We need a Windfall Profits Tax on the Oil Industry

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(paprius4030 @ Apr 28 2006, 03:56 PM) [snapback]246807[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like creeping socialism to me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(paprius4030 @ Apr 28 2006, 12:56 PM) [snapback]246807[/snapback]</div>

Wrong. The best way to get less of something is to tax it. Email Bush and your senators and suggest they keep their hands off the oil industry.

Now bring on the flames.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Apr 28 2006, 01:06 PM) [snapback]246812[/snapback]</div>

Yeah right. What we need to do is stop all this socialist subsidization of the oil industry. That's the ticket.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Begreen @ Apr 28 2006, 04:12 PM) [snapback]246816[/snapback]</div>

Agreed. While we're at it, lets stop the subsidization of the entire military industrial complex by the taxpayers.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ Apr 28 2006, 04:24 PM) [snapback]246825[/snapback]</div>

isn't that funny that neocons bitch about Euro socialism, while your example screams to be addressed.

I love it, when they use 'FRANCE' as an example...

:lol:

 

No, we don't need the tax. The oil industry is entitled to as much profit as they can make. Good for them, I say! If you don't like the price of gasoline, don't buy it. Just like any other product. If it costs too much, don't buy it. Or at least buy less of it.

I for one would pay $20 a gallon without flinching.

Now, if the government were to tax all future gasoline at $1 a gallon (hell, why not $5?), using the money to fund EV's and public transportation, I would be in full support of that.

On a side note, 25% of all new passenger vehicles are sold with V8 engines. This year and last. Next year too. That would be an accectable place to tax as well. How about $1000 a year to drive a V8? That's not even $100 a month.

Nate

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TonyPSchaefer @ Apr 28 2006, 03:16 PM) [snapback]246822[/snapback]</div>

The Daily Show rules!!! Oil men drool. :lol:

But maybe oil shouldn't be looked at the same way as buying a TV or cell phone. It's kind of like food. Some states don't tax food. Food and oil are basic necessities of life. Oil really is. We need oil for survival. To heat our homes, to power our cars, to make plastic, on and on...

Exxon posted a profit of 10 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year. Ten billion! Even with gas at $3 a gallon, the economy has hardly shuttered. With profit that high, it's easy to want a piece of that. I am a socialist at heart and would like to see tighter control of one of the necessities of modern day life-oil. But I'll have to admit, I'm not sure what the right answer is.

Maybe reading this on-going thread will help me figure out what the right answer should be.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eyeguy13 @ Apr 28 2006, 03:46 PM) [snapback]246886[/snapback]</div>

At last, the only other person to use the word "socialist" in a positive way since I've been here.

The U.S. should have nationalized oil in the 70's.

People like nate may be rolling in money to the extent they could pay $30 per gallon (I'd guess, if paying $20 wouldn't make him flinch), but most of us couldn't. "Just like any product" (again, nate)? Ridiculous. For the country as a whole, starting with the military and those with oil heating, petroleum is every bit as much a necessity as food and clothing. If we got to a real oil showdown with OPEC, or even just its Arab members, does anyone think we could get enough oil from Mexico, Canada and Norway to even keep the economy running at a minimal level?

What other world power in history has EVER gambled on access to a single commodity not within its own power to control that is so vital to its very ability to function?

With last year's energy legislation larded with continued subsidies for the oil industry, did anyone see a concerted reinvestment push (exploration, new refining capacity, upgrading infrastructure) by the oil industry? Then why would you think they'd use excess profits to do it? Because their winking buddy Bush paid lip service to it?

The oil industry could be run by a bureaucracy just as cleanly as Social Security has been for 70 years.

I believe that one day we'll pay for our folly, when a relative handful of men get angry and reckless enough to really stick it to us.

 

Chevron profits up 49%.

Encourage them? right.

How about they reinvest the profits OR they pay tax on them. That will encourage them.

Oh...and take away those obscene tax breaks. They can't whine they don't have enough money for research and development when their profits are up 49%.

