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Maybe you think it is 60 billion dollars a year or something. Is that a fair statement?
60 billion is a huge number-- but if I invested 1200 billion to get it, its a very very poor return. IF I invested 600 billion its still not great. IF they invested 300 billion, the ceo probably still has his job and if they invested 100 billion, EVERYONE wonders how they did it
You don't get to 300 losses without being a pretty exceptional goaltender.-- Ben Kenobi speaking of Roberto Luongo
60 billion is a huge number-- but if I invested 1200 billion to get it, its a very very poor return. IF I invested 600 billion its still not great. IF they invested 300 billion, the ceo probably still has his job and if they invested 100 billion, EVERYONE wonders how they did it
So if you have 1200 billion dollars, and during the year you make 60 billion dollars, that's a very very poor deal then.
I feel your pain.
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh
The details ought to tell you something. As Flubber states the oil companies own or control knowledge which is usefull to society (nations), and in a capitalist system they are paid an incentive (profit) for sharing that information.
err no-- Oil companies do not share their techniques and methods with each other as they are often the key to their advantage ( I admit freely that this can be sub-optimal). They get a profit by investing in things that make money. Nobody pays them a profit or guarantees one. They also take risks. IF a east coast Canada platform was blown up by terrorists, who do you think pays the costs?
Lets say they drill an offshore hole at the cost of $225million and find nothing -- BUt of course the fact that they drill four of these ( each with a one in 10 chance of success) before finding a discovery that would produce somewhere between 10 and 50 billion in revenue is irrelevent to you. If they spent 12 billion and got 10, you might say 'serves them right" but if they spent 10 billion and produced oil worth 50 billion, you would be on about "windfall profits'
Nobody compensates oil companies . They bid competitively for oil leases and then find what they find.
OH and in Canada it is expected that a number of small and midsized companies will go bankrupt before the year is out. Most weighted too heavily in natuiral gas and prices are down while costs are up. The oil business is in no way risk free (although the super-massive can ameliorate risk by being so diversified)
Originally posted by Kidicious
In fact, that's really mostly what they get paid for.
no
Originally posted by Kidicious
Because let's face it, if it's just work, society can do it themselves.
Yes government could hire people and do the business themselves. Read up on Norway for a model where they created a government corporation to do just that. In Canada the federal and some provincial governments have made similar attempts but with mixed results. Political interfernce and an intolerance for years of losses (sorry we can't build that hospital but our oil company lost money) were factors.
If any government wants to develop their own natural resources, I have absolutely no problem with that. I find most crown corporations inefficient and you usually find some political hack put in charge but if thats what they want to do
What I object to is people waiting in the weeds and then just taking stuff.
I don't know how the economics of the oilsands looked in Venezuela but in Canada they looked crappy for years. The Alberta government was looking for anyone and I mean anyone willing to put up the money to move them forward. Finally two got going that looked like they could be economic. Then in 1998 oil hit 12 per barrell and these things looked like they would lose HUGE amounts of money-- Then oil went back into the 30s but costs had skyrocketed so they were looking at a multinilliondollar investment that would average something like 5%. Now oil is over 90 bucks and those early projects are immensely profitable-- but don't tell me those folks didn't take risk.
In Venezuela and elsewhere, no one wants to buy out the oil companies for what they spent on the two dozen unsuccessful wells-- NO they just want to take all of the good stuff
So if you have 1200 billion dollars, and during the year you make 60 billion dollars, that's a very very poor deal then.
I feel your pain.
err yes-- ITs 5%-- If I invested 100,000 I would want better than that
And Kid what you miss is that its not that Exxon HAS x dollars. ITs that Exxon has expended x dollars, some in assets it retains and some on costs. and its not "Exxon's money" either really -- a hundred million is teacher pensions, and another hundred million each for firefighters, nurses, civil servants, there are also hundreds of thousands of individuals (some very rich and others just scraping by) -- and all those folks want a better return than 5% because the RATE of return matters
Oh ya and they all voluntarily provided their money to own a piece of the business. I think its wonderful that a corporation can benefit so many many people
You don't get to 300 losses without being a pretty exceptional goaltender.-- Ben Kenobi speaking of Roberto Luongo
Originally posted by Flubber
and all those folks want a better return than 5% because the RATE of return matters
Of course it matters. So does the total amount. 5% is a very low figure, but 60 billion is a lot. Don't you agree?
Oh ya and they all voluntarily provided their money to own a piece of the business. I think its wonderful that a corporation can benefit so many many people
Actually the consumers provide that benefit at a cost.
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Originally posted by Flubber
err no-- Oil companies do not share their techniques and methods with each other as they are often the key to their advantage ( I admit freely that this can be sub-optimal).
