Every penny paid to elected members of the government,state and Fed, is a windfall profit. Will this tax scheme be applied to them.

Robert: Marx was wrong for the modern world.

 this legislation imposes a 50-percent excise tax on the windfall profits earned by major integrated U.S. oil companies on the sale of all barrels of crude oil derived from existing wells.

 

So you want to pay $4.50 instead of $3.00?

All taxes simply pas thru the corporation.  They’ll just raise the price at the pump.

The government already gets 38 cent per gallon (in ND) and thats extortion….50% would be grand larsony.

The government has enough money.   And while I have no love for the oil companies, they are slightly (very slightly) the lesser of those two evils.

 "Windfall profits would be exempted from the tax if they were used for investments in the exploration and development of new sources of oil and gas, for investments in the production of renewable fuels or to increase their domestic refinery capacity.

As for the "exploration" exemption: Open ANWAR so they can Explore!

As for developing new energy sources, I really have no problem with that.  I don’t buy the "they only make 10% profit" argument.  That may be but 10% equaling $36 billion is almost what Bill Gates is worth; and look at how much good he is doing with that.

The companies need to gain some national pride or quit profiting on this nations freedoms.  Long term growth over short term gains is and investment mantra; they need to live by it as well.

Actually, Joe, Senator Dorgan is more or less a socialist.  One can quibble all day about the textbook differences between socialism and populism here, but what he’s proposing is public funding of alternative fuels, which is purely socialistic.

We’ve also been trying this for 25 years now, and we still have no viable alternative fuel sources.  Perhaps it’s time to admit defeat and let the markets do their work.

“diane: Yes, I would be interested in some facts to back up your assertions. As far as profit margin is concerned, the ten percent for the oil companies is middle of the road, which means it is in the middle of the pack; larger than some, smaller than others. Did you really not understand that? Try running your own business sometime….BTW, your attempt to equate Jesus Christ with Karl Marx is very revealing.”

I said Jesus talked about class differences. If you want to equate him with Karl Marx, you’re on your own nickel. Here are some of his comments about the rich: Luke 6:24, Matthew 19:23, Luke 21:1, but the one I wanted to find I will have to look for tomorrow.

I’m glad you clarified what you were talking about instead of some vague % across the board. You, of course, understand that there are various norms for various industries?

I started my first business right out of my one year of college and have been self-employed ever since. Among my customers have been Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Meijer, Albertson’s, and a number of other chains you would recognize the name of. I’m currently in the process of starting another.

And your backgrounds, Hoodlumm and Robert? Lemonade stands and Girl Scout Cookies don’t count.

 "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s."  I take that to mean that there is a natural division between materiality and spirituality.  I take that as an injunction against making moral judgment about business beyond honesty and hard work.

First of all, your choice has absolutely NOTHING to do with class distinctions/warfare/struggle.  Secondly, your interpretation of it is ridiculous.  He was asked about paying taxes and that (your quote) was his answer.  Pure and simple.

If you really have sole proprietor or management experience, I find your statements slamming big companies for making large dollar profits on a fair margin inexplicable.  You should know better.  I am well aware of the range of profit margins across the spectrum of business.

Well, Bobby, if you paste that statement/those statements, I’ll believe I said it.  I never said there was a thing wrong with fair profit margins and you know it, so stop misinterpreting a simple statement by Jesus and spinning it into something it’s not and stop just simply making things up that you would like me to say.

Dorgan owes his success to his ability to convince old people and farmers that the world owes them a free ride.  Obviously he’s going to stick to the same game plan.

Rob,  you can’t call him a socialist.  No matter how much socialist crap he embraces he is not a socialist.  He’s a populist.   Whats the difference?  A socialist maybe misdirected but he is honest, a populist is a demoguage, that will create a belief of that any and all hardships are caused by the wealthy.  Wait sounds like Marx!

Whenever I write that, it is about real world experience.  Many lefties feel free to criticize profits and profit margins without realizing what they actually represent.  Oil companies must reinvest billions to keep up with the market, which is something lefties just have no ability to understand.

Evan, no just oil companies.

How many people would invest in business that was for profit but no more than 5% because that is fair.

Funny thing is I did a consult recently for a paper in a S.W. state and one of the two owners said "he wasn’t looking to make a ton of money off of his advertisers", So of course I am thinking moron, you are paying me to tell you how to make money and you do not want it. I got five years in his dead pool.

Populism is more of a style of speech and the like than it is an ideology.  That’s why populism can be practiced by a wide array of political ideologies. 

I was going to hop in here, no need, you handled it quite well gang, kudos to you all.

Because someone says something prior to the time Marx said it (by thousands of years..about 2K), doesn’t equate that person with Marx; although it may prove Marx was trying to copy Jesus’ teaching with his own spin on it.

