Replies

OK, I'm feed up. Quit trying to use grade school, John Kerry, debating tactics. Learn something from me. I am giving you a lesson in economics for a fraction of what I charge my clients. Learn and profit.

" The rest of the world would have cheaper energy by a ton...

I am trying to reconcile this with what you wrote in post #399:"

Cheaper than us you dolt. If we put a tax on the oil we use then people that do not have the tax will have CHEAPER OIL THAN US BY THE AMOUNT OF THE TAX (approximately). Taxing imported oil will cause all oil to go up for US consumers. Do you have a clue as to why? In effect we are subsidizing industrial production of the REST OF THE WORLD. Can you grasp that?

YOU REALLY need to go to a book store and learn about economics.

"I fail to see how an increase of domestic oil prices by 37.5 cents per gallon"

Either you or the other economic moron took the barrel of oil and divided it by gallons to get the increase in price of gas at the pump directly arithmetically from your per barrel tax. If you had a clue you would know that a gallon of crude does not translate into a gallon of gasoline. AND you can't go use linear math for g----sake. You have to look at the marginal impact. A 5% decrease in availability of anything at current market prices could raise market prices double. If you had a clue you would know by now about the supply/demand CURVES not LINES. Buy a highschool math book while you are at it. My 13 year old eighth grader knows better. Did you go to public school?

Taxes slow economies. Slow economies reduce production and tax receipts and the standard of living.

Look if you want to screw the mulahs don't screw us in the short term. By the way you do have support from you idea in two places; Dorgan the idiot. and the friggen Canadian liberal party. 'nugh said. I refuse to waste my time on you any more until you read a book by Tom Sowell. Or chech with any respected conservative ecnomists. I took your dopey comments Sunday night to about a dozen and they all think your idea is wacky. It would improve your outlook on life.

You claim that "when people that do not have the tax will have CHEAPER OIL THAN US BY THE AMOUNT OF THE TAX (approximately)." ... yet you fail to mention that almost every other OECD nation has *higher* taxes on oil (and downstream products like gasoline) *already* than the US.

We are the lowest-oil-taxing consumer in OECD, and coincidentally the one with largest per capita use of oil.

As noted below in a speech by Norway's oil minister on the topic of oil taxes, the taxes on oil average out to over 25 dollars a barrel. So an oil import fee of under 25/barrel
is not even reaching parity with that tax level.

I would amend my tax proposal to achieve merely parity with the other OECD nations (Europe and Japan) - which woudl equate to about a $15/barrel oil import fee.

Note that this minister understands that oil taxes shift wealth from oil producers (to oil consumers).

http://odin.dep.no/odinarkiv/norsk/oed/2001/taler/026031-090022/dok-bn.html
"Taxes on oil have increased steadily during the last 20 years and are now at a level of about 25 USD/barrel.

Taxes are especially high in Europe and particularly on diesel and gasoline. About 60 % of a composite barrel of oil are made up of taxes in OECD Europe.

Income from oil taxation in European OECD countries is about 250 billion USD annually. This is a considerable amount of money, and could make it difficult for governments to reduce taxes significantly, as expenses then have to be cut."

"When oil taxes are debated, the focus is often on the distribution of the economic rent from oil resources, that is how taxes effect producers' export revenues and consumers' import expenses for oil.

High oil taxes means that part of the oil rent is transferred from oil producer to consumer nations, via a reduction in the producer price that comes about when taxes restrict demand. We don't know by how much, but it is not insignificant.

Understandably, there is much resentment among producers because of this. But I’m afraid there is little producers can do about it. Gasoline is a good tax object, because of the inelasticity of demand in the short term. Efficiency loss is small and revenues from the tax are not much undermined by reduced consumption. Relatively high taxes on oil are probably here to stay.

The distributional effect of this is in my view to be regretted.

Because, with a few exceptions, oil exporting countries cannot be considered to be rich countries.

Thus, when oil taxes increase, the rich OECD countries gain at the expense of relatively poorer countries."

Btw, SF, cut out the ad hominem.

"I fail to see how an increase of domestic oil prices by 37.5 cents per gallon"

"Either you or the other economic moron took the barrel of oil and divided it by gallons to get the increase in price of gas at the pump directly arithmetically from your per barrel tax."

A barrel of crude can create, depending on the refinery methods, around 40-42 gallons of equivalent refined product, distillates or gasoline. Usually its not more than 30 gasoline gallons in the spread. So it is reasonable to consider a $15 per barrel cost adder as adding around 37.5 cents per gallon cost.

