Who owns 'Big Oil?' It's not who you think.
 

A recent study finds that ownership of oil and natural gas company shares is made up of a broad cross section of Americans.

"This study disproves the popular misconception that 'Big Oil' is owned by a small group of industry insiders. In reality, across the oil and natural gas industry only 1.5 percent of shares of public companies are owned by company executives," said study author Robert J. Shapiro, undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton. "The data show that ownership of industry shares is broadly middle class, with the majority of industry shares held by institutional investors, often on behalf of millions of Americans through mutual funds, pension funds and individual retirement accounts."

API Chief Economist John Felmy added: "When politicians seek to punish these companies and 'take their profits,' they are not targeting industry executives but the hard-earned savings of working people."

Shapiro and economist Nam D. Pham's study was commissioned by API. The study shows that:

* Almost 43 percent of oil and natural gas company shares are owned by mutual funds and asset management companies that have mutual funds. Mutual funds manage accounts for 55 million U.S. households with a median income of $68,700.

thats bullshit.. its spinning of the numbers.. yes 43% or so is little guy investment accounts, but the other 57% is made up of profiteers (large institutions/speculators)..

Small groups are making billions on speculation and derivitives and that is a problem, but not really the problem...

the biggest problem with oil/gas prices is the dependency on foreign supply... its time to put some of the environmental issues on hold and start becoming self sufficient..

all the other major countries seem to be doing this, why are we the last to follow?

wow, what an arse about face attitude.
How about pushing clean energy, and then giving the forks to the countries with oil :)

i am trying to be realistic... the US is too fucked up and greedy to adapt or "push" enough clean energy in time to make it a viable option...

as far as i am concerned, we have two choices: ignore the environmental issues like our other allies and enemies are doing or have the govt subsidise "green" technology like battery powered cars and solar energy...

I guess you've never heard of boards?

I love it when someone buys into the propoganda from the talking heads... I noticed that the latest "spin" is to point out that "normal people" own the oil companies in their retirement funds etc.

"Big oil" is more in reference to the fact that they are multi-billion dollar companies with million dollar lobyists to get billions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives from the tax payers and are run by multi-million dollar executives with golden parachutes.

"......................................."

Ya normal people may own some shares, on purpose or inadvertently through a fund thats managed for them, But these normal "everyday joes" (mccains words) arent out there making the policy that create these issues.

So? Whats the difference between a speculator dumping 50k on a stock and Average Joe dumping 1k through his fund? Why aren't they both entitled to the profits of their investment? Thats like saying because a property developer builds a 10 million dollar bunch of apartments you should take away the ability of Average Joe to sell his house for a profit, it makes no sense other than saying people who invest wisely should be punished because normal people are too stupid to deal with reality.
It's not the people that are buying shares in oil companies that are putting the price of gas up, thats arse about face. The sp of oil companies goes up when the price of oil goes up... no amount of buying shares will move the POO.