The flaw is not in my logic.

The flaw is in thinking that making a profit is a bad thing or that everybody should pay more taxes (unless its their tax bill or coruse).

The flaw is thinking all businesses "dodge taxes" or floats the idea that all businesses are pirates.

Yes...businesses look for ways to legally not pay taxes as do I and anybody else with a brain in their head.

Yes, businesses lay-off people because it would be STUPID to employ people you don't need...businesses aren't walefare providers.

Yes, businesses are outsourcing and I don't happen to like it and think it's a bad idea overall but if it turns out to not work they'll stop and if it does work then it was the right decision.

Were we to subscribe to your model there would be no companies and no jobs...what a utopia that woudl be!

 

There is NO industry group that, as a group, doesn't contribute huge dollars to both parties; including our beloved auto industry...including our "American" auto manufacturers...even our beloved GM. That practice could be changed overnight if we really wanted to (and were willing to change the constitution).

Aside from that, it amazes me that only when it comes to "Big Oil" is an 8% return considered a "windfall".

While oil and gas companies are earning record profits, the energy sector is not especially profitable compared to other industries...profit margins average only 7.7% in oil and gas compared to 19.6% for banks, 18.6% for pharmaceuticals and 17% for software companies. Google just announced a doubling of its income in one year...who is calling for congressional hearings on Google's "windfall"???

If we are really concerned about "windfall profits" then what we need to do is outlaw ALL banks and keep our money in our mattresses; never buy drugs no matter how sick we are and stop all software improvements and just use what we have now.

 

Any company that is run based on your logic will not be able to operate profitably and would crash as fast as it gets started...

What do you suggest? Govt control over all companies? That would be a free market economy yeah... You "Libels" hate Bush so much why would you want him running your businesses too???

 

Neither you, nor I, nor anybody reading this post NEEDS Google to get to work every day, get their kids to school (on a bus or otherwise), operate their plant, fire furnaces, produce power, or heat homes.
FUEL is a comodity, Google is a service (to some). HUGE difference.

Plants that require lots of fuel to operate (like steel or glass plants for example) are literally being driven out of the US economy because of fuel prices alone. Reference this article in Time 2 weeks ago... (sorry it has gone into archive, but you can login to get it, or I will send you a copy of the whole article) The Next Energy Crisis?
How the natural-gas shortage is hurting the economy

"Bob Horton has survived the arrival of Home Depot and more economic downturns than he can remember. Yet this winter may be the last for his 40-year-old plumbing and heating supply shop in Osceola, Iowa, just south of Des Moines. The heating bill at his business soared to $602 last month, up from $250 a year earlier. He can't raise prices without losing customers, and he has tried everything to save energy, from installing insulation to heating with a high-efficiency furnace. " It's going to break us," he says of his fuel bills. " We can't pay the overhead."

"For some companies, the run-up in fuel prices is one more reason to ship jobs offshore. In the U.S. chemical industry, where 100,000 jobs have vanished since 2000, companies are building plants overseas, where natural gas goes for a small fraction of the price it commands in the U.S. Dow Chemical is constructing a $4 billion petrochemical plant in Oman, and CEO Andrew Liveris says the plant would have been built in Freeport, Texas, if not for the price difference. At PPG Industries in Pittsburgh, Pa., CEO Charles Bunch says he may have to close two North Carolina fiber-glass plants. "We've lost a lot of jobs to China because of the labor-cost difference," he says. "Now we're starting to lose jobs in energy-intensive sectors.""

"WHY DON'T GAS COMPANIES DRILL MORE WELLS? Oil and gas companies are flush with profits, so they could afford it. Exxon Mobil alone earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter, a record for any U.S. firm. But companies seem more inclined to buy one another's assets and invest in proven reserves than go hunting for new sources. Conoco Phillips recently bid $35.6 billion for Burlington Resources, one of the world's largest natural-gas producers."

So there you go, all in one article, they cover plant closings, job losses, economical fallout, AND the lack of proper use of such profits by the oil companies. I personally don't trust them to do what's in our nation's or population's best interest - because, as someone said - they are entitled to maximize their profit, no matter who or what it may harm.
We can hope they are spending that profit money on new refineries and oil reserves, but the fact of the matter is that they DON'T WANT to invest it to supply more crude or alternative fuels because prices will fall as a result.

As "someone" put it - they are CONSUMED with making a profit, it's their job, it's their right, it's their privelidge - regardless of how it affects anyone or any other business or industry. And as I maintain - they owe it to the nation, the industries, and the people of this country to FEED OUR ECONOMY TOO. If they drive all our plants to close and we all lose our jobs, who will be left to buy any of their precious product? It's as much self-preservation as it is American economical preservation, and more simply put - it is just being fiscally responsible with your money and thinking about someone or something other than YOURSELF (whether you are a person spending $10 on motor oil in WalMart or an Oil Company spending $10-billion on futures).

