DC Tom Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 If $30 Billion in taxes is a "tax break," I'd love to see what they would be paying without their "huge" tax breaks. Exxon's 2007 Tax Bill When he says "tax breaks", he's probably also referring to asset depreciation. As they pump out a field, they can depreciate the value of the land on their books and - at the risk of oversimplifying - treat it as a "charge" against their earnings. That ends up being a pretty hefty tax break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pBills Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 I won't be on the streets. I'll be getting that free money I'm entitled to. And the free health care I'm entitled to. Ultimately there'll be free housing I'm entitled to. And free food. And free transportation. Plus, let's face it, the moment President Obama starts handing out the freebies, what incentive would I have to actually work? If I work, I might make money. If I make money, I may invest and try to make a lot of money. If I make a lot of money, I may start my own business and make even more money and be extremely profitable. But that just means President Obama will take my profits and give it the people who are too !@#$ing lazy to find work, so I should just join the unemployed, let the freebies fall where they may and let other people do the work. Y'know...I'm really starting to come around on this Obama guy. You are right. He will be handing out freebies left and right. No one will work, no one will have to work. And McCain will never ever raise taxes (HAHA!!). To be completely serious do have link where Obama has said "President Obama will take my profits and give it the people who are too !@#$ing lazy to find work". It's also not a matter of screwing working people it's about helping those who are unemployed fr whatever reason and seriously need help. Although, I guess we should follow your mindset - f those who can't help themselves. Let them rot. Great viewpoint. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ieatcrayonz Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 You are right. He will be handing out freebies left and right. No one will work, no one will have to work. And McCain will never ever raise taxes (HAHA!!). To be completely serious do have link where Obama has said "President Obama will take my profits and give it the people who are too !@#$ing lazy to find work". It's also not a matter of screwing working people it's about helping those who are unemployed fr whatever reason and seriously need help. Although, I guess we should follow your mindset - f those who can't help themselves. Let them rot. Great viewpoint. Link and quote: “Obama simply asks that big oil companies contribute a reasonable share of the windfall profits they receive from high oil prices over the next five years to pay for emergency assistance for families right now,” the campaign says. Don't get me wrong, although I am not into politics, I sort of like Obama. I think Edwards would have been better because he just would have sued these companies and got $10 Million for everyone. I am finally coming to grips with the Edwards/Tancredo ticket being unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fingon Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 GG retirement funds. Oil companies make a 10% profits... hardly extravagant; Obama makes it sound like they are making $2 a gallon rather than 30 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 There are some funny posts hear, but nobody is copying the moronic ploy from people who don't even understand their own arguments by posting "Obama Bad" Those "Bush Bad" posts have cracked me up........pretty much by people who have run out of excuses- at least neither Obama nor McCain make excuses for that rubbish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fingon Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Don't let him fool you with the Tax breaks part, all corporations get tax breaks not just oil companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 "Give" people seven sick days, and believe me, people will get "sick" seven times. Funny, I get as many as I want and in the seven and a half years I've been here I've taken.....none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wacka Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Exxon-Mobil made 8.5% profit. Microsoft made about 35% and Apple about 50%. Why no windfall profits talk on them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Exxon-Mobil made 8.5% profit.Microsoft made about 35% and Apple about 50%. Why no windfall profits talk on them? Because Bush and Chaney aren't computer guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Fischer Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 Because Bush and Chaney aren't computer guys. No, because computers aren't a strategic commodity. Listen to your ideologue friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Just remember, as a democrat, Obama will take all of the money that Big Business makes- they will be so poor when he is done, they won't have enough to be middle class. Also don't forget, McCain is a republican, and as such, he couldn't care less about anyone. He hopes the poor starve so there will be less people in the country. Its sad that some people are dumb enough to believe that kind of garbage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Adams Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Exxon-Mobil made 8.5% profit.Microsoft made about 35% and Apple about 50%. Why no windfall profits talk on them? Bill and Steve are gonna kick your ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Bill and Steve are gonna kick your ass. Better than Bill and Ted....WYLD STALLIONS!