Jim Galbally

ok, what do you think would happen if BP didnt make a profit

go on, tell me how much better off we'd all be

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Fair on who?

Their shareholders, who each manage to see a modest profit for their investment when the share dividen is paid out?

Yes I do.


You do realise just how many people that 3 million quid is shared between, and its actually a tiny tiny tiny amount per share, like literally about 0.00001p a minute or something like that, but that doesnt sound quite so exciting to the SUN readers?

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

of course they need to make a profit, but it is taking the piss a bit don't you think? So you are completly happy with the state of the country and the way its run?

rog

iTrader: (2)

I better start stocking up on te 5ltr family sized tubs of gruel......






Pick-a-little-pocket-or-twooooooooooooooooo!

Seriously though, its not good, especially for families and old people who perhaps already have tight margins, but the reality is there's F**k all you can do to change the prices, so we either have to hunt for that elusive better paid job or just get on with it.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

If they made any significant amount less, their share value would plummet and as a result LOTS of people would lose money, including all the investors who buy shares in BP to go towards pension funds, so my own pension would no doubt devalue as a result, as would yours!

lead_foot

iTrader: (1)

Increase income + Decrease outgoings = More money.

Christian and Beccy

iTrader: (14)

The fact is that when we bought our house, our mortgage in no way stretched us. It started out at £550 per month. Here we are 4 years later verging on £1000 per month. OK, so we have slightly increased the amount we borrowed, but really not alot in the grand scheme. Beccy and I are both very sensible and realistic, but don't see why two people that between them have a reasonable household income should be struggling as we are.

Neither of us smoke or drink and we have no hobbies as such. We rarely go out, maybe once or twice a month. I really mean what I say about my car, NONE of the money spent on it is taken from our monthly income. I simply make that happen by working on the car myself and selling old unused parts etc, so that can't be seen to be a drain on our resources. When it's done however, I'm not sure if we will be able to put it on the road.

I'll say it again, I'm not expecting to be able to support a 5 bedroom house and 3 cars. I pity the poor fuckers that aren't on the property ladder yet, but then according to Jim and Chip, we should be grateful for the mere air we breath and anything more than that is a bonus. We're not cavemen for fuck sake and it's certainly not like it the world over, so why here?

This thread is going nowhere and should be deleted IMO.

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

You are COMPLETELY missing the point!!!

10000%!!!

If I found things tougher I would find ways to lessen my outgoings...

for example I sold a 500bhp Skyline and 500bhp Sierra this year!!! I know some are obviously having to make harder sacrifices! but you know what I mean!

I would work in the corner shop staking shelves or mini cabbing at night if I needed to make ends meet!

I would sell everything I owned and move back in with my mum or a fooking tent if needed!

and I would NEVER ever moan about how badly off I fooking was or what I struggle it was.

I have my health and therefore I have options and the ability to live my life how I want to.

my comments would be the same if I was penniless or was Bill gates. Its got nothing to do with my job now!

and ANYONE like Renton who has known me when I was fooking pennyless will tell you that!

Jesus I remember when Renton used to have to buy me pints as I was so broke!

alistairolsen

I fucking hate when cunts talk in absolute values! You HAVE to look at relative values. (see fuel example above)

if you think BPs profit it wholly unreasonable when you read the papers, try taking their annual profit and dividing it by turnover. Now do the same for tesco, or your local corner shop, or the company you work for!


BPs gross profit figure is only massive because the turnover is magnitudes more massive!

Jim Galbally

what chip said

also out of that profit margin can you guess how much come from consumer petrol/diesel consumption?

UK Business making profits benefits our economy and increases our GDP, if they made bigger profits we might not all be s bad off as we are

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

Who are you calling a cunt you fucking prick? It was a simple statement that IMHO we are being held to ransom for fuel.... everyone can have an opinion.

Christian and Beccy

iTrader: (14)

No, but again, the profit increase for them in not condusive with the DECREASE most people are seeing. I'm sure thats the point. Big companies at the top of the tree and not riding the storm with us, they are simply punishing us harder. Any idiot can see that a company the size of BP or Shell will have a massive profit figure, but an increase way more than previous years in a climate where there is so much talk of recession can only mean that they are creaming it.

rog

iTrader: (2)

Who have you got a mortgage with before it's nearly doubled! Mine was about that and it's now about 100 more expensive, that was just 3 1/2 years ago....

