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Post by saunterelle on Oct 30, 2008 13:11:37 GMT -5
Exxon just posted a new record for 3rd quarter profits. Over $14 billion in profit for one quarter  . It's time to tax these windfall profits and start building the infrastructure for alternative energy in America. |
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Post by subdjoe on Oct 30, 2008 13:15:42 GMT -5
How about the windfalls on the enterainment industry? Equal protection clause and all that.
And why isn't Barry, with is single minded push for "redistribution" living in a two bedroom flat, wearing second hand clothes, eating mostly rice, beans and cornbread, and giving most of his pay to those in need? Seems like he should be leading by example.
Oh, wait, that would require HIS money to be redistributed. Can't have that.
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Post by bolverk on Oct 30, 2008 13:50:23 GMT -5
I don't watch FOX and I don't have to wait for someone to give me an idea. I'm so tired of your rhetoric and defense of a president who's ratings are the lowest if not close to it. I honestly think you believe what you're saying, but just look around or are you in a bubble? And I'm tired of hate filled, bigoted, leftist lynch mobs howleing after Bush for every rumor, half truth, lie, and inuendo put out by rich white socialists. Then, when presented with FACTS rather than the Revealed Truth they ignore it. Hear hear... |
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Post by bolverk on Oct 30, 2008 13:54:54 GMT -5
Exxon just posted a new record for 3rd quarter profits. Over $14 billion in profit for one quarter . It's time to tax these windfall profits and start building the infrastructure for alternative energy in America. Let me ask you some questions. When you put this windfall tax on Exxon, do you think they will just increase their prices to make up the difference? Or do you think they will just pay the tax and eat the difference? How will you prevent them from raising the prices if we do put on a windfall tax? Are you going to slap price controls on them as well? Don't you believe in investments? Should not someone with the means invest in alternative energy in America? If it is so necessary wouldn't that make it highly profitable? Why should we have to rely on government to do it for us? |
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Post by saunterelle on Oct 30, 2008 13:55:38 GMT -5
The entertainment industry isn't sticking a giant straw into the earth and extracting our natural resource for its personal gain.
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Post by bolverk on Oct 30, 2008 13:59:04 GMT -5
And neither is the oil industry. It is drilling in the earth to provide you and your friends with heat, electricity and fuel for your vehicles. If they make huge sums of money then good for them. Maybe they will hire more people to do more research to find alternative forms of energy. That is how capitalism works.
Nobody works for free or gives away the fruit of their labor for free either.
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Post by saunterelle on Oct 30, 2008 14:02:53 GMT -5
Their product leads to pollution and the degradation of our collective planet. If we want to get serious about weening ourselves off of oil altogether, we have to fund it. What better source of funding than those who make obscene amounts of money off our dependence on their product.
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Post by jgaffney on Oct 30, 2008 14:25:29 GMT -5
Their product leads to pollution and the degradation of our collective planet. If we want to get serious about weening ourselves off of oil altogether, we have to fund it. What better source of funding than those who make obscene amounts of money off our dependence on their product. Saunterelle, I have pressed you before for an answer to this: How are you doing on that CNG Honda? If you truly believe that your use of petroleum is seriously degrading the planet, why don't you take advantage of the alternative that is available to you today. Walk the walk, as it were. But, when you think about it, where does all of that natural gas that Boone Pickens sees as the savior of our society come from? Hint: it usually occurs in the same pockets as petroleum. Before you run off screaming "obscene profits" again, I want you to consider what Exxon does with that money. Educate yourself about all of the research that they do on alternative energies and on getting more out of the wells they already have. Since Exxon doesn't extract all of the petroleum that they sell, find out how much they have to buy on the world market, and from whom. Then, compare and contrast that with the tax bill that Exxon already pays (hint: it's more). Once you have educated yourself on the true extent of the petroleum market, then you can come back here and not get smote. |
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Post by saunterelle on Oct 30, 2008 15:00:31 GMT -5
I have done research on what Exxon does with their money. They put about 0.2% of their profits toward alternative energy research. That's hardly even a token amount.
