Maybe you havent been keeping up with current events but we just got our asses kicked.
Regulations do not come without cost.
Maybe you havent been keeping up with current events but we just got our asses kicked.
Nationalize the whole lot of them.
High business taxes do nothing but hurt the consumer AND the workers.
Why? Because busniesses merely pass these taxes on to the consumer with higher prices. AND, higher prices makes companies less profitable on the world market, which then makes countries with lower taxes have an edge.
Busniess taxes do NOTHING but hurt consumers and the ability of companies to compete, thus putting people out of work.
According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.
And for many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by various credits. These companies returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before.
Gotta love anyone that thinks they can live oil free. By the time you get out of bed and brush your teeth, you have used lots of products made with oil, manufactured with power from oil, or delivered to the store you bought it from using oil.
I want to see anyone try to be Oil free.
I am sorry that 6 billion in profit is not enough.. IN just three months
Grow a spine for crying out loud.
Geez this forum just gets dumber and dumber by the day...
Oil companies make money because ... *gasp* ... they provide a product that we want to buy and use.
BP is a VERY LARGE company owned by MILLIONS of people.
they have a 7.6% profit margin.
http://finapps.forbes.com/finapps/jsp/finance/compinfo/CIAtAGlance.jsp?tkr=BP
That's a pretty LOW profit margin by any scale.
By comparison, brewers (beer makers) have an average of 14.2% profit margin and restaurants have an average of about 9%.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_conamed.html
In other words, your outrage is just plain stupid knee-jerk ignorance.
It is a fact that over regulation costs money and will drive up prices. You do not make a company spend more in overhead without having to pay more as a consumer. Period. It is the same with business taxes. They are passed directly onto the consumer.
Would you rather B.P. not have the funds to clean up the gulf? Can't have it both ways, genius.
Grow a spine for crying out loud.
Geez this forum just gets dumber and dumber by the day...
Oil companies make money because ... *gasp* ... they provide a product that we want to buy and use.
oil is high risk/high reward. it costs about 2 billion for each well, IIRC. so if you build a well and it turns out there's almost nothing there despite your initial surveys... you are screwed.
oil is high risk/high reward. it costs about 2 billion for each well, IIRC. so if you build a well and it turns out there's almost nothing there despite your initial surveys... you are screwed.
At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.
But some government watchdog groups say that only the industrys political muscle is preserving the tax breaks. An economist for the Treasury Department said in 2009 that a study had found that oil prices and potential profits were so high that eliminating the subsidies would decrease American output by less than half of one percent.
There really shouldn't be any regulations on companies, other than making them pay for the damages they cause and if they somehow get too big for their britches then let them fail. New ones will start up. Regulations aren't going to stop this shit from happening in the future. There were already plenty of regulations in place. Nothing works better than making them pay dollar-for-dollar for the damage they did. That alone is enough to keep them in check.
Well, this actually sounds like it would be true.With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.
Sweet, let's enforce price controls on a globally traded commodity. That won't lead to limits in supply at all.just don't listen to their bullshit and enforce prices too if they retaliate.
Sorry, no.There really shouldn't be any regulations on companies, other than making them pay for the damages they cause and if they somehow get too big for their britches then let them fail. New ones will start up. Regulations aren't going to stop this shit from happening in the future. There were already plenty of regulations in place. Nothing works better than making them pay dollar-for-dollar for the damage they did. That alone is enough to keep them in check.
How is Mommy going to be able to afford to buy you video games if she's using her money on gasoline?Raise the gas price to $10 a gallon.. Make that $20 a gallon. See if I care cause I don't drive and don't plan on it. I would love to see less people driving on the road.
A couple of anecdotes on big business versus government.
John Kennedy faced a labor struggle with the steel industry, who also wanted to raise prices that would fuel inflation.
He could have stayed out, none of the government's business, laissez-faire, as the right today would say he should. He didn't, he got involved and had the government mediate the dispute such that labor made its concessions while the owners agreed not to raise prices. Then after the labor was settled, they raised prices.
It was viewed as a slap, 'what are you gonna do about it you lefty kid' move. This was the source of the quote of JFK saying his father had told him all businessmen were sons of bitches but he hadn't believed it before. What JFK did in response was to leverage the major defense contracts buying steel; to threaten the Justice Department would investigate the industry for anti-competitive violations, his brother leading the effort; and a national speech blasting big steel.
He said he had asked the nation to ask what they could do for their country, and he had big steel's answer.
There was enormous behind the scenes pressure, and the government got one company to back off the price increase, forcing the rest to do so.
This was widely viewed as 'government stands up for the public against big business and did the right thing', of course not by the friends of big steel.
A second example, well I completely forgot it.
So I'll mention something else, it's interesting how big business has used enormous pressure when it needs to; it is happy to lie low as long as it's getting its way. In Venezuela, the wealthy class was happy to have a major economic shutdown to try to hurt the economy so much, it would create public pressure to remove Chavez. It was a hugely harmful use of power. They lost the gamble. Companies also did things like sabotage systems, refuse to hand over passwords to the government.
Does anyone have much doubt of the power of big finance, who pretty much runs the Treasury Department, to stand up to government power?
And now that the caps are off for donations, they are free to threaten anyone even more to spend and remove them next election.
One of the most important topics of our political system is the need to prevent any narrow interest from having the government serve it and not the public interest.
I know some on the right somewhat agree, but I think many are naive about how the private sector will abuse power and they support dangerous policies.
Seriously???
You seriously supported Chavez in this post?
Seriously?
And the workers of Gary, Indiana, thank JFK every day still to this day for how much he helped this country empower itself against the evils of business.There was enormous behind the scenes pressure, and the government got one company to back off the price increase, forcing the rest to do so.
This was widely viewed as 'government stands up for the public against big business and did the right thing', of course not by the friends of big steel.