US should have one as well, instead of just silly threats.

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Of course they did. Anything that will eat into their insane profits is a declaration of war.

And the idiots in rhe US blame Biden for the high prices because the right wing pundits who are also profiting are telling them so.

"Time to glue myself to the loading dock of an art museum."

-Some misguided protester.

That's how you know it'll work.

I wish I could read:

"EU sues Exxon Executives of the past 50 years in Den Haag for crimes against humanity - Freezing their Assets."

One day as a headline.

Those who know know.

What the fuck do they mean by "arguing Brussels exceeded its legal authority"? Doesn't the EU set the fucking laws? What would limit their authority in this case?

My my. Exxon is really chest thumping. Does anyone actually think they will take their bat and ball and go home? Eu should tell Exxon (and Chevron) to pound sand.

Oh no! We'll be taxed for the massive profits we make on a global scale causing massive damage

They should double the tax.

If the law protects these companies who are destroying the earth from having to share their record profits with the people who live on the earth then

#it’s time to change the laws

You're talking about it aren't you?

Every time the US does something to industry wrongdoing, it amounts to a mild slap on the wrist.

I don't care what party you support, way too many politicians on both sides have their hands in industry pockets.

Yeah, they won't be able to buy that 4th vacation home or 3rd yacht.

no business is guaranteed profits. The idea that they kept pricing artificially high in the name of recovering past lost profits is nuts, and it only works because we have a series of cartels monopolizing the entire trade. Any other industry would be in court for the amount of price fixing going on. Oil prices were long the same as they ever were while we paid triple at the pump. They don't have any additional costs, and the 2020 loss was well made up for by 2021, their profits exceeded the losses for 2020 and expected profits for both years.

The price of gasoline has been pure opportunism, and we are so beholden that we are afraid to address it - or they might punish us by charging even more. Unbelievable, completely captured economy.

Probably using the legal approach of "throwing all the shit at the walls and see what sticks."

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Why? The right is to blame for most of this. The right is composed of the most ignorant, hateful people and it really shows in everything they do.

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Do you know who we are we make more money in the week than your country makes in a year. It's sarcasm boys and girls.

Of all the things I could care about, "investor confidence" is very close to the absolute bottom of the list..

What are you referring to?

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Oh were do I start:

Wikipedia

Or if you don't like reading:

A Video

And another one

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More profits less product

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misguided or simply out of options?

If I was a dutch youth and knew that my country (arguably the best prepared in the world) basically will start to give up land from the next two decades onwards I would be properly scared.

I'm almost 40 so there is a good probability that I will be dead when that particular chicken comes home to roost but everyone younger than 20 will indeed see very "exciting" times.

Attacking art work was part of the suffragette movement, so maybe they have the right idea.

Lol the Republican shot down all the bills to address this. but ok Einstein

How about all countries put a windfall tax on all energy and food corporations? Fuck their excessive profiteering at our expense.

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Oh… that’s Biden that puts hundreds of (R) NOs on all those bills to help Americans, doing everything humanly possible to prevent passing. I thought it was the Reprobates elected to help us that cast these votes of hate against the American people.

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So you want him to socialize oil?

"We price gouged your people out of that money fair and square!"

Serious fines and penalties plus prison time and massive fines for the decision makers is the only cure for shit like this.

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So, Biden controls gasoline prices all over the world? As far as the railroad strike decision, he had no real choice. And, he is trying to do something about it. It's being reported on just about every source except Faux news and "friends". If the railroad workers went on strike, it would have had a devastating effect on the entire economy. He chose the lesser of two bad choices.

You are typical of the right wing posters. You post from total ignorance because that's what the right wing pundits and social "influencers" shoves down your throat.

You really ought to take a little time to look at facts. You'll see that those pundits all have skin in the game and are making profit from the controls that they rail against, and who knows who those "influencers" are really working for. I'd place bets that many of them are taking money from (or are) foreign sources who would like nothing better than to tear this country apart.

We could pass some laws fighting the fucking oil cartels and regulating prices and corporate gouging that Biden could sign, if the Republicans weren’t gobbling miles of oily corporate cock

Faux news NEVER shows the Rs knocking down or gutting pretty much any bill that helps the general public. Nor do they mention the good he's done for the veterans that donnie boy mocked.