"If you had a clue you would know that a gallon of crude does not translate into a gallon of gasoline. AND you can't go use linear math for g----sake."

All this abuse, yet he did the math right. tsk tsk.

"You have to look at the marginal impact. A 5% decrease in availability of anything at current market prices could raise market prices double."

Yes, you, me and world has noticed that - the crude market has tightened up by increasing demand a mere 5% in 2 years - and the price doubles .... Now, why does that make his point invalid? It doesnt! The price of crude will be market price X + taxes. Now, because the tax will increase the pump price, demand will marginally go down, which will market price of crude.

In fact, the market price of crude, due to the magnified impact you speak of, could easily fall by close to $15 / per barrel due to that oil import fee. THIS IS ONE REASON TO SUPPORT THE OIL IMPORT FEE - it will cut the market price of oil, sending less money to the oil dictatorships.

"If you had a clue you would know by now about the supply/demand CURVES not LINES. Buy a highschool math book while you are at it. My 13 year old eighth grader knows better. Did you go to public school?"

This abuse is unnecessary and pointless,
especially since fallujah-nuker's points are still valid and have nothing to do with high school math:

"A year after the tariff would go into effect the US would still be worlds largest importer of oil, in five years time it would still hold that distinction. We cannot build Rome in a day but we can change the trend from greater dependence each year to lessened. If the world price of oil drops due to lowered demand the country that would benefit the most would be the United States. The mullahs would end up with less per barrel and Uncle Sam would have more, the tariff would transfer money from them to us."

Your abuse doesn't hide the fact that you have yet to respond to this point. So the question:

0) Would increased oil tariffs lower imported oil demand? (And note, I want us *also* to: drill govt lands, drill offshore, drill ANWR; build nukes; push for energy alternatives and conservation)
1) Would the world market price of oil be higher or lower due to US oil import tariff?
2) Would this price change help or hurt the OPEC oil dictatorships?

3) Would higher taxes on oil imports, coupled with lower taxes on capital gains, income, and payrolls by the same amount harm or help US economic competitive performance?
(hint: quit pretending all taxes are equally bad and think about taxes that impact production vs taxes that impact consumption)

4) Why would Norway's oil minister consider the taxation of crude oil a shift of wealth from oil producers to oil consumers? What does that mean for the #1 consumer of oil in the world?

OK, I'm feed (sic) up. Quit trying to use grade school, John Kerry, debating tactics. Learn something from me. I am giving you a lesson in economics for a fraction of what I charge my clients. Learn and profit.

Ah, this should be interesting.

Cheaper than us you dolt. If we put a tax on the oil we use then people that do not have the tax will have CHEAPER OIL THAN US BY THE AMOUNT OF THE TAX (approximately). Taxing imported oil will cause all oil to go up for US consumers. Do you have a clue as to why? In effect we are subsidizing industrial production of the REST OF THE WORLD. Can you grasp that?

As we already do by securing the flow of oil from the Mideast, you have yet to address that issue.

Either you or the other economic moron took the barrel of oil and divided it by gallons to get the increase in price of gas at the pump directly arithmetically from your per barrel tax. If you had a clue you would know that a gallon of crude does not translate into a gallon of gasoline. AND you can't go use linear math for g----sake. You have to look at the marginal impact. A 5% decrease in availability of anything at current market prices could raise market prices double. If you had a clue you would know by now about the supply/demand CURVES not LINES. Buy a highschool math book while you are at it. My 13 year old eighth grader knows better.

There is more to a barrel of oil than gasoline, none of it goes to waste.

About 19.5 gallons of 87 octane gasoline can be made from a barrel of oil. The fifteen dollar tariff is not on the gasoline, it is on the oil.

Your economics textbook must have interesting curves to show that a reduction in demand will lead an increase in the price received by the seller. From post# 399, "A tariff helps opec. because world prices will go up."

Did you go to public school?

Yes, one that taught spelling, grammar and proper punctuation.

Look if you want to screw the mulahs don't screw us in the short term. By the way you do have support from you idea in two places; Dorgan the idiot. and the friggen Canadian liberal party. 'nugh said. I refuse to waste my time on you any more until you read a book by Tom Sowell. Or chech (sic) with any respected conservative ecnomists. I took your dopey comments Sunday night to about a dozen and they all think your idea is wacky. It would improve your outlook on life.

I look forward to seeing you win the Nobel Prize for Economics. I might suggest using the spell-check function when you compose your acceptance speech. I'd hate to see you saying something like "OK, I'm feed up" when your speech is televised from Stockholm. Your inferiors here at Free Republic will be more overawed by your intellectual superiority if you can avoid such a faux pas.