[Rhodes22-list] Political- media bias in reporting exposed... a failure to think things thru

Thu Jun 26 13:01:56 EDT 2008

Ed,

Without commenting directly on the politics of your post, I wish to set the 
record straight as far as the dividend situation with Exxon Mobil 
Corporation.  As an XOM stockholder I find the following to be wholly 
untrue:

    > Now understand what those obscene profits are used for.  Yes, they pay 
the
    > head fellow an obscene salary.  But then they pay all employees wages. 
And
    > they pay something called dividends.  What are those dividends?  They 
are
    > payments to the shareholders of Exxon Mobile.

I bought XOM shares in October 2005 for $55/shr with a quarterly dividend of 
$0.29.  The price of gas was about $2.50/gal 
(http://www.longislandgasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx) here on LI. 
Today, XOM trades for $87/shr (158% of '05) and pays a dividend of $0.40 
(138% of '05)  (it was $0.32 until '07 when it rose to $0.35 and only last 
month did it reach $0.40) while the price of gas is $4.399 (176% of '05)! 
The 1Q08 profits were up 17% over '07, $10.9B 
(http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_9121523).  While the stock price has 
done well, the huge profits have NOT been distributed to the shareholders. 
Where's my cut?

Mike
s/v Shanghai'd Summer ('81)
Nissequogue River, NY

From: "Tootle" <ekroposki at charter.net>Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 7:53 AM
>
> The author of Brad's Power Line Blog said, "I think it's fair to say that 
> the
> mainstream media's interest in Iraq has always been driven largely by the
> opportunity to spin events there in a way that advances a political 
> agenda.
>
> It is important to understand what that unstated political agenda is.  In 
> my
> own words I summarize it as the destruction of America.  And those on 
> still
> on this forum say I am overstating or exaggerating the truth.
>
> Let us understand what Obama has said about oil companies.  He has said
> several times that an obscene or windfall profits tax is in order.  So 
> what
> is the result of such a tax?
>
> Before you begin to assert that there are a real obscene profits made by 
> oil
> companies, that is for example Exxon Mobile, compare their profits with
> other businesses.  Let us compare their profits with say, Microsoft.  As I
> read the numbers, Exxon Mobil is about one third ( 1/3rd ) as much.
>
> Now understand what those obscene profits are used for.  Yes, they pay the
> head fellow an obscene salary.  But then they pay all employees wages. 
> And
> they pay something called dividends.  What are those dividends?  They are
> payments to the shareholders of Exxon Mobile.
>
> What are shareholders?  Those are holders of pieces of paper who say that
> they are owners, stakeholders in that obscene company.  And who are those
> noxious owners of shares of Exxon Mobile?
> Well, some are people, individuals, and members of this forum.  Others are
> mutual funds, retirement funds and other companies.
>
> And who are these salubrious mutual funds and retirement funds?  Well both
> are groups of individuals, people like on this forum who have gotten
> together and put their earnings from working into a collective fund that
> purchases equities (aka stocks) for building a supply of money that can be
> used later to pay for retirement.
>
> Simply put the obscene earnings that Obama wants nationalized are savings 
> by
> working people like most on this list.
>
> And what will be the result of such action by Obama and his cohorts?  It
> will be the weakening of companies so penalized.  It could even destroy
> those companies.  What would destruction of those companies mean?
>
> It would wipe out parts of mutual funds and retirement accounts.  All that
> those people (you people) have worked for and saved for wiped out!
>
> And are there others who own stock in these companies?  Yes, foreign
> investors own stock in American companies.  And they do so because those
> companies have been shown to be stable and secure investments of capital.
>
> If you harm American companies or as Maxine Waters wants to do, 
> nationalize
> them, what effect will that have on foreign investments?  The value of 
> “ALL”
> American companies will become suspect and foreign investors will go
> elsewhere.  This would result in the value destruction of “ALL” mutual 
> funds
> and failure of retirement accounts to pay retirees.
>
> And why do socialist want to do this?  The failure of the American 
> economic
> system would make you all  wards of the state.  This result would give the
> state power over all.  This religion would make them Gods on earth.
>
> My analylsis shows that Obama and his socialist friends and fellow 
> travelers
> are despots, false gods or simply agents of Satan trying to enslave you 
> all.
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
>>
>> Say it ain't so!  Brad
>>
>> ---------------
>>
>> (from PowerLine)
>>
>>
>> War Coverage Fades Away
>>
>> The New York
>> Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/23logan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin>confirms
>> what we've all observed: as violence in Iraq recedes, our news
>> outlets take less interest in events there:
>>
>> According to data compiled by Andrew Tyndall, a television consultant who
>> monitors the three network evening newscasts, coverage of Iraq has been
>> "massively scaled back this year." Almost halfway into 2008, the three
>> newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with
>> 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The "CBS Evening News" has devoted the
>> fewest
>> minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC's "World News" and 74
>> minutes
>> on "NBC Nightly News." (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)
>>
>> CBS News no longer stations a single full-time correspondent in Iraq,
>> where
>> some 150,000 United States troops are deployed.
>>
>> I suppose it's understandable, in a way, that coverage would be 
>> "massively
>> scaled back" when there is less violence to report on. One wonders,
>> though,
>> whether the change may be due in part to the fact that network executives
>> are more excited about publicizing apparent failure in Iraq than success
>> there.
>>
>> The journalists who complained to the Times about their employers' lack 
>> of
>> interest in Iraq and Afghanistan also noted that interest has flagged
>> among
>> the American public:
>>
>> On "The Daily Show," Ms. Logan echoed the comments of other journalists
>> when
>> she said that many Americans seem uninterested in the wars now. Mr.
>> McCarthy
>> said that when he is in the United States, bringing up Baghdad at a 
>> dinner
>> party "is like a conversation killer."
>>
>> I'm afraid that's also true. The conclusion of the Times piece is
>> revealing,
>> too:
>>
>> Journalists at all three American television networks with evening
>> newscasts
>> expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the
>> Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only 
>> on
>> the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.
>>
>> It's interesting that the journalists themselves link their employers'
>> interest in Iraq to the election. I think it's fair to say that the
>> mainstream media's interest in Iraq has always been driven largely by the
>> opportunity to spin events there in a way that advances a political
>> agenda.
>> Remember al Qaqaa
>> <http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004/10/008280.php>?
>> That story dominated the news for a week before the 2004 Presidential
>> election. It was a story of great importance, however, only as long as it
>> could be used to help John Kerry's Presidential campaign. Once the
>> election
>> was over, al Qaqaa was never heard of again. With hindsight, that episode
>> might be taken as a paradigm of far too much of the mainstream media's
>> coverage of the war.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Wasn't there talk on here along the lines of most of the troops are
>>> supporting Obama? I know, I know, check the archives. I would, but it's
>>> just not important to me...
>>>
>>> Tootle wrote:
>>> > Recently I received an email about media bias.  I tried to check it 
>>> > out
>>> with
>>> > snopes.  They have finally replied:
>>> >
>>> > http://www.snopes.com:80/politics/war/raddatz.asp
>>> >
>>> > And when these things are done without any way to check things out,
>>> well
>>> > that is usually the way it is done by the Liberal Northeast Media
>>> types...
>>> >
>>> > Ed K
>>> > Greenville, SC, USA
>>> >
>>>
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>
> -- 
> View this message in context: 
> http://www.nabble.com/Political---media-bias-in-reporting-exposed...-tp18071979p18089396.html
> Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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