oil companies$$$$

aproy1101 said:
Wrong, wrong and even once again wrong. The site says the oil companies get 10 cents a gallon (at $3 per gallon thats 3.3%). Then it says the feds get 18% NOT 18 cents. At 3 dollars a gallon 18% is 54 cents. Which makes that 5.4 x as much as the oil companies. You've really got to read the threads to get a gist of what I'm saying before calling me out. I am an engineer and know how to run the damn numbers. It matters not, additionally, where we get the crude. The saudis are still marking their oil up 1750%. Period. I love this shit. This is like the thrid time you've called out my numbers, and each time its cuz you really haven't read what I've said.
Click to expand...

And I quote, "The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon" - from your page. Read your own damn numbers.
 
ALLright. I read Andy's link. It is 18 cents, not percent, but the average of taxes, Fed State and local comes out to about 20%.

Let's stop fussing about the numbers, guys, and get to the root of our probe; do you think the oil companies are making too much money?

Personally, I don't think we'll find a real demon here. Just the usual bunch of humans in the oil industry who were not in a hurry to build new refineries at great cost when they could keep the status quo going up and up.

I don't know if there is a 'solution' to the problems a society faces with supply and demand. If you let it go completely free, as many liberatarians argue, people get crushed. IF you overregulate it and stifle competition, people get crushed. (Well, first they lose their jobs and then they just get sleepy and fall down.)



munk
 
munk said:
I don't know if there is a 'solution' to the problems a society faces with supply and demand. If you let it go completely free, as many liberatarians argue, people get crushed. IF you overregulate it and stifle competition, people get crushed. (Well, first they lose their jobs and then they just get sleepy and fall down.)
Click to expand...

There is a third way. A gentleman by the name of Henry George wrote about it in a book entitled, Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth a little over a hundred years ago. Virtually no one alive today has heard about him (by the design of those in power) despite the fact that his book, when originally published, sold more copies than any other book in history other than the Bible.

Anyway, I come here to discuss knives rather than politics, so I don't want to get into a lengthy debate on the matter. If anyone wants more information, they can PM me.
 
OK. Here is the damn chart.

ProfitsGasPump1thru52006ave.gif


I'm pretty sure that says 18%.
 
I didn't see the pretty green pump in the link, Andy, I read the text where it said 18 cents. Funny. You were both right.


munk
 
I was wrong in that I said only Fed taxes. Sorry TMD. I see that part of the text. That # though, 18% is almost exactly what you quoted saying 19% for fed and state taxes. Thats only an average. Here is a link to see what your state is getting you for. Wisconsin, the highest by my check, is at $0.31/gal. Add on the $0.18 for the feds. Geezzzzz. Its funny to me that the rural states are pretty high. I thought that would be the opposite.

http://www.georgiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx
 
I think munk is right - there's no real point in squabbling over numbers. That being said, I can't figure something out here. The 18% number would mean 54 cents a gallon for $3/gallon gas. The Georgia site that approy posted (thanks btw - good reference) says "Together Federal and State excise taxes on fuel account for an average cost of approximately 62 cents per gallon." For those two things to be true the average state tax would have to be 36 cents or 42 cents, respectively. Yet not one state listed has a tax of even 32 cents. Am I missing something?

*Edit: My point wasn't that the numbers are different, but that in neither case do the federal and state taxes add up to the 18 or 19% cited.
 
I think thats just the result of coming from 2 different sources. The truth is in the middle somewhere. Glad I don't live in Wisconsin, but if I did I wouldn't commute 84 miles a day either. Doh!
 
All the quibble about numbers does not change anything. Exxon keeps racking in more than 10 billion each quarter. Our gov't has policies that support high gas prices...and they are going to go higher.

$4 - not unreasonable given the story over the past year.
$5 - who knows?

It is coming out of our pockets and adding to the cost of everything that we buy.
 
arty said:
All the quibble about numbers does not change anything. Exxon keeps racking in more than 10 billion each quarter. Our gov't has policies that support high gas prices...and they are going to go higher.

$4 - not unreasonable given the story over the past year.
$5 - who knows?

It is coming out of our pockets and adding to the cost of everything that we buy.
Click to expand...

Here's my thing. What happens if in ten years, when production/extraction is down x%, demand is up x%, we have another Katrina? How will the country and the world deal with $5 or $10 a gallon gas doubling like that? :confused: :(
 
Hopefully we'll deal with it by curbing demand and moving to an alternate source.
 
Good to see you around, btw, Shadow. LOL. Sometimes I suprise people.
 
There is a funny thing about percentages .
One percent of two percent is fifty percent .
If one percent of the lobbyists share two percent of the profits then fifty percent of us won,t be able to afford to pay for gas . L:O:L
 
"Instead of having answers on a math test, they should just call them 'impressions', and if you got a different impression, so what? Can't we all be brothers?"

- Jack Handey
 
My impression is that governments and oil companies are each making obscene amounts of money - and that it must be rather difficult for either of them to break the addiction to it.

I also think we'll need to move to alternate energy sources - probably a diverse bunch of them. If nothing else, because petroleum is way too useful to simply burn - we'll want a ready supply for various kinds of manufacturing.
 
Question - Since a large part of ExxonMobile's profits are derived from sales of fuel, oil products, etc.,sold in other countries, should you want a windfall profits tax - should you just tax those profits derived by sales in the U.S.? See how complicated this becomes. We, the U.S. are not the only people purchasing these products. Years ago I decided to do something about it - I bought Exxon stock (even before the merger) so the dividends help pay my gas bill. [If you can't beat them - Join them] Obvioussly I've nothing against their profits, yet no one cared when they were making very little profit.
 
Regardless if many of you think the oil companies profit too 'large'; the idea of a windfall tax is an entirely different matter. One that will not work, IMHO.


munk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top