I look forward to getting the GNC Honda when the infrastructure (refueling stations) is set up all across America using Obama's windfall profit tax on oil companies. Also, I'd better wait until our economy is in better shape before making a large expenditure on a rapidly depreciating asset.
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Post by subdjoe on Oct 30, 2008 15:45:24 GMT -5
How much does that 0.2% come to in dollars? I have asked you this before and you ignore it. So, how many hundreds of millions of US dollars is that? How much have the so-called greens put into the same type of research? How much have you invested in that research?
So, you still like fossil fuels, eh? And compressed natural gas IS a fossil fuel. And you want to have more trucks carrying more potential bombs on crowded streets. I assume that when we start having more accidents involving these F/AE devices an start seeing deaths from them you will be among the first to scream that they need to be taken off the streets.
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Post by maxsawdust on Oct 30, 2008 15:46:33 GMT -5
Exxon just posted a new record for 3rd quarter profits. Over $14 billion in profit for one quarter . It's time to tax these windfall profits and start building the infrastructure for alternative energy in America. ONCE AGAIN I am growing tired of you and your nonsensical rhetoric. PLEASE DO REFUTE ANYTHING POSTED WITH FACT: Take Exxon Mobil, which recently reported the highest quarterly profit ever and is the main target of any “windfall” tax surcharge. Yet if its profits are at record highs, its tax bills are already at record highs too. Between 2003 and 2007, Exxon paid $64.7 billion in U.S. taxes, exceeding its after-tax U.S. earnings by more than $19 billion. That sounds like a government windfall but perhaps I'm missing some Obama business subtlety.
Maybe they have in mind profit margins as a percentage of sales. Yet by that standard Exxon’s profits don’t seem so large. Exxon’s profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers).
If that’s what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery — both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau’s industry rankings. The latter two double the returns of Big Oil, though of course government has already became a tacit shareholder in Big Tobacco through the various legal settlements that guarantee a revenue stream for years to come.
In a tax bill on oil earlier this summer, no fewer than 51 Senators voted to impose a 25% windfall tax on a U.S.-based oil company whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year and wasn’t investing enough in “renewable” energy. This suggests that a windfall is defined by profits growing too fast. No one knows where that 10% came from, besides political convenience. But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc. So will LG, the electronics company, which saw its profits grow by 505% in 2007. Abbott Laboratories hit 110%…..
General Electric profits by investing in the alternative energy technology that Mr. Obama says Congress should subsidize even more heavily than it already does. GE’s profit margin in 2007 was 10.3%, about the same as profiteering Exxon’s.
So is Obama planning to tax all these other businesses?
Is his plan for growing America’s economy to say that we need to tax excess profits from any American business that grows fast and does well and then redistribute that money to average American folk?
What does he think such a plan would do for the GDP over the long run?
Does he not think that companies would react to such a tax plan and how would their reactions affect the growth of the overall economy?I know you WILL dodge this AGAIN as you have the past 15 times I have posted it..Facts scare you. And weening ENTIRELY off of oil and oil by-products can NEVER (well not until we give up EVERYTHING technological and tons and tons of other of daily items) happen. What color is your Tshirt? If it's not 100% UNTREATED ORGANIC cotton.....if it has a COLOR it has by-product of OIL in it. Along with tens of thousands of other daily use products. |
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Post by bolverk on Oct 30, 2008 16:37:01 GMT -5
Their product leads to pollution and the degradation of our collective planet. If we want to get serious about weening ourselves off of oil altogether, we have to fund it. What better source of funding than those who make obscene amounts of money off our dependence on their product. No, your use of the product you create a demand for leads to pollution and the degradation of our collective planet. No, we do not have to fund anything. When the United States funded research into high definition televisions, the group that was doing the research never even created a single television. In Japan, where they knew that demand for these televisions would be high, a group of business men set about creating them without government capital. Guess where the Hi-Def televisions come from now? Government funding is never the solution. We need less government sticking their nose into what businesses create and more investors and entrepreneurs investing in the alternative energy. That is how capitalism works. |
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. It's time to tax these windfall profits and start building the infrastructure for alternative energy in America.