RobertPerry: As I have previously stated, class distinctions are mentioned throughout the Bible, not just one ‘anecdote’.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Good point Free:

Exxon made billions last year.  The Government too in Trillions! 

Diane, the fact remains that the Bible does not present its story as the story of class struggle.  Period.

And even if the story of Ahab did do this, it is only an anecdote.  One does not draw general conclusions from anecdotes; to do so is a violation of basic principles of inductive logic. 

I was going to jump into the fray that I knew Rob’s original posting would create, but most of the discussion has been really good. It is truly unbelievable how difficult we make things for ourselves. We need to get the Congressional experts out of the business of approving recipes for vehicle fuels and inhibiting the creation of new refining capacity and into the updating or elimination of the various sections of the federal registry that restrict or prevent the upstream side of the business from bringing on new supplies of the raw materials. The market, although not a perfect one due to various sorts of subsidies, cartelizations and other governmental interventions, will bring alternate sources and fuels on-line in due course.

The claim that the Bible uses Marxist hermeneutics in history is false.  One who carefully reads it will note that it speaks mostly of the acts of kings and other leading men, and rarely speaks of any struggle between classes at all.

James may appear to be an exception, but it must be understood in its historical context.  Poor noncitizen residents of Rome had little or no standing in court, and rich citizens of Rome would use that fact to abuse the poor and middle class there–the non-citizen could make no defense to speak of, even if he could afford an "orator" or lawyer for his case.  Hence, the lack of legal standing of noncitizens (most Romans) led the rich citizens to abuse them in the courts (James 2) and refuse to pay their wages (James 5).

A basic understanding of this case shows the problem in applying these passages to gas prices.  The oil companies aren’t taking us to court, they’re not employing us, and we have standing to testify in court.  Hence, the passages are not directly applicable here.

And Diane, such invective as you’re using does not befit one who leans on the Word of God.  My apologies for not confronting you privately, but you left no contact information.  We can debate and disagree without being disagreeable, no?

diane said, Zsa, I bet you’re spitting mad at Dufus for butting into the workings of the free market!!!!

You talking about your husband again?

I’m sorry, but you ask for it. You’re not here on good terms.

"Now, it isn’t me equating Jesus with Marx."  You lie again, diane.  Earlier, we had this exchange:  "diane:I wrote:  "Karl Marx thought that all human history was the history of class struggle…." and you replied:  "So did Jesus…" You definitely aligned Jesus with Karl Marx.  At least have the honesty to admit what you wrote, because I won’t let you get away with lying about it.

No matter what you write about the monarchial class system 2000 years ago, it doesn’t apply to the United States today.  You are simply wrong. 

Robert Perry, if you think Ahab only targeted one man, you haven’t read the history of Ahab’s reign.  Solomon was so hard on the average Joe that his son was kicked out of ruling over Israel because he decided to extend & exacerbate his father’s policies.  The Bible contrasts the rich and poor from beginning to end.  Now, it isn’t me equating Jesus with Marx.  And actually it was Jezebel who had Nadab murdered to keep Ahab from pouting on his inlaid ivory couch (probably in the same room his son fell through the lattice and died, possibly half drunk at the time?)  At any rate, Marx was just noticing the theme, and so am I.  Class warfare/class struggle/castes/whatever name you want has always been with us and will probably be with us until ‘the end’.

Zsa, I bet you’re spitting mad at Dufus for butting into the workings of the free market!!!!

I don’t consider business evil, so I do disagree with you there.

I differenciate between business and corporatism.  Corporatism is slightly less evil that government.  

 

 What I refuted, and you fail to mention in your last post, was your assertion that long term growth and short term gains are opposite positions.

No, I didnt assert that.  I said they should learn to sacrifice short term gains for long term growth.  Not opposing, rather transferable. 

Dufus is meddling today in the free market.

Dufus, that your husband? Oh…you meant Bush again, didn’t you? Funny, because the thread isn’t about him. All of your comments are though which points to a deep seated obsession.

What is the profit margin for grocery store food commodity sales, or their overall profit % for that matter. Wal-Mart’s?

I don’t know grocery stores, but Wal-Mart’s is about 3.4%

Sheeeeeeshhh…no need to respond to you guys; it’s just too amateur and silly to take seriously.

Should we say "Dufus" more? That far enough down to your level? If it is just too "amateur", then why can’t you destroy the arguments with a solid one of your own?

By the way, Robert, it was James, the Lord’s brother who talked about how the rich abuse the average guy; in James chapter 2.

Just by being rich? Goodness,..what a silly religion.

Diane, the existence of class differences does not equate to Marx’s theory of history as class warfare.  Again, the Bible simply does not use that hermeneutic with regards to history, but concentrates on "great men," just as historians of every nation did until the past century or so.

To use your Ahab comparison, his crime was against a man, not a class of people.  The very fact that he got one person to perjure himself indicates that people of the time were not processing their lives according to Marx.