Jim Galbally

everyone is entitled to an opinion yes, but it's best that make that an INFORMED opinion. unfortunately the majority of the population aren't well informed

it's the biggest flaw in democracy, people who have no understanding of a particular subject have the say in what happens. there's a famous churchill quote that sums that up better but i can't remember it

Jim Galbally

describe how much better we'd all be if they made less profit. hypothetically speaking how much better off would the average joe be or the UK economy.

RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

So between the Government and the fuel companies, you are filling your tank with a smile on your face everytime, thinking what great value you are getting? Right-o

Turbo-Beal

Im suprised that some people think our country is all wonderfull and think that we are all ungratful with what we have already got. But the fact of the matter is the average working person is suffering at the moment and are being pushed to the point where they cant afford the most basic things in life. How can that be moraly right while the rich keep getting ritcher even in times like thease. While they hike there prices to account for the rise in raw materials we are the ones that are suffering for it while they continue to make record profits every year. I know this is not the case for everything but it makes me sick how the goverment stands back and lets it happen. Its all about profit for them at the end of the day.

Chip

iTrader: (3)

You were naive to think that rates would stay as low, and you compounded the problem with addition borrowing (some of which appears to be money you could have instead saved by less foreign holidays and car spending)

You made your bed, you are lieing it! IMHO

alistairolsen

opinion should be based on some fucking idea of whats going on, thats why I hate religious people who have never even considered their beliefs/opinion and just slavishly follow what they are told. Im fast coming to the conclusion that tabloid readers deserve the same!

Fuel has been far too cheap for years, its a finite resource, we all knew it was going to go up, and once it started to go up it wouldnt come back down (as a long term trend)

Of the profits youre kicking off about (which arent that big) very little comes from domestic petrol and diesel, most goes industrially. Oil companies pay 64 or 74% tax on oil removed from the ground ( cant recall which right now) before they ever sell it, then we pay fuel tax and vat (iirc) on it with income we have paid income tax on, and then we put it in our cars we pay car tax on.....

Jim Galbally

wil, again you have to see the bigger picture if everyone was only interested in themselves (such as your thinking about how you want to pay less for your fuel) we'd all be FUCKED.

the depressing truth (and yes it bothers me) is that the minority will suffer for the good of the majority

unfortunately i AM in that minority as i'm gonna get BUMFUCKED by the credit crunch as i owe so much bloody money. every time i fill up it does annoy the fuck out of me, bu i am inteligent enough to understand that there isn't an easy solution out there.

if you ccan come up with a better way of running our economy then by all means TRY. run for political office, if it's a good idea we'll all vote for you!

Jim Galbally

well, there is a solution that sounds PERFECT on paper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist


oh wait, they tried that and it didn't work

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Indeed, personally I would sooner we just became a monarchy, Charles seems relatively inteligent and educated, as do his boys, and no one can debate the queen's commitment to the country.

The problem with modern democracy, is that the way the system is structured pretty much GUARENTEES that anyone in power is:
A) a backstabbing two faced slimey cunt
B) got loads of personal interests and "friends" they need to "help out"
C) only interested in short term gains and NEVER the longterm future of the country


The system we have utterly CAN NOT work for the best long term, cause if someone puts in place "long term gain for short term pain" measures, they get voted out by the SUN reading general public!

alistairolsen

sadly perfect fairness is defeated by human nature

and having just seen chips post, if we wanted to keep the current system then doubling the initial term would be a damn good start! labour would have treated things very differently I suspect if they had been voted in once, for 12 years as opposed to 3 times for 4

Christian and Beccy

iTrader: (14)

2 years ago, we were on 4.4%, our renewal this year is looking like it will be beyond 6.5%, thats £200 per month increase already.

We borrowed around £20k above what we paid for the property when we remortgaged 2 years ago, which was SOME of the renovation costs and we expected this. We bought a bungalow that was derelict as that was pretty much all we could afford, and renovated it ourselves. We absorbed alot of the renovation costs on a month-by-month basis, by cutting back on other things. We thought that was a drain on our financial resources, but now the renovation is almost complete and the monthly expense towards this is certainly significantly less, we are in a far worse financial position.

Jim Galbally

here's a churchil quote

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Yep, people get 4 years to turn the country around and win the hearts of the voters, and realistically by about 30 months into that term, most people have decided already, and it takes a few months to really get up to speed etc im sure, so its more like 2 and a bit years!

