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By posting on this website, speaking in public, and really just existing, you're hurting the conservative cause more then helping it.
I know people are stupid
6 million more people voted for the person in office then mccain
By posting on this website, speaking in public, and really just existing, you're hurting the conservative cause more then helping it.
That is so... wrong on many levels.
Oil will not really run out in my lifetime, but it will get astronomically more expensive as demand outstrips a deminishing supply.
Most of the big, easily tapped sources are running out, leaving a lot of more marginal, quickly used up, oil fields.
Meaning that to maintain current levels of production, we have to spend more effort (i.e. energy) in the first place to make more wells in more hard to get to places.
Sure, they occasionally find a big, easy to tap/exploit field now and then, but those finds are happening at a rate far less than the big, easy to tap fields are becoming depleted.
Anybody who makes a straight-line assumption that the future of oil/gas/coal will be the same as the past does not fully comprehend that things are changing and the pace of that change will accelerate.
Personally, I would like to have some money spent now on research while energy is fairly cheap to get ahead of the curve a bit, than to really wait until gas is $5-$10 per gallon and get caught with our pants down.
We don't have to replace oil/gas/coal by next year, but putting some money into research will allow us to have some data and ready-made ideas so we don't have to scramble in what will be a crisis for things that might work.
I would rather lay the groundwork and do some practical experiments that provide us with some reasonable solutions for that time.
Are you really trying to argue with ducks? I mean, really?
An economic crisis is the perfect time to enact my ill-advised global warming policies.
Perhaps, but economic crisis is the context of all of your lordship's policies. Just saying.
Heavens no. I put that together and realized it was probably one of the best, most succinct summaries of what will happen with oil that my overly verbose ass has ever typed.
I didn't have the hear to delete it.
I'm not a fan hyperbole, but it's what I expect from posters on this board.
I wonder if Team Obama is taking a look at signing Pops now that the Spurs cut him.
This is hardly a war declaration.
I hate to toot my own horn, but I have got to save this bit, it is just too good of a summary, spelling aside.
You two need to bug a clue. A tax break IS NOT a subsidy. Repeating what other people say is rather foolish.
More taxes on top of oil companies already paying at a 40% + rate...
Hmmm... How big is an oil field, and how many years (decades?) does it take to explore it, and make it ready for production IF it's deemed to have oil?
Think of a small square plot, 100 miles on each side. 100 x 100 x 640 acres per mile x $4.00 = $25.6 million.
Am I wrong, or is 10,000 miles a small plot of the continental shelf?
I would say that is a fair assessment, assuming there are smaller companies that drill offshore. This would likely limit the ability to drill to only larger companies rather than start-up companies that tend to be where most new jobs come from.
Leave it to the liberals to lie about the meaning of words.
They act as if oil companies don't pay enough already. These "evil" oil companies rake us over the coals in oil profits, when the truth of the matter is between the direct taxes they pay, and the 18.4 cent per gallon federal road tax, the government already makes so much more taxes than the oil companies in profit.
Liberals like to name the "evil" Exxon for ungodly profits. Last reported quarter ending 9/30/08, in millions:
$137,737 Total Revenue
$054,158 Gross Profit
$027,011 Operational Income
$011,327 Income Taxes
$014,830 Net Income
10.77% Profit Margin
41.93% Tax Rate on Net Income
Looks like to me that the government is directly making about 4 times as much money as the share holders profit. I heard the current profit amounts to about 4 cents per gallon on gas. I also heard 8 cents. I really don't know, but that ridiculous to blame the oil companies for high prices when the government take 18.4 cents per gallon in road taxes after the feds and states take over 41%. Calender year 2007 Exxon paid $29,864 million in taxes, net income of $40,610 million, profit margin on 10.04%, and taxes at 41.55%.
Want to reduce gas prices? Reduce the taxes. Don't increase them!
Now on top of that, Exxon has lost about 23% in stock value since January... Keep it up democrats. You just might destroy this once great nation!
Same effect as a direct subsidy payment, so it's not foolish at all. No need to enter a useless semantic argument.You two need to bug a clue. A tax break IS NOT a subsidy. Repeating what other people say is rather foolish.
Why give them tax breaks?
Are they hurting for money?
And really, this "destroy America" talk is really tired.
Why do we tax production?
That's counter productive to a great economy.
Are they hurting for money?
Are folks not going to buy gas if the oil companies don't get tax breaks?
I'll answer for you since you won't.
No and no.
Um, no.
Your statement that somehow the government is making four times as much money as the shareholders shows that you calculated that by dividing 41.93% by 10.77%.
This mis-represents what those numbers actually are.
Profit margin is calculated on gross revenue. Namely net income (revenues minus expenses) divided by total revenues.
Tax rates are calculated on net income, not total revenues. That 47% represents a fraction of the 10.77%, not 47% of total revenues as your statement would imply.
Tax rate on net income is (net income percentage * tax rate) .1077*.4193= 4.5% of revenues.
Or put another way, 58.07% of the profit would be available to distribute to shareholders (most companies don't distribute 100% of the profit, but use a good chunk to re-invest)
Shareholders got roughly 150% of what the government did, not 25%.
ouch.
Not understanding economics and making definitive statements based on a misunderstanding of economics is foolish.
A tax break is the definition of a subsidy.
You have repeated this mistake before.
I will ask simply:
If the tax break was eliminated, the company paid the tax, and the government made a payment to the company equal to the tax break, would the economic standing of the company be effected?
If the answer is "no" then a tax break has the exact same economic effect as a subsidy, even though no cash actually changed hands.
It is related to the concept of opportunity costs.
To summarize:
A tax break, being a preferential tax treatment, has the exact same economic effect as a subsidy, and can be thought of as fully interchangible.
Oil fields vary greatly from both quality of the oil, quan y, and ease of drilling.
Rate of depletion simply depends on how fast you use it up.
There are no fixed answers for any of these variables.
That depends.
Goverment provides a framework of stability from which businesses can plan and allocate capital.
Contracts need to be enforced, disputes settled, and a host of other things needed for a functioning economy.
At some point you will tax too little, starve government, and create instability and that would actually be detriment to an economy.
Wherein lies the balance?
As for oil companies paying too much or not enough:
Meh.
Oil is going to run out, and the more expensive it is overall, the less we will use, and the longer supplies will last, and we might have a chance to really figure out how to replace it.
I am a bit sanguine about it, but really don't feel we need "windfall" profit taxes. That is just stupid.
I just don't feel we should spend a cent on subsidies of any kind for oil production.
Gotta keep in mind that income taxes aren't the only taxes oil companies are paying.
From Exxon's 10-k.
Net Income: $45.200 billion
Income taxes: $36.530 billion
Sales based taxes: $34.508 billion
Other taxes & duties: $41.719 billion
All that being said, they don't need tax subsidies.
prove it oil will run out
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