We need more jobs, more domestic production, not more taxes.
The demagoguery has never been so stark as the democrats on this issue. Their lying through their teeth for political advantage.
I have seen editorials applauding House Speaker Boehner for embracing the perpetual populist canard for eliminating oil-industry tax benefits, so they can begin to pay their fair share in taxes. The statement is false because corporations do not pay, but instead collect taxes from customers for government benefit. Corporations, partnerships, and individual proprietorships of any size prepare a budget where taxes are a cost of doing business. The final budget document given to managers to work from ends with after tax profit. This is a critically important number, at least because dividends are paid from after tax profits.
If in fact taxes cannot be passed to the customer, companies either leave the business or suffer an anemic presence compared to competitors. The first area to suffer is the capital budget and next is compensation, which means they are at a disadvantage in competing for people. A company like ExxonMobil has the sophistication and size to compare benefits available from a multitude of countries, and choose those maximizing the profitability for the next dollar invested. They would never continue investing money in a country where they paid taxes, and did not receive comparable sets of government benefits.
Editorials stating such things as “ExxonMobil this week reported first quarter profits of $10.7 billion – up nearly 70 percent from last year” should at least bemuse or amuse people. The profit is worldwide for the world’s largest company, with only one quarter of it coming in the U.S. Also, the profit margin was just over 9%, which of course does not help this typical editorial. It would also be useful to juxtapose General Electric, which in 2010 earned $14.2 billion, received $3.2 billion in benefits, and paid no U.S. taxes.
Excuse me. I should say we paid no taxes for our G.E. purchases, but did pay our fair share of their $3.2 billion in subsidies.
ExxonMobil profits up 69 per cent on high oil prices
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1635844.php/ExxonMobil-profits-up-69-per-cent-on-high-oil-prices
General Electric Paid No 2010 Income Taxes
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-electric-paid-federal-taxes-2010/story?id=13224558
The energy development model as now constituted is not working for the US economy or the citizens. Tweaking is not an answer any more. There has to be a game changer.
If the government was serious about lowering the cost of energy, it would open up the development of oil resources in the US, remove/reduce restrictions on development, and if necessary, provide subsidies for refinery, pipeline, and well development wholly owned by US shareholders.
The quid pro quo would be that all of that energy would stay in the US.
Any oil shipped out of the US would have a $30-$40 a barrel tariff placed on it to pay back the subsidies.
Since these companies would be owned by Americans, assisted by subsides from the government, in essence our money, and the energy used here, this would provide jobs for Americans and provide energy the lowest cost.
Let the rest of the world play the global energy game and the US should set up the largest CO-OP in history.
Biggest myth = oil is a fossil fuel
Great article. I am tired of the lies about the oil companies. You hear about their profits but what the government takes on every drop of oil produced is by far greater. Plus the government does absolutely nothing to produce oil or energy but instead puts restrictions on production thus driving the cost up more.
Big oil gets about 3 cents per gallon in profit while big government gets about 50 cents per gallon in taxes. Who do you think is the bigger cause of high gas prices?
When Chukie “slime” Schumer was asking to select between student loans and the oil industry. The executive should have made reference to the very real jobs of the oil industry PAY BACK AND PAY FOR those student loans.
It also does not help when democrats support unemployment and prevent paying back those non-dischargable student loans.
IMHO...
Increases in the market price of crude oil are the symptom of the problem that previously 3rd-world nations, i.e., India, China, etc., are dramatically increasing their consumption as they move towards the western lifestyle which is so emphatically deplored publicly by the left wing.
If we (the U.S.) use more of our own domestically produced oil, that will only moderately decrease the market price of crude.
Every time we walk away from a foreign well, the new “Eastern-bloc”, i.e., enemies of America, proceed to commandeer the well and add it to their source of supply.
So far, enemies of America show only signs of increasing their per capita use of crude oil; there is no sign that they plan on decreasing.
As crude oil is very important to economic prosperity and military capability, it is strategically wise to garner as much of the world’s supply as possible at a low a cost as possible.
Bottom line, commodity prices that we experience are the symptom - the disease is a relative decrease between the rate of U.S. wealth gains versus foreign nations. The main stumbling block which is lowering our rate of wealth increase is our decreasing morality amongst the general public. The President, as all Democrats, was elected largely by the Democratic party voting base. And the core of that voting base is far-left, i.e., communist (notice the che guivera t-shirts on young people), anti-Christian, and deviant in it’s thoughts. “Blue-dog” Democrats are simply clinging to their party solely because of it’s name and heritage of being the party of their ancestors. That one can be a Christian or Jew and vote Democrat defies common sense given the platform planks of Robinhood, i.e., lying, government, institutionalized promotion of sexual deviance and excuses and acceptance of drug abuse, just to name three planks completely antithetical to both the Old and New Testaments. The rampant upswing of immoral thoughts and actions has seeped into schools, entertainment, and news, and government and business management as well. This produces a hollow leadership and vision that finds it impossible to do what is right for the nation but instead constantly makes a circus of politics, government handouts and movement of capital to foreign nations. These situations have been the end of every great empire, from Rome to Great Britain.
We can not and should not rely our government to maintain a wall of separation for domestic capital and labor. Our business leadership must, in the end, realize their responsibility towards the nation in which they do business and think in the long-term. Accordingly, the nation will prosper in spite of the necessary evil of having a government, and the citizens will continue to vote out elected representatives until they realize that the only real purpose they should fulfill is the military defense of the nation.
I guess this is REALLY bad news to the ETHANOL 'industry'!
Well done. Bob wrote an informative and honest piece.