More like corporations are elbow deep up both parties asses

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The idea of lost profits as justification for this behavior seems so dumb to me. They're not real! Just a projection of what might have been. It's like getting mad stock prices don't always go up, but things fluctuate according to everything else that takes place on this planet and that's a part of business.

>no business is guaranteed profits

What sucks about this is that many parts of the US government need the stock market to continue going up. Lots of things like retirement funds, futures markets, employment, etc. requires the economy to continue growing. So feeding profits to companies like Exxon helps with that, basically giving them guaranteed profits. It really sucks.

i thought biden controlled the gas prices

Exxon may choose not to invest in Europe !

Who cares ? They’re a dinosaur company that needs to drastically change with the times or go the way of the dinosaurs.

Imagine being so fucking delusional you think food, which is literally the most competitive market in human history gets excessive profits.

How about you get yourself some Econ 101 book before continuing to be such an embarrasment?

Probably something to do with international treaties, which the corporations have a major hand in writing. There's usually some clauses that boil down to "if the government changes the laws and that causes us to lose out on profits, then the government must pay us what we expected to profit". I believe it's called corporate sovereignty.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2022/09/12/how-profit-inflation-made-your-groceries-so-damn-expensive/?sh=197301f42eb9

https://www.nationalgrocers.org/news/independent-grocers-reach-record-sales-and-profits/

A little nationalization just to piss them off sounds good. Easier to wind the resource down as we convert to others.

Or you could, I dunno, look up actual profit margins and see whats common across the industry. But we can’t have facts getting in front of a juicy story now, can we?

Exxxxxxon can go fuck themselves

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Are you the CEO of Kroger or what bro?

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Elbow deep? More like knee deep in their asses.

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Aww is the poor little billionaires afwaid their whittle pockets might not be overflowing with money this year.. insufferable assholes

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That was a huge mistake. Getting retirement and putting them onto an investing club hoping that businesses will always increase profits, while we have contrary tax laws that push businesses to SPEND all potential profits and encourage hiring and growth. At the same time we say “oh but to fund 401k, the companies have to LOOK good so people keep “investing” their retirements. In order to do that, businesses need to extract profit and pay dividends - reducing the money that can be used instead for growth, since we don’t tax business expenses like cost of goods sold or employees (payroll tax is not the same because it’s the same for every employee, not pro or regressive like income tax).

We have two different incentives pushing opposite directions, invest money, helps our economy, or profit-taking, pleasing the investor class, but does very little for our general economy (no incentive for the profits will be re-invested at all when they can use financial instruments to multiply the invested money)

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Yeah no they can only incentivize private businesses. Biden can push them to “do the right thing”, and help out by increasing supply, but honestly we never had a supply issue to start with - we had intentional withholding of fuel to artificially push up prices. We all know that’s how gas cartels operate, it’s in the news how OPEC decides on the price of oil, and how much they will sell, controlling the price for both economic and political pressure. All we can do is try to make the market more favorable, while Congress can take action like windfall profits tax, to discourage profit-taking and encourage reinvestment.

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> Food Processing Industry Gross Profit grew by 17.78 % in 4 Q 2022 sequentially, while Revenue increased by 10.66 %, this led to improvement in Food Processing Industry's Gross Margin to 32.66 % a new Industry high.

>On the trailing twelve months basis gross margin in 4 Q 2022 grew to 32.67 %.

….

> Food Processing Industry increased Ebitda Margin through reduction in operating costs and despite contraction in Ebitda by -22.59 % and Revenue 10.66 %. Ebitda Margin in 4 Q 2022 was 18.41 %, a new Industry high.

>On the trailing twelve months basis Ebitda Margin in 4 Q 2022 grew to 22.58 %.

https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios.php?ind=505

> A recent report by Oxfam International has found that 62 new "food billionaires" were created during the pandemic. The report, released ahead of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, highlights the record profits made by industry titans.

>Food and agribusiness billionaires reportedly raised their collective wealth by 42 percent in the past two years, all while global food prices soared by 33.6 percent in 2021, and are expected to rise by another 23 percent in 2022.

>Cargill, the food company giant, is expected to report record profits this year, surpassing even last year's record-breaking US$5 billion. Indeed, three members of the Cargill family joined the Bloomberg Billionaires list in mid-April.

https://phys.org/news/2022-06-food-giants-reap-enormous-profits.html

> The COVID-19 pandemic continues to defy conventional wisdom and economic norms surrounding the U.S. food industry. Prior to the pandemic, most food industry analysts believed that escalating input costs typically leads to a squeeze in profitability for food manufacturers before offsetting price increases can eventually take effect. But the unique circumstances of the pandemic led to a different situation unfolding in 2021.