You know, trickle-down economics works for negatives just like positives... when big industry dies in the US, so does consumer base and buying power of the constituents of those industries. I don't think every manufacturing worker in this country can be working for oil companies.

As we discuss these issues more and more, the basic differences in philosophy between the two camps become ever more clear. There are those who think in short-term and "finite absolutes", and then there are those who think about the long-term and the whole "big picture". So I guess what places you in one camp or another is the picture that suits you best - I prefer the long-term. I have kids and don't feel that it is right for me to burden them with a government that is broke, industry that is desolate, and economy on-par with China and Africa, and the lack of infrastructure to heal those wounds noted above.

 

Good point... He broke Arbusto, and he's breaking the government accounts too... why would we want him involved in business AT ALL!!!

 

These companies are hiring workers like mad and conducting exploration like mad. Sure they invest in proven reserves and resources...btw Conoco buying a natural gas company has nothing to do with them not exploring, it has to do with diversification of their business into a rapidly growing NG market. Thats just smart business...these companies are hiring thousands of well paid workers...they're also spending 10s of billions on exploration and experimentation.

 

Interesting how you center your response on the "Google" remark and ignore the rest.

Yes, we can live without Google but I’d say that banking, pharmaceuticals and software are also pretty “needed’ industries too but no one is complaining about their double digit profits!

I'm not saying that increasing energy prices isn't a problem but the oil industry making a profit is not the issue nor is denying them their profits the solution...simply stated, an 8% return is not huge, it is not a windfall and it is not even all that good compared to other industries. If the oil companies did something illegal to get their profits then punish those responsible but claming that the oil industry is bad because they made money just doesn’t carry weight.

Yes, gasoline and all the other related/sundry products of oil are VERY important to the US economy and it hurts when the price rises even a small amount but it’s a terrible leap of logic to assume that something illegal, immoral or unfair is going on.

Let me ask you this…if an 8% return is too high or a "windfall", what percentage return is “ok”? And who decides a given percentage is “ok” and some other percentage is a “windfall”? Do we want the federal government to step in and “control” it? I’d hope not, history has taught us that regulation only breeds costs – it doesn’t save any.

I prefer to let the free enterprise system work; it may not be the best system possible but it absolutely IS the best system in existence at the moment.

Maybe when the United Federation of Plants is constituted and we no longer need money we can do away with free enterprise; until then, I think we had better keep using it even if it isn't perfect!

 

Arbusto was more of bad luck in oil drilling, not bad business sense. In fact, the business was ran decent. But if you don't hit oil, well you don't hit oil... Another reason the oil companies need big profits because it is so expense to drill, and you may not even hit anything.

Then Spectrum 7 (what Arbusto became after a merger I believe) died when oil dropped from $30 barrel, to under $10 barrel. The larger companies where able to take this. This put out alot more small companies then just Bush's.

 

Shame on you...trying to confuse people with facts!!!

 

1) Corporations don't Pay taxes, people pay taxes, and usually more by the lower classes. Everyone should have to pay their due, or noone should...Policies favor those with more net worth, period.
2) Corporations would need more people if the Trade Policies were fair, and the focus was on making a "quality" product at an affordable price, paying workers a "fair" compensation for their time and effort invested.

Were we to subscribe to my model, we wouldn't need the oligarchy we now have, it might truly end up a Utopia...
(Oh, my Pirate comment, research some history....something to due with "skulls and bones"....and banking...

 

Making money isnt bad. And you are right, when you consider the margin, it is lower than some other companies. But how many of those companies sell in the shear bulk of what exxon does? My guess is 0. When a company deals in huge quantaties, they can afford to sell at lower prices (at a high level, kinda like doing a group purchase on this board). It isnt like exxon is having problems selling gas, they are taking advantage of the fact that most people have to buy gas and have to buy alot of it often.

I know that companies like exxon are doing lots of exploration, but I would also say they are doing lots of price gouging. If you ask me the exploration should have been happening years ago and refinery capacity increased.

One other thing to consider is why havent more fuel efficent cars been made? I can drive a V8 Formula Firebird and get 28 mpg highway. Why does my wifes 3.0L V6 sedan get only 25mpg highway?

Bottom line is that exxon doesnt really care about its consumers b/c it wont lose them. Customers are looked into buying gas or diesel. I want my hydrogen car since hydrogen is the most abundant element in universe, hopefully we can find some for it at less than $2 a gallon.