See the difference?  Struggle between individuals of different classes/wealth is not Marx’s class struggle.

diane: You wrote:  "Because someone says something prior to the time Marx said it (by thousands of years..about 2K), doesn’t equate that person with Marx; although it may prove Marx was trying to copy Jesus’ teaching with his own spin on it."

So, Marx was "trying to copy Jesus’ teaching…"?  How about something else from Marx?  How about "Religion is the opiate of the masses."?  Not exactly Jesus’ teaching, eh?  You have written some outrageous stuff here, but this one might just take the cake for tortured rationalization to defend one of your many mistakes.  The truth is, Marx wanted the intellectuals to run things, and saw religion as his competition, especially at the time he wrote his stuff.  Your assertion is so utterly wrong that it is ludicrous. Nice going! 

diane said, This subject is a total wash, useless, zero. It’s summed up thusly:

Dufus and Cheney are oilmen.

End of story.

Oh good grief. You attempted to derail yet another thread into one about "Dufus" (real mature there lady) and Cheney. What is the "end of story" again? Because this thread wasn’t about Bush or Cheney.

It’s them against us, like everything else in life. The rich and then everybody else. Just because you respect their ability to pull the wool over your eyes, try not to defend them so rigorously; they don’t need you to, they are going to bleep us without your apologetics.

It’s not "them against us", it is just the market at work. Perhaps you should sit down and contemplate how gas remained at $1.00 a gallon for the better part of 20 years and why it didn’t rise with inflation. Perhaps you should sit down and ask why we have 18 different versions of designer gas that the environmentalists demand and how this affects production (especially at this time of the year as the production moves over to summer blends). Or,…you could just continue saying something ridiculous like "Dufus is an oilman, end of story" and then call any discussion outside of this simplistic answer "apologetic". Don’t forget to pat yourself on the back for how smart you are and don’t forget to use a bunch of "LOL’s" while you do it.

Good point Dave. This is not the role our elected politicians should be playing. If they want investment in renewable fuels there are other ways to get to it.

I wonder why no politician ever calls for a ‘windfall profits tax’ on the sale of people’s homes over the past decade?

After all, there are million of people in this country that bought their houses at very low prices and resold for huge gains, ‘gouging’ the homebuyers that came after them.  And in many places in the country, housing prices are rising faster than gasoline prices, and they take a much bigger share of the average persons income as well.

And there is even a government subsidy involved – the first $250,000 of gain on a the sale of a house ($500,000 if married) is tax free.

So is Dorgan going to save us from the gouging home owners in this country, or just the oil companies?

Sounds like a workable idea as it would get the companies to get to the business of renewable fuels without killing the consumer in the meanwhile.

That’s true–it would be a good thing. I think his bill might work better if, instead of imposing huge taxes on oil companies, senators just put a gun to the head of the CEOs of oil companies and "persuaded" them to invest in renewable fuels. It’s the exact same principle.

Perhaps if we delve a bit deeper in to the specific legislation we see what’s really up with the windfall profits tax like what the tax would be used for and how the oil companies can avoid the tax at all.

this legislation imposes a 50-percent excise tax on the windfall profits earned by major integrated U.S. oil companies on the sale of all barrels of crude oil derived from existing wells. For this purpose, windfall profits means the amount that a barrel of oil sold exceeds $40 per barrel.

According to the explanation of the bill from Sen. Dorgan’s website: "Windfall profits would be exempted from the tax if they were used for investments in the exploration and development of new sources of oil and gas, for investments in the production of renewable fuels or to increase their domestic refinery capacity. Under the bill, any windfall profits taxes paid would be considered a cost of doing business and allowed as a deductible expense for purposes of determining a paying company’s income tax liability."

Sounds like a workable idea as it would get the companies to get to the business of renewable fuels without killing the consumer in the meanwhile.

Most of the comments have been on track and to the point,BUT, just to add a little support to the good guys! For 2000-2005, oil & gas companies’ profits averaged 5.8%, all industries, 5.5%. Many years o&g averaged less, some years more. For 2003/04, o&g averaged 8.5%. As many have noted. This is far, far less than many other industries, especially other capital intensive ones. BTW, it is painful to listen to Republicans braying the same BS as the socialists when fuel costs are high. Free the Oil Industry to explore and build refineries domestically. Cut the ridiculous fuel recipe mandates and prices will come down!!! AND, I don’t care if the industry brings barrels to the table from Botswana or Point Barrow. BUT, it is true that independent companies do most of the New Drilling domestically and particularly should be Applauded, not booed, even if the sheer size of certain other companies make us want to dislike them just for their size…

I don’t know grocery stores, but Wal-Mart’s is about 3.4%

That 3.4% is a smaller profit margin than a lot of Wal-Mart’s competitors, I might add.