>According to a new report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange, a perfect storm of increasing input costs in mid-2021 led to a series of pricing adjustments, some of which are just now hitting grocery shelves. Additionally, consumer food spending has not returned to pre-pandemic patterns, upending industry expectations. As a result, grocery demand remained robust, sales remained elevated, food companies were able to begin raising prices and profit margins, on average, showed little sign of compression.

> We believe that consumer food spending habits, which have become firmly entrenched after two years of the pandemic, will persist for a good while even if COVID fades into the background by mid-year,” said Rob Fox, director of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange. “The combination of tailwinds from the pricing actions now taking full effect with the continuing strong consumer demand means retail food manufacturers will continue to enjoy strong profits in 2022.”

….

> The simple average of operating profit margins from 66 publicly traded food manufacturers and processors shows that profit margins remained strong and even widened in calendar Q3 of 2021. Recent earnings guidance from food manufacturers suggests strong profit margins will persist when Q4 results are unveiled in the coming weeks. In fact, strong unit sales on top of pricing actions likely drove many food companies to record incomes in 2021.

https://www.foodmanufacturing.com/consumer-trends/news/22044132/food-manufacturers-surprise-profitability-set-to-continue

Average profit margins

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/071015/what-profit-margin-usual-company-food-and-beverage-sector.asp

Edit your comment to show you’re wrong and apologize to them

Eia.gov and trumps opec deal as Republicans were happy to give them the deal....

But biden and republicans cry

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Exxon about to learn EU is not a state of the US.

Noticeably absent from the “article” are the legal grounds for the lawsuit, unless it really is a “boo-hoo you’re being mean to us” trump-style lawsuit.

You should read the latest comments in those youtube videos. The brainwashed masses have descended on it to defend their pay masters, except they are not paid at all...

Probably a test run before states like California try to do the same thing.

"Why you guys not kiss our asses like the dumb Americans? They just let us shit all over them and throw more money at us every year. What gives?

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Actually a lot of EU probably care about energy prices right now

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Ever since the lockdown began, I've been telling the wife that the hypothetical lost earnings of covid would be recouped through price increases after the fact. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn't be surprised if the gas and oil sociopaths made a deal with Putin to start a war so they could inflate prices and masquerade the increase behind the facade of a war. They'll pay him a fuckton of money, and he might even get to expand his territory in the name of being a complete wanker. It's a win-win for all those involved at the expense of everybody else.

It's probably more complicated, but I just wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. All things come down to money, one way or another.

The next one will be the hypothetical lost earnings of renewable energy that need to be recouped before the tap is potentially cut-off forever.

These rats are gonna rape us for every ruble they can run away with.

How about you open up morningstar, FT or whatever and look up margins around the world. Tons of farmers going out of business, grocery retail happy to make 4% net. Bars and restaraunts still reeling from covid.

It’s spectacularly difficult to earn much excess profit in a business area that has seen competition over literally millenia.

you haven’t been following the Ukraine war much, have you? energy independence is a huge topic right now.

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>The idea that they kept pricing artificially high in the name of recovering past lost profits is nuts

They don't. They are price takers; not price makers. They world market prices hydrocarbons, and the producers sell into that market. What windfall profits taxes do is reduce exploration budgets, because energy companies budget for the amount of exploration that makes sense given the expected energy prices over an entire economic cycle. If we cap the profits during the good times and they take losses and break even years during the bad times, then they will reduce exploration budgets and we will have less oil during the next energy cycle.

Cmon Exxon. You can win this one.

So, a whole body representing governments would surely not respect a consistently bad faith entity like Exxon, right?

Well, this should be informative. It’ll give our activists at least a possible road map. Hopefully they are paying attention.

This only goes so far though. If your business is profiting off making a substance so toxic its use is banned by the government, you can’t sue for loss of profits.

70% of US gasoline is sold in the US, and before Obama it was 100%; the world pricing is on oil, which is just as low as it’s always been, except gas is priced higher, giving a wider margin than ever before. Did they not have oil exploration in 2019? Why do we have a 10-20 percent margin up until the pandemic, now we are in 40-50% range?