 

Well, let's hope whoever you buy your hydrogen car from only charges $0.01 for it above the cost to make it...after all, that would be the "fair" thing wouldn't it? If it's unfair for Exxon to sell their gas for what people are willing to pay for it then it would certainly be unfair for any nameplate to sell any car for more than a penny of two above their costs.

As far as the need to buy gassoline, no one is "locked" into anything except that they would rather pay $3/gallon than change their lifestyle. I'm nto saying we should change but to say we can't is just incorrect.

And what does size have to to with anything...becaue Exxon is "big" it's unfair for them to make a bigger profit than, say, BP? Perhaps GM should be allowed less profit because they are bigger than Ford or Ford should make less profit because they are bigger than Chrysler?

As to why we don't have new refineries is isn't because the oin companys don't want to build them...the same people who fly around the country in their private jets to tell us we shouldn't buy SUVs and who would like nothing better than to dismantle our beloved auto industry are responsible for that.

 

Yes...which is why it's to the consumer's benefit that corporations don't pay more taxes than they must.

Very, very wrong...

According to the CBO; fully half of all taxpayers pay NOTHING at all into the system.

The top 1% of taxyapers pay 29% of all taxes; the top 5% pay 50% of all taxes!

The top 1% of income earners (comprising about 1 million families) earn about 15% of the total income yet they pay almost 30% of all individual income taxes.

If tax policies truly favored the welthy, we wouldn't have the top 5% paying 50% of the burden while 50% pay nothing...it that's favoring the welthy then let me be poor!

Corporations need who they need and they pay what they need to pay to get the work done. Corporations are not welfare agencies. People get paid for two things in our society, what they know and what they can do...if they are dissatisfied with their job or their pay they need to stop blaming everybody else, and go learn more/do more.

Yes...we need fair trade policies but policies you don't like aren't necessairly "unfair" although I don't know what a discussion of Exxon's profits have to do with trade policies.

Your model seems to be one where everyone is guaranteed a high paying job regardless of their quailfications or job responsibilities or even if the job is needed at all...where corporations you consider "worthy" are protected from competition...that's not the kind of utopia I want to live in even if it might be an easire life.

 

@ lower class paying more in taxes...go to the IRS website and lookup the stats...the top 50% pay 94.6% of the taxes in this country, the top 1% pay 37% of the taxes in this country while only bringing in 19% of the income...thats double what htey should be paying based solely on mathemetical ratios....the poor are negative income for the government, in other words they GET THEIR MONEY BACK!

 

Point is that Exxon-Mobil is a publicly held corporation with ONE goal in mind. Make your stockholders happy. The people that put money in your company want money back. Notice that those companies (banks) have a higher profit margin... Its their right to make a profit.

Drug companies - my brother's perscriptions have a dollar value. Last year it was $1500 A MONTH before health insurance. After health insurance it was STILL $200. Last december letters were sent out over all sorts of changes. Result? On January 1st the cost was $1900 A MONTH for the SAME drugs, and the insurance company decided they'd cover less, bringing his cost to $500 A MONTH.

Needless to say with his doctor there is substantial effort to change medications to some that work for less. Before you say "well get him off the stuff and stop complaining" - I'll say on them he's a functional adult, and off them he isnt a contributing member of society. If he's on them he can hold a job and pay taxes and *try* to live a normal life. If he cant pay the bills for his meds he cant hold a job and then the govt is paying his way.

Software companies also charge what they can, but they usually dont harm many people like the drug companies and oil companies do when prices are high. So a copy of windows is like $200. Who still buys it? Not as many as years ago. Autocad is over $500. Its just how it is. Piracy works there. You can get around a legit copy of windows easily. Try to get around getting legit gasoline. Not easily done, but if I had the ability to produce E85 in my back shed with a pair of hot I would.

So some companies will go bust because of it, and honestly that sucks. But the housing market has been going insane and with heating and oil costs rising even higher - thats going to pop too. Then where will our economy be? Long gone are the days of corporations with ethics. GM had a decent thing going on even, with paying good wage and retirement. Paying good health care and doing right. They werent perfectly ethical - and look what it did to them.

I agree with the comment that when the federation of planets take over it'll all be great and we can spread are happiness to the fuzzy wuzzies. But till then its a cut-throat global economy that really takes no prisoners. I dont like what oil is doing. I dont like what drug companies have been doing for years. Banks I dont mind so much, and software companies as well (When movie tickets are $9.75 each, and you're entertained for at most 2 hours for most movies- $50 for a video game that keeps you entertained for 20 hours is a steal). But the housing market is also a huge distaster on the horizon, and our reactive government doesnt have the power to be proactive anymore, even with all the deficit spending.