Wickedwrench
Stubborn and opinionated
Sadly, I can see this coming in the near future.2ndAmendment said:
Bush at 29%
- Thread starter vraiblonde
- Start date
Mikeinsmd
New Member
Bruzilla said:Vrai, are you buying beer 10-30 gallons at a time, a couple times a week? If you are maybe that's why you're having trouble understanding the issues with unlimited profits for the oil companies.
Some folks think that 10% profit is a pretty measely figure, and they're right - 10% isn't all that much. There are lots of companies that make 100%+ profits, and good for them. Chicken farmers make about 1.5% profit (about .02 cents per bird) which sucks for them. And if we were able to treat chicken the way some of you feel oil should be treated, a bucket of KFC would cost about $50, which would lead to KFC going out of business because people can easily live without KFC.
But what really bothers me is this inviolate attitude some people have towards oil companies... it's almost a God-like view sometimes. They're just friggin companies!!! I find it pretty much insane that some consumers would be willing to let oil companies do whatever the F' they want in the name of profits, while our food prices go up, our gas prices go up, our ability to travel goes down, airlines go under, etc. Ultimately, oil companies exist to service us, not the other way around... which is how things are run today. I can't imagine how it feels to have this attitude of "I'll pay any price for gasoline, or groceries, or anything else in order to maintain the "right" of the oil companies to make every penny they can!"... and to be honest I don't want to.
I can just imagine you and fromtexas pulling into the local Exxon station and pumping your gas while you grumble and curse those of us who would dare to tell the oil companies how much they can charge or how much they can make. "Why the nerve... how un-American... how un-free market!" while your kids ask to go into the gas station to buy a candy bar or a drink. "Forget it kids... they charge too much for that stuff in there. We'll get some snacks at the grocery store where they're much cheaper" comes the reply. Ah yes, the spirit of competition in the free market place finally shows up.
This is what I wanted to say. And why are utility companies regulated but oil companies aren't?
Wickedwrench
Stubborn and opinionated
Those same people could easily become savages if the everyday things they enjoy suddenly become out of reach. Much like sticking your hand in a dog's food dish while it's eating. Even a dog will bite the hand that feeds it if it deems it necessary.Toxick said:
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okayBruzilla said:
FromTexas
This Space for Rent
Bru, What god-like attitude towards oil companies, you ninny? We are talking capitalism! In fact, one of the most loathed companies on this globe is oil! Oil has been getting a bad rap for decades! How can you sit and act like there is some mass appreciation of the oil industry? 
The argument is simple... You are a greedy little ninny when costs don't go your way. You weren't forking it over in the 80s when the oil companies were tanking to protect the vital oil industry... but now its vital enough they should be forking it over to you. Lets just call a spade a spade... your capitalistic/Republican beliefs don't matter the moment you have to pay more than you feel is your right.
Some other people think they pay too much for healthcare and shouldn't have to work to get it... they want it socialized.
Some other people think they shouldn't have to work to get what they want because it costs too much... they get welfare.
Just admit you have the point where your hand is out and you want the government to step in and socialize it for you. Then we can move on.
This debate gets more ridicilous every time we have it.
The argument is simple... You are a greedy little ninny when costs don't go your way. You weren't forking it over in the 80s when the oil companies were tanking to protect the vital oil industry... but now its vital enough they should be forking it over to you. Lets just call a spade a spade... your capitalistic/Republican beliefs don't matter the moment you have to pay more than you feel is your right.
Some other people think they pay too much for healthcare and shouldn't have to work to get it... they want it socialized.
Some other people think they shouldn't have to work to get what they want because it costs too much... they get welfare.
Just admit you have the point where your hand is out and you want the government to step in and socialize it for you. Then we can move on.
This debate gets more ridicilous every time we have it.
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
I guess I need a history lesson as well.MMDad said:
Electricity is regulated; water and sewage is regulated, mostly; natural gas is regulated.
Water, heat, electric - so - is there a significant difference for oil? Is there some kind of catastrophic reason why regulating oil - as some other nations do - would be bad?
BuddyLee
Football addict
FT, why do these businesses do business in the U.S. if they're being taxed to hell? I wouldn't.FromTexas said:Budweiser pays 39%
Harley pays 35.5%
Caterpillar pays 38%
Chevron pays 44%
BP pays 34%
I'm still trying to find an offender here...
That may be yet another reason to do business overseas. Move the whole show and pay no mo'.
It's worth adding that corporate taxes get treated like any other business expense - they get passed on to consumers as higher prices, or to workers as fewer jobs and lower pay. And that includes the administrative costs of complying with the tax, which are almost 50 cents per dollar of tax paid - which enriches lawyers and accountants' firms at the expense of the rest of us.vraiblonde said:
Trying to limit how much profit a company can make just causes shortages - like the gas lines of the '70s. Remember those?
All of the above is basic economics. Neither legislation nor wishful thinking will change it. The increased cost of gas is mostly due to government interference in the market (especially pertaining to additives mandated by the EPA and its 50 state equivalents) and the fact that we are competing with India and China for the output of the oil companies and oil producing countries. Both of those countries were net exporters of oil within the last ten years, but they're now net importers and will be indefinitely.
The easiest means of collecting taxes is probably a sales tax of some kind, but wealthy people spend a smaller percentage of their income.BuddyLee said:
About 90 years ago, the taxes we had weren't enough to pay for our intervention in Mexico (then fighting a civil war that occasionally spilled over the border) or for World War I, so they decided to amend the Constitution (16th Amendment) to allow for a federal income tax, so they could get at money not spent buying things - so the rich in particular would pay more. The first income tax was ONE percent of the incomes of upper income people.