Also, oil exploration isn’t really a thing these days -97% of oil is coming from existing fields using new tech, like shale. They don’t spend money to find it, they already own and know where it all is.

What they will really do with the profit is the same that every major corporation has done - pay it out via dividends and stock buy-backs, increasing shareholder value, not spend on the business, because that extra money isn’t needed - their margins are great without spending a dime extra.

Threatening us with a good time, he is.

I dont want to live on this planet anymore

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Let's not keep spreading that "both parties are the same!" rhetoric. The Dems had already proposed a windfall tax on big oil: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblackmon/2022/03/12/democrats-file-new-tax-on-alleged-windfall-profits-by-big-oil. Biden proposed it again later https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/31/biden-offers-windfall-tax-big-oil-dems-desperate-c/ (you'll notice how the media spins it this time).

100%

The nice thing is that EU actually has a lot of teeth and follows through on plenty of sensible regulations (eg GDPR/data privacy).

The only thing I could see slowing this down is the short term need for Europe to have a better supply of fuel as they handle this year’s Winter. Once Spring rolls around, they’ll probably kick into gear on this.

That’s farmers. You realize who buys the food right? No one is thinking farmers are getting windfall profits ( and if they ever did, they deserve em to plow back into the leaner harvest years ). It’s the global food corps that’re the issue.

Possibly a Monsanto lobbyist?

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Shoulders deep.

I wish Canada would set up a a wealth fund for their citizens by doing something similar.

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Time to globally censure exxon.

Thank you. This bOtH sIdEs bullshit needs to be called out wherever it appears.

Bet they were hoping jan 6th would go through so they only had to deal amoungst their oligarchys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership - If this goes through, it will mean that corporations are guaranteed profits and can sue if they don't get them. They'll be attacking using weaker versions of the same laws and they'll probably win because the whole world is corrupt as hell and the EU depends on Exxon now that Russian gas is Evil(tm).

This is basically already a law in the US, if someone harms your potential profits through some kind of unprovoked action you can sue as anti-competitive behaviour or a slew of other US business legal statutes which would be considered wild in Europe. More or less for the reasons you mentioned too, the dependency on financial instruments means that the mechanics of those financial instruments require protection.

Let’s see how this gets spun to us by US cable news giants.

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Oh, be at least a three-knuckler to gets to the bottom of this.

I never understood that. Here in America we have corporations suing cities to get what they want. I don't understand why the cities can't just go, "You're suing us? Well, until it's settled in court, we're suspending your business license to operated within city limits."

Corps have been become so big, so rich, and so powerful, they really are the ones in charge now.

Exxon threatened the US congress during some hearings a bit ago (was during Rex's tenure) to just quit selling gas. Congress backed down. Even the people that scream about how powerful the oil companies are I think are underestimating them.

It's a bit terrifying if you ask me.

Fun. There are so many things that aren’t profitable that are good for people…the financialization of American industry is an overall negative for American citizens. As each industry turns to financial instruments instead of products (GE becoming a credit card company…Tesla selling carbon credits to make their profit margin), we decline as a citizenship - more and more products become out of reach (home ownership, medical care, decent primary education), because we have a new industry milking profits out of them.

Can i sue the government when my taxes go up? Class action anyone?

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This is why you don’t let big corporations have the power to sue the government like this.

I could be wrong but i dont think oil and gas has been banned by the government

Another reason to accelerate other forms of Energy...rapidly..offshore wind, solar, nuclear..

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A corporation suing the European Union…the ultimate flex 😂

Agree, on top of the windfall tax the EU should pass another tax for any company that denies climate change or funds it indirectly directly. Let those assholes bear the cost of fixing the shit they created.

Edit: as it seems to cause some keyboard warriors to go bananas

With a mix of moron?

How about you provide some facts and information instead of just whataboutism? It would certainly help to make you look less like a stubborn sheep and more like a logical person.

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Sue Exxon out of business. They don’t care about the climate only about their profit. People should be ashamed to work for such s***bag companies. Goes for all oil companies!

The EU Treaties determine the scope of the EU's authority. Similar to how the US Constitution determines the American government's authority. They are basically claiming the tax isn't "constituional". Not agreeing with them by the way; just explaining.

No one called that bluff? Were they really going to ignore their biggest market?

