[Leanan]

Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, head of the Senate Judiciary panel, says he's shocked by the size of oil company profits. He says Congress is going to do something about it.

Windfall profits tax, here we come...

[Longsword]

I'm taking bets on how soon the Oil Companies start moving their Headquarters out of US.

[gnm]

Seeing as how those windfall profits came out of the consumers pocket how about a tax credit back to us after the gov taxes the corporations?

Don't figure that will happen since they know how to spend our money better than we do right?

-G

[Leanan]

Are you kidding? They're already out of the U.S. Incorporated in a post office box in the Carribean.

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'S')eeing as how those windfall profits came out of the consumers pocket how about a tax credit back to us after the gov taxes the corporations?

Don't figure that will happen since they know how to spend our money better than we do right?

-G

[pip]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'S')eeing as how those windfall profits came out of the consumers pocket how about a tax credit back to us after the gov taxes the corporations?

Don't figure that will happen since they know how to spend our money better than we do right?

-G

[Longsword]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'A')re you kidding? They're already out of the U.S. Incorporated in a post office box in the Carribean.

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'S')eeing as how those windfall profits came out of the consumers pocket how about a tax credit back to us after the gov taxes the corporations?
-G

[DigitalCubano]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gt1370a', 'T')hat's the worst thing that could happen. If you subsidize demand when there is a real supply problem, you will create shortages - unless you have rationing.

[Gigashadow]

So is the windfall tax just on oil, or about anybody who makes lots of money?

I'm wondering if they could put a windfall tax on all those consumers who made a lot of money on housing. I figure, if gas going up $1-$2 a gallon deserves a corporate windfall tax, then housing prices going up by $200-400$K in most areas deserves a tax 100 times as big.

Also I'd like a windfall tax on any medical company, software companies, and Google in particular. Profit is bad, and we can't have more of it.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')rofit is bad, and we can't have more of it.

[Odin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gigashadow', ' ')Profit is bad, and we can't have more of it.

[rockdoc123]

I posted on another thread a link to the API study on net profits in oil companies versus other industries in the US. Oil companies make 7 cents on the dollar...net of all taxes, incentives, writeoffs etc. This places them pretty much in the middle of the pack....Banks are where the real windfall profits are sitting....19.6 cents on the dollar, Pharmaceuticals and Software companies are also up in the high teens.
Bottom line is you cannot just look at "profit" as being the same as cashflow. As oil price rises so do costs...the profit margin is somewhat higher than it was but not exhorbitantly so.

[backstop]

Given the Oil Industry's alleged culpability for the raised GOM sea temperatures that lead to New Orleans $70Bn destruction,
and its widely documented funding of prevaricationist advocacy to postpone measures against GW,
a "Windfall Tax" seems a rather mild description of what is needed.

Whatever the titleof the tax, it needs very clear objectives if it's to be anything more than gesture-politics-as-usual.

For a start it would need to actually reverse the bias of total official support from fossil resources to sustainable alternatives
if it's to be of any significant aid to the latters' cost competitiveness.

Second, it needs to open the eligibility for official support from solely the well-suited corporate and academia hacks
to include companies of all scales down to the garden shed efforts, if it is going to encourage the real potential within American society
for innovative solutions to the PO+GW problem.

Third, while it needs to refrain from indulging in timewasting partisan punitive measures, it does needs to radically alter the priorities
of those who annually mandate the companies' Research & Development strategies - namely the shareholders,
if it is to seriously engage the industry's unique engineering capacities and assist their re-orientation towards the sustainables.

To this end I would propose a revenue-neutral B.R.E.D. Tax [Budget for Research, Exploration & Development]

Note - 'revenue neutral' is used here to mean that all funds raised are re-allocated to the industry overall,
and administrative costs are met out of general taxation. No new income would flow to the general treasury.

The BRED tax would be levied on a company's shareholders' profits according to the proportion of its RE&D budgets going to the Sustainables,
in comparison with other energy supply and technology companies' proportions.

As a rough example of this tax's outcome, Shell's current spending on non-fossil energy might well make it a net recipient, and thus able to marginally raise its dividends,
while say Texaco, with no visible sustainables outlay (?) would be a net doner, and face the prospect of falling share value.

There are of course a host of aspect to this idea which I'm not going into at present, apart from observing that the definition
of which technologies and resources are sustainable, which are not but are worth classifying as "transitional,"
and which are simply outdated fossil options, is central to the BRED Tax's overall utility.

I suggest that the public discussion of these definitions is long overdue both within the US and elswhere.

Hoping this may be of interest to those not yet subect to the Neocons' propaganda
that all government is irredeemably corrupt and inherently incapable of serving the common good,

regards,

Backstop

[Leanan]

California is considering a tax on oil produced in the state:

LA Times

They figure it won't increase the price for Californians, since the price of oil is set on the global market.

[mistel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'I') posted on another thread a link to the API study on net profits in oil companies versus other industries in the US. Oil companies make 7 cents on the dollar...net of all taxes, incentives, writeoffs etc. This places them pretty much in the middle of the pack....Banks are where the real windfall profits are sitting....19.6 cents on the dollar, Pharmaceuticals and Software companies are also up in the high teens.
Bottom line is you cannot just look at "profit" as being the same as cashflow. As oil price rises so do costs...the profit margin is somewhat higher than it was but not exhorbitantly so.

[Leanan]

Massive Oil Profits May Not Last

Matthew Simmons doesn't think the future of Big Oil is all that bright...

[xarkz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')How about not cutting the oil companies any tax breaks so they have to actually work and invest their own money in alternatives? Nah, that makes too much sense...

[backstop]

Xarkx -

Good to see a paper like NYT putting out such info.

Yet the article steers clear of the major implication of Exxon and other oil companies' failure to invest -
which may not, as it suggests, be because they foresee a huge slump in oil prices,
but rather because they don't expect the oil business to be profitable in the turbulence of the downslope post peak.

While this idea may seem contrary to economic tenets, we are now moving into the ecological tenets of resource depletion where the only constant is declining stability.

Seems to me the oil companies, knowing more than most, are more scared than most.

Regards,

Backstop

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')et the article steers clear of the major implication of Exxon and other oil companies' failure to invest -
which may not, as it suggests, be because they foresee a huge slump in oil prices,
but rather because they don't expect the oil business to be profitable in the turbulence of the downslope post peak.