There was a proposal to cap the tax at ten percent. They decided not to do it because they were afraid future Congresses would take that as permission (or worse, a requirement) to raise the tax to ten percent. (!) If they had known what would happen between 1933 and 1966, they probably would've capped it at something lower than 10%.
B
Bruzilla
Guest
Ah.... I was forking it over in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. I saw as gas made from mostly US oil sold just fine for about .20 a gallon and everything was right with the world. The came 1973, and oil companies found that you can use overseas instability as a reason to drive up prices, so I paid out more and more until gas hit about $1.35 in 1983 or so and people got up in arms, at which time government threats were made and the price dropped down to about $1 a gal again. With no pending Middle Eastern wars on the horizon,FromTexas said:Bru, What god-like attitude towards oil companies, you ninny? We are talking capitalism! In fact, one of the most loathed companies on this globe is oil! Oil has been getting a bad rap for decades! How can you sit and act like there is some mass appreciation of the oil industry?
The argument is simple... You are a greedy little ninny when costs don't go your way. You weren't forking it over in the 80s when the oil companies were tanking to protect the vital oil industry... but now its vital enough they should be forking it over to you. Lets just call a spade a spade... your capitalistic/Republican beliefs don't matter the moment you have to pay more than you feel is your right.
Some other people think they pay too much for healthcare and shouldn't have to work to get it... they want it socialized.
Some other people think they shouldn't have to work to get what they want because it costs too much... they get welfare.
Just admit you have the point where your hand is out and you want the government to step in and socialize it for you. Then we can move on.
This debate gets more ridicilous every time we have it.
OPEC got together and started playing games with the oil companies to get the price of oil back up again... and why not? Who's competing with them? Then came Desert Storm and the price went up to $1.45 or so and stayed there until more Middle Eastern "fears" drove the price up to the next pain point, $2 a gallon. At that point threats of government action stabilized prices again. Then came the hurricanes and we reached a new price point, $3 a gallon. And now the oil companies are hoping we'll all soon get acclimated to $3 a gallon gas until they jump it again.
I keep hearing about "supply and demand", and how the oil companies are investing untold billions into oil exploration and improvements into finding and delivering more oil... yet there never seems to be any increases in supply, just increases in demand that require vigorous price increases. Now how is that? If Ford yielded the same results from all their investements that the poil companies have, we would be looking at the 2007 Pintos and Mavericks coming to a showroom near you.
Capitalism is not a God-given right of comapnies or individuals. We have always placed teh public good above capitalism whenever companies gained too much power and began conducting their affairs in a manner that causes the consumer or the economy to suffer. We are now at a point where the oil companies are responsible for their product from the time its pumped from the ground to the time it's pumped into your tank, and they are taking just as much unfair advantage of that situation as Microsoft did before the government took action. As far as I'm concerned the oil companies exist for one reason... to serve me.... John Q. Consumer. And they do so at my pleasure. If they're hemoraging money and go out of business, too bad. And of they're manipulating market forces to make fantastic profits at my expense, doom on them. Sorry... but I've never seen a business admin textbook that said "Life is fair."
SamSpade
Well-Known Member
Ok, forgive a little skepticism.
Today we now have a USA Poll which says that a *majority* of Americans are AGAINST the telephone call database - when, just last *Friday*, another poll not only said Americans were *supportive* of the database, but at a 2-1 majority.
In other words - RESOUNDING support. And it wasn't FOX News, it was ABC.
Now, just three days later, a more than 20 point swing in the opposite direction is "revealed". No 'new' revelations over the weekend, no Watergate plumbers caught, no Chappaquiddick shocker - just - in three days, 20 percent of Americans totally changed their minds.
From a guy whose job is statistics I can only say - BULLSH!T. This does not happen. Either the sample was bad, the methodolgy was screwed up or something - but it impossible for both of them to be correct. ONE of them is way off - period.
I've been a participant in what I realized later was a 'push' poll - a series of questions sequenced in order to produce a desired result, and that anyone actually does them and has the temerity to publish it as good math or science is offensive. (Example of push polling: What do you think of X? (Your answer). You said X. Did you know that XYZ and does this change your answer?). I hung up on the jerks. I didn't care if they were conservative or liberal - what they weren't interested in was my actual opinion.
So my question - and my skepticism is:
Are the low polls accurate? Other polling outlets show Bush's numbers hovering around 40% over long periods of time - which seems more logical. Opinion polls do not change dramatically, not even during Watergate.
Today we now have a USA Poll which says that a *majority* of Americans are AGAINST the telephone call database - when, just last *Friday*, another poll not only said Americans were *supportive* of the database, but at a 2-1 majority.
In other words - RESOUNDING support. And it wasn't FOX News, it was ABC.
Now, just three days later, a more than 20 point swing in the opposite direction is "revealed". No 'new' revelations over the weekend, no Watergate plumbers caught, no Chappaquiddick shocker - just - in three days, 20 percent of Americans totally changed their minds.
From a guy whose job is statistics I can only say - BULLSH!T. This does not happen. Either the sample was bad, the methodolgy was screwed up or something - but it impossible for both of them to be correct. ONE of them is way off - period.
I've been a participant in what I realized later was a 'push' poll - a series of questions sequenced in order to produce a desired result, and that anyone actually does them and has the temerity to publish it as good math or science is offensive. (Example of push polling: What do you think of X? (Your answer). You said X. Did you know that XYZ and does this change your answer?). I hung up on the jerks. I didn't care if they were conservative or liberal - what they weren't interested in was my actual opinion.
So my question - and my skepticism is:
Are the low polls accurate? Other polling outlets show Bush's numbers hovering around 40% over long periods of time - which seems more logical. Opinion polls do not change dramatically, not even during Watergate.