CNNs Miles OBrien framed a report about high third-quarter oil profits as something to get your blood boiling and get you a little outraged on the October 28 American Morning.
The fact is, when the price of a product goes up, the people who sell that product make more money. The only way this happens is if consumers keep buying.
Thats the oversimplified version of what happened to oil companies profits in the third quarter of 2005. Interruptions from the hurricanes tightened supply, but consumer demand stayed high, fueled by China and India so gasoline prices went up. Oil companies profited from the situation, but they didnt arbitrarily set their prices extra-high. Market forces determined prices.
Unfortunately, most journalists havent been getting it. Rather than accepting the way the market works, they have pitted consumers against oil companies, bolstering the case of those who call for a windfall profits tax on the companies earnings. That includes members of Congress, who have scheduled a hearing on energy pricing and corporate profits for November 9.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) summed up the news template when she said, At a time when the American people are struggling to pay their energy bills and the residents of my own state of Maine will be hard-pressed to pay their home heating costs this winter, it is deeply concerning and, frankly, outrageous that oil companies are boasting record-breaking profits, according to the October 28 Los Angeles Times.
NBCs Brian Williams opened an October 28
Nightly News report with the outrage across this country today
everywhere people were ponying up to pay more for gas even though
drivers that day were actually paying 51 cents less per gallon than
they had during post-Katrina highs. Anne Thompsons following story
described Congress and consumers demanding change, as Williams put
it, without explaining that the temporary price spike and the
accompanying profit spike were just business as usual. Thompson used
comments from people on the street, one of whom said, Were all
getting cheated, and the reporter closed by saying drivers wanted
to stop shelling out wads of money to feed the profits that tonight
have America fuming.
Is Being Profitable a Crime?
Reporters commonly failed to put oil profits in a
larger business context. When they cited Exxon Mobil Corp.s $9.9
billion third-quarter profit, they focused on the raw numbers rather
than explaining to viewers that Exxon doesnt make as much relative
to its product as many other industries do. A comparison of profit
margins dividing net profits by the amount of revenue the company
took in shows that other companies enjoy much higher returns.
For example, Exxons profit margin for its
high-earnings quarter (dividing $9.9 billion by revenue of $100
billion) was almost 10 percent. But a look at
Fortunes Global 500 [1] list from July 2005 shows that is not
unusual and some companies surpassed that in earlier quarters.
Johnson and Johnson showed profits of almost 18 percent in the July
report, while Bank of America enjoyed more than 22 percent.
The media also ignored the largest beneficiary of the
oil windfall: the government. The Tax Foundations Scott Hodge and
Jonathan Williams noted in an
October 26 report [2]that in recent decades governments have
collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S.
oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits. In
fact, since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and
1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas
tax collections.
Their analysis used only government revenue
from gasoline taxes. It didnt even include corporate taxes on the
companies income. From 1977 to 2004, federal and state gas tax
collections have totaled more than $1.34 trillion, the report said
more than twice domestic oil industry profits during that time ($643
billion).
Taxing Industry Hurts Consumers
Even though state and federal governments have already
made a fortune from gasoline sales, some in Congress are calling for
more taxes on the industry. And the media have helped their case by
presenting the issue as ABCs Bob Woodruff did on the October 27
World News Tonight: Are the oil companies making too much money,
when oil and gas prices are pinching so many Americans? The oil
companies reported earnings today that are almost beyond
imagination.
But ABCs Mellody Hobson was the voice of reason on the
October 28 Good Morning America, saying that when you look where
regulation has been attempted, when our country tries to regulate
prices, it ultimately not only ends up being bad for consumers, it
actually ends up being bad for American business. People lose jobs.
It is not a good idea.
More than 250 economists have agreed with Hobson,
sending their concerns to Congress in an open letter October 26.
Business & Media Institute advisers John Berthoud, president of the
National Taxpayers Union, and Gary Wolfram, professor of economics
at Hillsdale College, were among them. The signers included two
Nobel Laureates in economics, as well as professors from the
University of Chicago to Princeton University and Harvard Business
School.
Citing a Congressional Research Service report about
the results of a windfall profits tax imposed in the 1980s, the
economists emphatically said that a profit-punishing tax would mean
less gasoline available to Americans. The CRS found that the
previous tax led to decreased domestic oil production and increased
reliance on foreign sources the opposite of widely accepted goals
for U.S. energy policy.
Where Does the Money Go?
In a free market, businesses are able to use their
profits as they see fit whether reinvesting in the company or
giving bonuses to employees. However, both politicians and the media
have been asking questions about how the oil companies are using
their profits.
For its part, Exxon has reported that it had new
capital investments approaching $15 billion in 2004, which went
toward new exploration and production as well as refining capacity
and research for new energy technologies.
Also, Exxon spokesman Mark Boudreaux told theBusiness & Media Institute that ExxonMobil has added 384,000 barrels per day of
refining capacity in the United States through expansions,
technology, and operational improvements over the last 10 years.
The average refinery size in the U.S. is about 125,000
barrels per day [Oil & Gas Journal numbers], Boudreaux said. So
that means we have in effect built the equivalent of three new
grassroots refineries over the last decade.
Building and expanding refineries isnt cheap. The Cato
Institutes Peter Van Doren and Jerry Taylor wrote on June 4 that a
large refinery can take $4 billion to $6 billion to build.
That isnt something companies or their investors take
lightly. Alastair Walling, a legal fellow at George Mason
Universitys Mercatus Center, wrote in the October 27 New York Sun
that refining requires risking vast sums (billions and billions of
dollars), and in addition to being traditionally thin, margins are
often unpredictable and uncomfortably erratic. Any sane person
with money has kept his or her cash as far away from refining as
possible.
Research Analyst Charles Simpson contributed to this report.