Yes and no, the EU isn't a nation, it doesn't have full control over its members, thus its capacity to make laws is restricted in certain domain. The scope of the EU is written in the treaties. It's fairly complex and there are grey areas, even as a EU citizen I don't have a perfect understanding of everything.

Exxon is going to be brutally introduced to the fact that the EU is in reality fairly free when it comes to that subject and very determined.

Yeah, good luck suing the people that make the damn rules...

Surely pretty much EVERY company in the world indirectly funds climate change? Like, even the local takeaway probably does it indirectly.

So they knew about Climate change since the 1970s, lied about, made the situation worse and got so rich, and you say they don’t want to even pay their taxes? I say we dissolve that company and sue their top execs.

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Causing and funding are two very different terms

But INDIRECTLY funding would apply to practically every business and individual.

You fill your car up? Indirectly funding climate change. Pay for heating? Indirectly funding climate change.

This isn't saying that they shouldn't add more taxes to those oil companies. But they're pretty directly funding climate change, whereas the rest of the world is indirectly funding it.

I mean, the EU doesn't have unlimited authority. The US federal government doesn't either. Imagine if someone claimed some law didn't fall into interstate commerce, that would be similar.

Here the regulation is based on Article 122, clause 1 TFEU, which reads: "Without prejudice to any other procedures provided for in the Treaties, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may decide, in a spirit of solidarity between Member States, upon the measures appropriate to the economic situation, in particular if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products, notably in the area of energy."

Exxon argues the windfall tax isn't appropriate to remedy any shortage

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Will be interesting to see how EU manhandles them though. They do not take price manipulation and such things well. They are just as likely to fine additional costs on top of the tax for trying to dictate their markets.

Only when they go down.

We are basically taking money from the poor / young people and giving it to older / wealthier people.

Taking the page outta Trump's playbook, eh Exxon? Just sue everyone and stall? Next up (Oh its real!) is the ads hitting the net and TV showing "positivity" by Exxon/Mobil investing in the future of (their) energy...

EU... grow some balls with teeth and bite them back.

Only if the prices go up.

If they go down it's good guy oil company cutting their profits for the common people.

/s

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I highly recommend watching “Big Oil vs the World” by BBC. It is a comprehensive Docu series that shows corporate americas attempts at overturning climate related legislations

Here is part 1 : https://youtu.be/D0iiVhOSWQg.

Always have been

Probably wasn't a bluff. Not like it would last long and probably wouldn't lose much if anything. It would doom anyone's reelection who was a party to it though and I don't know of a single congress critter that doesn't have "get reelected" as their first priority.

Keep in mind, looking at a report for FY2021, Exxon's earnings (not revenue) were only 8% from downstream (gas, lubes, that type of stuff). Chemicals and upstream is where all the profit is at.

This was also just one of those useless congressional committee hearings they do now and then that doesn't do anything regardless and has no real authority. So they didn't tell all of congress to piss up a rope.

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The EU isn’t a country, but a community of states

You very clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

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Mandating minimum percentages of EV, offering tax benefits for buying EV, setting energy efficiency standards in buildings, climate change initiatives, all cuts down on oil/gas/coal usage and revenue; in essence all those policies effect on oil/gas profits. Governments have the right to tax businesses operating in their country however they see fit. And considering that oil/gas is a limited natural resource, governments should control its production and usage, not cartels that make as much profit as they see fit and threaten everyone dependent on those resources when governments try to rein in cartel’s activities.

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And you are very clearly afraid to do your own research, since facts could upend your worldview and we can’t have that, right?

Says the guy who linked nothing, you’re pathetic.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Welcome to the real world dumbass lol

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The federal govt is in the hands of wealthy elites and corporations that value proifts over everything else.

The way we run any election in this country, it take a LOT of money to campaign. Candidates need wealthy backers to get their promises in front of the people. And, as soon as they're elected, they need to start lining up money for their next run. It's only natural that their decisions are going to favor those wealthy backers.

Notice I used the word "promises" - that's only so much bs to get people to vote for them. There are exceptions to that rule, but far too few.

Only problem is Europe is in the middle of trying to distance itself from Russian energy dependence. Pissing off the oil companies makes that a tad bit harder reaistically

Agreed, a company could be insanely profitable but if they aren't showing consistent growth then they get hammered by Wall Street. This leads to pressure to do shitty things like offshore and lay off workers things that I find morally wrong but are considered part of a company's fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

That's when you say ok nationalize any assets in the name of national defense.