I'm glad that you agree that that is sub-optimal, because you missed my point. I didn't mean that they share information with each other. I meant that society pays them for the information. Actually I should have said that they pay them to use their knowledge as well as other assets. I apologize for that.
But since you mentioned that it's sub-optimal that they don't share information that really illustrates my point. Since companies control knowledge they are more competitive, which creates a dependency with buyers and suppliers. That's what I'm talking about. The whole system is based on dependency, and that is what causes inequality in power.
They get a profit by investing in things that make money. Nobody pays them a profit or guarantees one. They also take risks. IF a east coast Canada platform was blown up by terrorists, who do you think pays the costs?
Yes, they are paid for taking risks. I didn't say anything different. They are paid because society has created it's own dependency on them.
Lets say they drill an offshore hole at the cost of $225million and find nothing -- BUt of course the fact that they drill four of these ( each with a one in 10 chance of success) before finding a discovery that would produce somewhere between 10 and 50 billion in revenue is irrelevent to you. If they spent 12 billion and got 10, you might say 'serves them right" but if they spent 10 billion and produced oil worth 50 billion, you would be on about "windfall profits'
It's all windfall to me.
Nobody compensates oil companies . They bid competitively for oil leases and then find what they find.
They most certainly are compensated, and very well. Also, I wouldn't call the industry competitive. There are very significant barriers to entry and it's very risky. So you have to be a very big player to get into it.
OH and in Canada it is expected that a number of small and midsized companies will go bankrupt before the year is out. Most weighted too heavily in natuiral gas and prices are down while costs are up. The oil business is in no way risk free (although the super-massive can ameliorate risk by being so diversified)
So what?
Yes government could hire people and do the business themselves. Read up on Norway for a model where they created a government corporation to do just that. In Canada the federal and some provincial governments have made similar attempts but with mixed results. Political interfernce and an intolerance for years of losses (sorry we can't build that hospital but our oil company lost money) were factors.
And you just got through telling me that many private companies go bankrupt. Question: What is the biggest factor to oil company success?
If any government wants to develop their own natural resources, I have absolutely no problem with that. I find most crown corporations inefficient and you usually find some political hack put in charge but if thats what they want to do
What I object to is people waiting in the weeds and then just taking stuff.
I don't know how the economics of the oilsands looked in Venezuela but in Canada they looked crappy for years. The Alberta government was looking for anyone and I mean anyone willing to put up the money to move them forward. Finally two got going that looked like they could be economic. Then in 1998 oil hit 12 per barrell and these things looked like they would lose HUGE amounts of money-- Then oil went back into the 30s but costs had skyrocketed so they were looking at a multinilliondollar investment that would average something like 5%. Now oil is over 90 bucks and those early projects are immensely profitable-- but don't tell me those folks didn't take risk.
In Venezuela and elsewhere, no one wants to buy out the oil companies for what they spent on the two dozen unsuccessful wells-- NO they just want to take all of the good stuff
So you are saying that governments won't drill for oil? Sure they will if they have the resources and the people agree to it. I think your claim is incredible. All of our money goes to big corporations and you wonder why they are able to take risks and make investments. Wow!
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh
Originally posted by Arrian
General question for Agathon and Che:
Setting aside global communism for a moment, how *should* one do business overseas, given that the majority of the world is governed by undemocratic regimes?
Are you sure about the last part? Aren't you forgetting the Indians?
The question of how one should do business is an ethical question, so we should expect an ethical answer. In general, both communists and capitalists accept that there are property rights. The communists just limit what can be treated as private property. So the issue of communism does not really arise.
Moreover, both (apart from wacko Libertarians) assume that goods like airspace, broadcasting frequencies and drilling rights belong to the public. Hence, if you are a business, then you have to deal with the legitimate owners or their legitimate representatives. If you don't do that, you cannot complain if the legitimate owners turn up later and burn you. I'd tend to be a bit more relaxed and say that any contract that a legitimate government would have reasonably agreed to is an enforceable contract (even if the government that agrees to it is not democratic).
This leaves a two tier system of justification. Anything a legitimate representative agrees to is enforceable, and anything that an illegitimate representative agrees to is also enforceable, on the proviso that it is something that a legitimate representative would have reasonably agreed to. This gives companies more leeway against legitimate governments who make bad decisions, and less against illegitimate governments.
So the question devolves into what counts as a legitimate government. Generally, we think that a fairly elected democratic government is a legitimate government (although one can imagine cases where it became illegitimate). Venezuelan governments pre-Chavez were not fairly elected for various reasons.
