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To: ancient_geezer

Thanks for the article.

Obviously the price of oil has gone up fourfold since 1997 while the price of labor etc hasn't. So what was +10% is likley much higher now. It would be interesting to see a current analysis. Energy costs are a hidden "tax" on the price of most goods.

The embedded income and payroll taxes are not going to be saved by the business, they will be given to the employee. This will not contribute one nickel to the bottom line of the oil companies just to their employees.


354 posted on 08/16/2005 4:11:06 PM PDT by RobFromGa (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran-- what are we waiting for?)
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To: RobFromGa
Thanks for the article.
You should note that in the IGEM model used to come up with those price reductions, the price of labor goes down as the marginal tax rate on labor goes down (i.e., wages go down as personal taxes go down).
355 posted on 08/16/2005 4:20:45 PM PDT by Your Nightmare
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To: RobFromGa

Obviously the price of oil has gone up fourfold since 1997 while the price of labor etc hasn't.

Price of labor is not where costs lay in terms of the sector costs of oil out of the ground being shipped to a refinery for processing. Storage, shipping, equipment, exploration, refining, all are capital intensive not labor intesive proposition.

The fact is in the fuel sector little of the cost of oil or its refined products are labor. The costs of oil are related to supply and capital factors by a wide margin over any labor factors.

The embedded income and payroll taxes are not going to be saved by the business, they will be given to the employee.

Sure they are, seems to me that they are even more likely to go to reducing energy prices at the retail side to increase sales margin and profitibility long before any such business is going to increase the wage of an employee unless that employ can somehow increase production to make up the difference in wage and yield a corresponding opportunity to incease market at the expense of the competition.

Secondly taxes per-se are the lesser part of the expense on business, tax related costs involving, planning, accounting, reporting, litigation, tax avoidence schemes, and depressed production under tax-cost related pricing in the income tax system are a much larger factor the merely the tax remitted to government. Any such saving are much more likely to accrue to maximizing profit by increasing market share against competition which is intense in and commodity sector.

This will not contribute one nickel to the bottom line of the oil companies just to their employees.

Show us some studies that support your foundationless assumption. Your assertions simply don't stand up to any application of reason.

359 posted on 08/16/2005 4:43:06 PM PDT by ancient_geezer (Don't reform it, Replace it!!)
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