Posted on 02/19/2008 5:27:44 PM PST by smokinleroy
Oil is cause of downturn
Exxon-Mobil earned $81 billion in profits in the last two years. Are we surprised? Supply and demand — that's what they say. So Exxon-Mobil could reduce the price of a gallon of gasoline to $1.50 and the company still could earn $40 billion in profits in two years. Am I wrong on my math?
I predicted a recession two years ago when the price of gasoline hit the ceiling. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we suck all the extra dollars from our citizens and force them to put it in their gasoline tanks and heating oil tanks, they will have no money left to buy clothing, gifts, entertain, go out to dinner, or buy the things that Congress and President George W. Bush say we now need to buy to come out of the dive into which this country's economy is heading.
So, the country is going to go into more deficit spending to send everyone a check for $500 or more. If the oil companies lowered the price of gasoline to $1.50, we would have an extra $100 a month to spend. Of course, if you earn $100,000 or more a year, or have stock in Exxon, you don't care about that.
We have a milk marketing board in Pennsylvania that regulates the price of milk. Why not establish a gasoline marketing board? What we don't need is an excess-profits tax. We don't need to give more money to an already glutted Congress that spends money like the old proverbial drunken sailor. Shame on all of our elected officials from top to bottom for allowing this rip-off to continue. Price-fixing by the oil companies is running rampant.
Ronald Goebel
Cranberry Township
Dont get mad - get even. I sit out front all day just to laugh at the fuel trucks that never stop at my house any more. I go to the farmer in the next county, pay him $540 for 7000# of corn, and heat my house all winter instead of $600/month for fuel.
http://www.americanenergysystems.com/winchester.cfm
And here I thought that reducing the price of a product would encourage more buyers to purchase that product, and take business from competitors. lol...
I guess Exxon don't need to worry about customers, regardless of price.
You beat me to it. See Post #40. Your map says we are paying 8 cents more than what I found from my source. It just shows how they will increase that tax faster than we can keep track of it. 49.4 cents a gallon is money going down a Rat hole when it could be going to my kid’s education.
“Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people!”
So why do people with no income, assets, land, titles or oil wells get to vote?
And Exxon does not get to vote, even though they paid over and over for the right?
The USofA tried that in the recent past - maybe you should have remembered the one and only - awful - Jimmy (little peanut) Carter prior to penning this claptrap.
IIRC the price of gas was fixed by the FedGov - and gas was in short supply, people lives were badly impacted and businesses destroyed.
It did help the other Ronald tho.........
The letter writer is an idiot.
Gas is high because the federal and state governments levy so much tax on it. Company profits are taxed at about 41%, the gas they produce is again taxed at the pump by both the state and fed. (At what? about another 40%?)
See this link to a Mark Perry article:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/63131-exxon-s-2007-tax-bill-30-billion?source=side_bar_editors_picks
“...I’m pretty sure that Exxon’s tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that’s $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year.
By the way, Exxon pays taxes at a rate of 41% on its taxable income!
[Update: The $40.6 billion and $39.5 billion figures are after-tax profits. For 2006, Exxon’s EBT (earnings before tax) was $67.4 billion, it paid $27.9 billion in taxes (41.4% tax rate), and its NIAT (net income after tax), or profit, was $39.5 billion.] ....
According to IRS data for 2004, the most recent year available:
Total number of tax returns: 130 million
Number of Tax Returns for the Bottom 50%: 65 million
Adjusted Gross Income for the Bottom 50%: $922 billion
Total Income Tax Paid by the Bottom 50%: $27.4 billion
Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).”
Amazing.
It’s 100,000 plus employees and thousands of shareholders get to vote. I would bet also that in addition to many thousand of individual shareholders, the vast majority of large cap and pension funds with investments in large oil and gas companies have thousands more with a stake.
“Am I wrong on my math?”
“Yes. Actually, you’re so far off the mark, you’re not even wrong.”
Actually, it’s not even math. It’s not even thinking. I don’t even think that’s gray matter in there.
Gas costs no more now than it did in the 70s, CPI adjusted.
What is causing the downturn is tight credit conditions.
Asset values are dropping because new money creation (debt) has come to a grinding halt and long term rates are going up, for instance the 30 year fixed jumped 30 basis points today alone. The biggest one day jump on record.
He's probably a retired steelworker whose pension is heavily invested in Exxon-Mobil. He probably doesn't realize that Exxon-Mobil can't just lower the price of gas here to $1.50 since they sell gasoline worldwide. He probably doesn't realize that 75% of all he holds dear in his life depend on petroleum based products from the tires on his car to the plastic tupperware in his fridge to the foam "#1 STEELER FAN" finger he sports at home alone when the lights go out...
Class envy and years of the union newsletter have destroyed this guy's mind and he is hopeless. He really should stop using all the oxygen in this part of the commonwealth, I might need it someday.
Weak dollar only would account from oil going from 15 to about 25 a barrel, not to $100.
What's amazing is that if GOVERNMENT was really concerned about the cost of gasoline, they could cut $0.47 per gallon, or 70% more discount than ExxonMobil giving back all their profits.
And that's the DIRECT taxation; that's not including the taxation on ExxonMobil to start with. The federal income tax that ExxonMobil pays would be another $0.16 per gallon by itself....
OPEC is not our problem. In fact, OPEC is probably almost irrelevent in this current market.
Our problems are
Too many years of deficit spending driving down the value of the dollar.
Too many politicians interfering with supply and demand (drilling, refining and taxing)
Too many people competing for the current resources.
Rampant speculation
Global instability
Everybody that produces a product wants to maximize their profit. Everybody buying a product wants to get it for free. There is nothing wrong with that, that is how a free market is supposed to work.
The problem is not the price of oil, it is the freedom of the market. In a perfect market, the increased price of oil should be driving up production until the cost evens out. At some point in the future when the supplies begin to dwindle, the prices will go up until they hit a point where the development of alternatives makes monetary sense.
The problem is that now we have an artificial shortage. It doesn’t make sense for business to invest in alternatives because the artificial shortage can be ended by turning on the spigots and killing any business heavily invested in alternatives.
We need to tighten our belts collectively. Save more money, buy less imports, spend less tax money, open the American oil fields, use our energy more efficiently and maintain a strong military. If we do these things, the market will settle and carry us until the economy moves from oil to whatever the future holds.
Your arguments would be valid if the most important factor in the price of oil was not ignored.
There is no free market in oil.
There is an OPEC oil cartel which has formed an alliance with American corporate and political manipulators. OPEC controls most of the world’s oil and they control how much gets to flow and when.
This unfortunate and dangerous reality leads to dollar devaluation and the selling of our national resources to the middle east and THE RISE OF TERROR.
There is no free market in oil. There is an OPEC oil cartel which has formed an alliance with American corporate and political manipulators.
Yep. Just saw that one again the other day. LOL
We don’t use Milk by the 15 gallon purchase either. And we don’t need it to drive to work or get anywhere else, not to mention heat our home.
It isn’t just gas however, it is the fact that gasoline increases have increased the cost of everything else. Groceries have doubled, for instance, due to transport/delivery charges for super markets. Even staples at Walmart have gone up. There is now, too much month at the end of the money. I feel for young people just starting out, it effects them the most.
What we SHOULD be doing, is telling environmental wacko’s to pound sand, and drill our own, and allow the oil companies to update their refineries and build new ones!
YES touche!!
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