As to how much a revolutionary government can expropriate, that depends on how bad the original deal was. IMHO in the case of Cuba, Castro was justified in taking the whole lot and was probably owed reparations in addition.
The possible answers as I see them:
1) Don't.
2) Do business, but nothing that doesn't provide a quick return on investment (thus, if 10 years down the road there is a coup + nationalization, you're already in the black).
3) Do business, assume that your investment will be nationalized at some point in the future, and build that into your deal with the corrupt/evil/etc autocrats.
4) Do business and bend over backwards to provide benifits to the locals. Hope/pray that if a revolution comes, your investment will be spared nationalization.
1 is economic suicide. 2 and 3 make sense to me. 4 gives me warm fuzzies, but seems unrealistic.
-Arrian
Businesses can choose whatever they want to do. The ethical thing to do would be to gauge their risk dependent on the likelihood of rightful nationalization. If more unscrupulous companies offer better deals, then they will be out of pocket if nationalization should occur.
So you are saying that governments won't drill for oil?
Never ever said that. Again read up on Norway. They have Norwegian government stakes in projects all around the world. Their model seems to work for them and I have no objection to it whatsoever.
But they DO take the risks of drilling. They do not wait for private industry to spend billions to find and develop a resource and then say "thanks we will take that now"
Originally posted by Kidicious
I think your claim is incredible. !
I think that claim is incredible too!! If only someone had made it, someone might discuss it further
You don't get to 300 losses without being a pretty exceptional goaltender.-- Ben Kenobi speaking of Roberto Luongo
Are you sure about the last part? Aren't you forgetting the Indians?
I was thinking more about land area (and resources) than population. Even so... China? Point being there are many undemocratic regimes in power around the world. We can all hope that their dwindle with time.
As to the rest... thanks for the answer, and while I generally agree (edit: actually, I think "agree entirely" is the way to say it), the problem is figuring out "what a reasonable legitimate government would've agreed to."
Further... what about the case where a company makes a deal with an autocratic government that *is* reasonable, but of course the autocratic government doesn't share the spoils with its people, so there is a revolution + nationalization. Sucks to be that company. I'm not arguing that Exxon is that company here, because I just don't know. It's theoretical. The only way to handle it, I guess, is to build in that risk factor into the deal in the first place, which would, in turn, risk making the deal "unreasonable!"
So if you have 1200 billion dollars, and during the year you make 60 billion dollars, that's a very very poor deal then.
I feel your pain.
This is a simple concept. Rate of return.
In this case, 5%. Five percent isn't awful... if it was guaranteed (say, putting some money into a high-yield savings account like ING). 5% return on investment on a project that carried appreciable risk of loss would be pretty crappy. In this example, we're talking about $1.2 trillion dollars that could have been invested elsewhere, but wasn't.
It doesn't matter who is doing the investing: a private corporation or a government-run oil company (let's say the one in Venezuela, for instance). It takes resources to develop an oil field. Those resources are finite. They have to be allocated such that they are not wasted. It's just as important to pick the right risks if it's the government doing it. More important, perhaps.
Never ever said that. Again read up on Norway. They have Norwegian government stakes in projects all around the world. Their model seems to work for them and I have no objection to it whatsoever.
But they DO take the risks of drilling. They do not wait for private industry to spend billions to find and develop a resource and then say "thanks we will take that now"
I think that claim is incredible too!! If only someone had made it, someone might discuss it further
Oh, I see. You are on about risks again. You do realize that if you have 1200 billion in the bank 1 billion is hardly a risk. You act like it's a huge deal and it's not, especially for companies like Exxon.
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh
This is a simple concept. Rate of return.
In this case, 5%. Five percent isn't awful... if it was guaranteed (say, putting some money into a high-yield savings account like ING). 5% return on investment on a project that carried appreciable risk of loss would be pretty crappy. In this example, we're talking about $1.2 trillion dollars that could have been invested elsewhere, but wasn't.
It doesn't matter who is doing the investing: a private corporation or a government-run oil company (let's say the one in Venezuela, for instance). It takes resources to develop an oil field. Those resources are finite. They have to be allocated such that they are not wasted. It's just as important to pick the right risks if it's the government doing it. More important, perhaps.
-Arrian
Yes, of course they are finite. That why they can get a return on using them. Just like Flubber said, that local governments in Alberta searched for a long time trying to find someone to make the investment there. That gives anyone willing to make the investment there a very good negotiating position. In fact, no one would have invested there if they could invest somewhere else and get a better rate of return. It's dependency. I'm not saying that resources shouldn't be allocated efficiently, just that a certain group or class of people shouldn't be paid off for that.
I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
- Justice Brett Kavanaugh
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I could just say this truth is self-evident. That seems to work.
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