So if they come to power and put in place policies that work for the good of the country 10 years down the line, but result in everyone being hard up a bit more in the short term, they get voted straight out again by clueless morons like Christian here

Brown is actually attempting to get our house in order currently, cutting back in borrowing and trying to repay debts to lessen the burden in years to come, to do this he is having to keep tax high, he will of course, be voted out

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

I would have LOADS of ideas about what to do in that situation to be honest!

Jim Galbally

you know that you can get a lot of adult education free nowadays? and there are about a million different "train & work" schemes out there too.

the government are trying to provide people the tools to move into more profitable sectors

rog

iTrader: (2)

Do you think they'll be a coup anytime soon?

Chip

iTrader: (3)

The problem with democracy, is it makes revolution impossible as "the people" are already in power!

alistairolsen

I wont be voting for him, but that has less to do with hsi current financial moves and more to do with his governments policies and whats happened previously.

Right, 2007 figures: (turnover/before tax profit/percentage)

BP: $284bn / $17.3bn / 6.09%

Tate and Lyle £3225m / £311m / 9.64%

trying to think of good smallish british companies.....

Chip

iTrader: (3)

The merciless thieving cunting sugar producing greedy bastards!

How dare they do well at the same time as C&B are busy overextending all their borrowing while blindly hoping that interest rates would never go up.

alistairolsen

indeed! the only reason you dot notice is cos you buy a half kilo bag once a week and it costs you a couple of quid a month more!

Oil companies really dont make any more than they need to for operational survival, and get fucked for more tax than just about anyone else!

as an aside, 1 year is 365.25 days, which is 8766 hours which is 525960 minutes if I have my numbers correct.

now Bp made $17.3bn (USD and US billion 10^9)

so that is $17300000000

which is £9400130406.43

so around £17872 per minute

now if I was a sun reading BP shareholder Id want to know where the other
£2,982,128 quid a minute was going!!

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Your numbers look correct to me, but please dont let facts get in the way of a debate with the uneducated SUN reading mass public

alistairolsen

*awaits graham S1 with a conspiracy theory about the missing £2.98m per minute being fed to the IRA*

dumped

Close the thread too,getting close to reality!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

neilm

You started the blimmin thread in the first place, dont start what you cant finish, I am sure Beccy will have told you that, probably in B&Q


As for people getting on the property ladder, there is more chance now for young people than there was 9 months ago, property is dropping like a stone, new builds are been given away with ridiculous incentives and discounts as the building firms need to get money back in to survive and this will probably continue for at least another 18 months.

So any sensible young people with a good deposit and credit historys will have no problem getting a mortage.

The drop in property prices will only serve to kick start the market, once it bottoms out, and for those who own their own homes already, well their property has dropped in price aswell as the one they want to buy and anyone down sizing will be quids in.


As for you two C&B you have bought a derelict house and renovated it so your return on investment will be huge, far greater than had you bought a house in good order. All you have to do is weather the storm.

The other alternative is to buy a caravan and become a Traveller.

James-W

Now that is genuinely funny!

Christian and Beccy

iTrader: (14)

Overextending our borrowing? Now who is basing his info on bullshit?

I could have coped with interest rates going up, but when will you people listen. It's the RISE MASSIVELY ABOVE INFLATION thats hurting and no-one could have second-guessed that. OK, so we could live in a situation of what might happen, for fuck sake, we might have a chemical attack tomorrow, but we don't all walk around in fucking gas masks just incase do we?

4 years ago, the amount we borrowed was well within our budget, but now its very much less so. I still don't think we did anything wrong.

Again, this thread is being made out to be something it isn't. It started out with me asking what people are doing to overcome the current financial situation and you're made it out as though I'm one of the many people that has put themselves into a ridiculous situation of debt from the word go. We took our mortgage on once we had cleared all our other debts, we lived in a rented house together for almost 6 years before we took on a mortgage and at a time of life where we both believed we could afford it. We paid £135,000 for our bungalow, knowing that it needed extensive renovation and managed to absorb more than we thought we would from our own money but had to put some onto the mortgage. That's no different than if we had paid £155,000 for a bungalow that didn't need renovating, it's not extravagant is it? We haven't complained about money until now, it isn't inflation thats hurting us, neither are moderate increases in day-to-day living, but we could have never accounted for the increases we are seeing now.

Jim/Chip, do you own your homes?

Porkie

iTrader: (1)

I Fooking hate Pikeys!