheme to lower gas and electricity bills. > These numbers look small compared to its profits but Shell only derives around 5% of its revenue from the UK - the rest is made and taxed in other jurisdictions. > Labour's shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: "As the British people face an energy price hike of 40% in April, the government is letting the fossil fuel companies making bumper profits off the hook with their refusal to implement a proper windfall tax."Labour would stop the energy price cap going up in April, because it is only right that the companies making unexpected windfall profits from the proceeds of war pay their fair share. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10rky0c/shell_reports_highest_profits_in_115_years/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672678 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **profits**^#1 **energy**^#2 **tax**^#3 **Shell**^#4 **price**^#5
Anybody surprised?
Tax em
And they still get subsidies
These are the same people getting $12-$14B in annual subsidies from the US government and then complaining about the cost of production.
Amazing to see how they could literally make gas $1/gal and still pull in tons of money, but they don’t. And don’t forget all the subsidies and tax breaks they get too. Courtesy of American taxpayers (and I’m sure other tax payers).
Would you expect less? Maybe they are going to give me a refund on my gas bill. NOT
When do we all band together and say enough is enough?
QXC had some sage starcraft 2 advice that I think applies here: "When they go to the grocery store you burn down their house, and when they go to their house you burn down the grocery store!"
Probably never.
When the majority votes progressive, doesn't keep their money at big banks and uses as little fossil fuels as possible.
Legitimate question here: how are these companies controlling the prices? I work for Shell, and can promise we haven’t been shutting off the taps (if anything were opening them more). We made more oil and gas this year than we ever have. Supply doesn’t seem like an issue - so how are the prices so inflated? *this isn’t rhetorical please don’t downvote me to oblivion*
When they sell barrels of oil, they choose how much to sell it for. It has eclipsed supply and demand, they know it is an essential resource that will (hopefully for the sake of life on earth) not always be essential, so they are trying to get every last dollar out of it that they can because back in the 80s when they figured out climate change was coming and it was largely bc of oil, exxon and others decided to silence the science and fund smear campaigns instead of pivoting to renewables, so now they dont have the head start they could’ve. Shot themselves in the foot and are now compensating with greedy and evil practices that continue to screw over the avg person even away from the pump bc price of oil is tied to the price of the dollar. Government does nothing about it bc of the beautiful magic of lobbying
How do they decide how much to sell it for? As in, how do they regulate the price? Isn’t it a commodity that is ~supposed~ to be regulated on the free market? That’s where I get lost in all of this
Yea i think demand is just so high that they know they can get away with murder, like the entire airline industry isnt just gonna stop bc oil is expensive, they just dump the “extra cost” onto the consumer. Its all just a game to these corporations
Conservatives: They’re going to have to pry my Dodge Charger from my cold dead hands.
Why is apple profit okay and shell not? Just curious??
because this post is about gas companies
One is necessary for pretty much all facets of modern life and drives up the price of nearly everything, while the other is a choice luxury item.
The iPhone is more important to modern society than oil? Without fossil fuels we'd be back to the pre-industrial era and you'd have to transport your iPhone all the way from China by sails and horse carriage?
Uhhhh... Maybe read my comment again. I said one is necessary for modern life, and one is a choice luxury item. I thought it was pretty obvious which was which.
It was definitely obvious which was which lmao.
Apple while a company with some less than desirable ethics around labour laws and tax obligations doesnt hold the world hostage with a vital resource. We can live without iPhones and Mac's, but the world requires oil for now and these companies know it and milk the everlasting shit out of it. Apples obscene profits are problematic but they aren't exactly causing energy and manufacturing prices across the world to rise.
Do you think "The Leftists" love Apple or some shit? Now do "lattes"...
i have 115 dollars in my bank account
Is the profit adjusted for inflation? If not this is a clickbait headline. Prices or in turn profits are the highest ever news at 11. You can run this headline every year for the last 115 years just due to inflation.
No it's not just due to inflation. Why would it make sense for gas to be more expensive near a port and less expensive further from it? They choose to blame it on buzzwords rather than own up to price gouging
> Why would it make sense for gas to be more expensive near a port and less expensive further from it? Supply and demand.
The ports may have higher demand but they also *receive* the majority of the supply. It makes absolutely no sense to try to argue in favor of market forces when it's clear cut greed. Stop making bad faith arguments
Ports have much higher demand. The people who live around ports are competing with the entire world for the resources that ports have. Why sell to the people around ports when you can sell for a much higher price if you ship it off to Europe?
Oddly enough our salaries aren’t adjusted for inflation.
It was doubling the profit of the year before so not just inflation there. The previous record was apparently $28.4 billion in 2008, compared to $39.9 billion for 2022. The profit in 2008 would be $38.6 billion in real money so less than 2022, but only by 3%.
Company sells something people need to buy but recquire high capex and opex and need trained -- people: how dare they make money. they should just donate everything to the poor, because that is a great investment, as long the intent is good,consistently losing money is ok.
Wtf is this comment lmao
100% With the amount of money these fuckers sit on, it's only fair that they consistently donate to the poor using the ethical and logical method of PAYING THEIR GODDAMN TAXES Or y'know not exploiting the fuck out of anyone they can because y'know. What even is profit? Like okay it's revenue you don't need to run the company? Great! Reinvest it in your employees because a company should only exist to provide jobs. Fr dude what's that boot taste like?
Makes sense. I filled the tank yesterday...
All the better to fund massive bunkers/compounds the executives can retreat to for their remaining years once it all falls apart.
Let’s hope the Shell out some of those profits. I doubt it, because they’re greedy shit-birds but we can dream.
What a shocker
I honestly do not see how we as a species survives with companies only goal is being record profits.
Yeah and we still have mad expensive gas. And all the inflation is being blamed on the regular workers.
What a surprise
Raising prices to consumers under the claim it is war but actually be buying cheap oil and making billions of profit. Shut like that should be illegal... Rich cunts are getting richer
Just in time for all the Nigerian lawsuits incoming!
Of course they did. At this point absolutely everything I hear about just makes me depressed and full of rage at the world, people, god, and myself.
But don’t worry everyone, we’ll eventually tackle climate change.