Well our weakened dollar has made it more expensive to buy crude. However, I have always thought the barrel price of crude is actually measured in US dollars. There was an agreement that was setup with the oil producing nations that crude barrel be sold in USD.down_shift wrote:Im not well read in this area so Im not going to pretend but hasnt all our recent spending and borrowing weakened the dollar making it more expensive for us to buy crude or anything else on the world market?
Additionally, contributing factors is the huge increase in global demand from emerging economies such as China.
However, despite all these reasons.. I still feel that Big Oil has taken the American consumer for a ride because they say that they aren't making all that much money and still post record profits.
In the recent congressional hearings where the CEO's of the big oil companies sat in front of a panel to be questioned about gas prices, none of them 'explained' why they made so much money while the American consumer is slowly being strangled into poverty by the high prices.
Their most common answers were ... US dollar, increase in demand, and how more needs to be invested into the discovery of new oil around the world.
Additionally, Congress was doing something about removing $18 billion in tax breaks from Big Oil to help further discovery of alternatives. Naturally, Oil was opposed to this and Congress pretty much told them to take their profits and use it for new discoveries.
"According to Markey, "These companies are defending billions in federal subsidies needed for renewable fuels and clean energy while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone." It is definitely going to be tough for big oil to dispute that claim. Consider that Exxon Mobil alone earned a record of $40.6 billion in 2007."
When asked the question.. 'How are you posting record profits while the the US is facing the brink of an economic crisis due to increased costs?'........ they pretty much avoided answering them.