 

We went through this in the 70's!

There are NO incentives for oil companies to increase refining capacity. What is needed are incentives to increase refining.

Also, the demand in China far outweighs anything here - if they will pay $100 per barrel there is no way we can counter. This is an exaple of supply and demand at work in it's finest!

Pick an oil comapny that you like and buy stock. Many are available through dividend reinvestment plans- then when you buy gas, buy your own! at least you will be puting a few cents back in YOUR pocket! Until we can be weaned off gasoline- it is a battle that no indiviual can win, so you might as well pick a side.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Apr 28 2006, 06:33 PM) [snapback]246882[/snapback]</div>

Yeah? I've got some for you then... How much would you like?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(barbaram @ Apr 28 2006, 07:40 PM) [snapback]246987[/snapback]</div>

That's a contradiction. I agree with the later part, we need to get weaned off of oil big time. But if we do, we won't need more refining capacity. Right now the oil companies have an embarassing dilemma. What to do with this excess wealth? Do you think they are going to put it into infrastructure. I don't think so, they want the govt. to pay for that. Instead it will go into executive perks and to the shareholders. :angry:

 

So after we tax the oil companies' profits, who is next? Maybe Apple? They've made a lot of money on the iPod. I hear it's like 50-60% profit on each unit sold! Way too much. Tax them. Now let's see who else we can tax for making too much money...

Give me a freaking break people! Punish a company for doing it's job well? This is a capitalist country! Tax a company for too much profit? Ever hear the terms free-market, supply and demand?

The market will charge whatever the consumer is willing to pay. It's that way for anything. True, it may be tough for those who don't make much money. Read any of the threads where people are happy gas is so expensive (same thread where people say the poor should just buy more efficient cars so they can afford the gas!!! :blink: ) and you'll see how I feel about this. But to tax a company simply for making "too much profit." Utterly and completely stupid.

 

The major oil companies make about 12% return on assets. It's a little lower than the average for all industries.

If you get your "windfall profits" tax, you will see less investment in supply, even higher gas prices, less exploration, and more imported oil. Just like the last time. And Congress will happily spend your "windfall profits" on what THEY want.

Bottom line, you'll get screwd twice over and have even less money. But at least the symbolism will make you feel better.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ Apr 28 2006, 09:11 PM) [snapback]247040[/snapback]</div>

Doc, tell me why gasoline, diesel fuel and heating oil should not be regarded as a public utility, and why their prices should not be regulated the same as natural gas or electricity.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ghostofjk @ Apr 28 2006, 10:44 PM) [snapback]247085[/snapback]</div>

Oh, should the price of natural gas and electricity be regulated? Of course not. If oil company profits are high, they will do their damndest to produce more of their highly profitable product. Competitors working on nuclear power, solar panels, oil shale, and ethanol will likewise be incentivized to get in on the act, and the result will be more plentiful sources of energy and lower prices. Left wing price and profit controls never work. The only thing they can be counted on to do is to produce unintended consequences.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ghostofjk @ Apr 29 2006, 01:44 AM) [snapback]247085[/snapback]</div>

Because you have a choice. I only have one provider for electricity. It's usually the same for natural gas too. No ones very life depends on gasoline or diesel or heating oil. You do not need to drive a car. But if you can't heat your house in winter, or cool it in the summer, you very well could die. It happens every heat wave and blizzard. I haven't heard of anyone dying because they couldn't fill up their gas tank. As for heating oil, a house will have electricity. It doesn't run on heating oil alone. You use an electric heater. The same could be said for natural gas too, but I guess a greater number of things run of NG than heating oil.

That is why it should not be regulated like electricity or NG. It is not a need.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Apr 28 2006, 03:33 PM) [snapback]246882[/snapback]</div>

Please don't support that AGAIN... I am still wondering what happened to the $5 Bil given for advance technology research to the big 3 a decade away. That vaporware is really selling very well in these high gas price days...