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pBills Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Funny, I get as many as I want and in the seven and a half years I've been here I've taken.....none. Same with me. Two sick days in two years, first vacation coming up in two years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pBills Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Just remember, as a democrat, Obama will take all of the money that Big Business makes- they will be so poor when he is done, they won't have enough to be middle class. Also don't forget, McCain is a republican, and as such, he couldn't care less about anyone. He hopes the poor starve so there will be less people in the country. Its sad that some people are dumb enough to believe that kind of garbage :wallbash: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Adams Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 This Op-ed in the WSJ sums up the best arguments for why Obama's mystical windfall profit tax is absurd. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1217806362..._mostpop_viewed What Is a 'Windfall' Profit?August 4, 2008; Page A12 The "windfall profits" tax is back, with Barack Obama stumping again to apply it to a handful of big oil companies. Which raises a few questions: What is a "windfall" profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit? Is it some absolute number, a matter of return on equity or sales -- or does it merely depend on who earns it? Enquiring entrepreneurs want to know. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama's "emergency" plan, announced on Friday, doesn't offer any clarity. To pay for "stimulus" checks of $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals, the Senator says government would take "a reasonable share" of oil company profits. Mr. Obama didn't bother to define "reasonable," and neither did Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, when he recently declared that "The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in this economy." Really? This extraordinary redefinition of free-market success could use some parsing. Take Exxon Mobil, which on Thursday reported the highest quarterly profit ever and is the main target of any "windfall" tax surcharge. Yet if its profits are at record highs, its tax bills are already at record highs too. Between 2003 and 2007, Exxon paid $64.7 billion in U.S. taxes, exceeding its after-tax U.S. earnings by more than $19 billion. That sounds like a government windfall to us, but perhaps we're missing some Obama-Durbin business subtlety. Maybe they have in mind profit margins as a percentage of sales. Yet by that standard Exxon's profits don't seem so large. Exxon's profit margin stood at 10% for 2007, which is hardly out of line with the oil and gas industry average of 8.3%, or the 8.9% for U.S. manufacturing (excluding the sputtering auto makers). If that's what constitutes windfall profits, most of corporate America would qualify. Take aerospace or machinery -- both 8.2% in 2007. Chemicals had an average margin of 12.7%. Computers: 13.7%. Electronics and appliances: 14.5%. Pharmaceuticals (18.4%) and beverages and tobacco (19.1%) round out the Census Bureau's industry rankings. The latter two double the returns of Big Oil, though of course government has already became a tacit shareholder in Big Tobacco through the various legal settlements that guarantee a revenue stream for years to come. In a tax bill on oil earlier this summer, no fewer than 51 Senators voted to impose a 25% windfall tax on a U.S.-based oil company whose profits grew by more than 10% in a single year and wasn't investing enough in "renewable" energy. This suggests that a windfall is defined by profits growing too fast. No one knows where that 10% came from, besides political convenience. But if 10% is the new standard, the tech industry is going to have to rethink its growth arc. So will LG, the electronics company, which saw its profits grow by 505% in 2007. Abbott Laboratories hit 110%. If Senator Obama is as exercised about "outrageous" profits as he says he is, he might also have to turn on a few liberal darlings. Oh, say, Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett's outfit pulled in $11 billion last year, up 29% from 2006. Its profit margin -- if that's the relevant figure -- was 11.47%, which beats out the American oil majors. Or consider Google, which earned a mere $4.2 billion but at a whopping 25.3% margin. Google earns far more from each of its sales dollars than does Exxon, but why doesn't Mr. Obama consider its advertising-search windfall worthy of special taxation? The fun part about this game is anyone can play. Jim Johnson, formerly of Fannie Mae and formerly a political fixer for Mr. Obama, reaped a windfall before Fannie's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal. Bill Clinton took down as much as $15 million working as a rainmaker for billionaire financier Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies. This may be the very definition of "windfall." General Electric profits by investing in the alternative energy technology that Mr. Obama says Congress should subsidize even more heavily than it already does. GE's profit margin in 2007 was 10.3%, about the same as profiteering Exxon's. Private-equity shops like Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, which recently hired Al Gore, also invest in alternative energy start-ups, though they keep their margins to themselves. We can safely assume their profits are lofty, much like those of George Soros's investment funds. The point isn't that these folks (other than Mr. Clinton) have something to apologize for, or that these firms are somehow more "deserving" of windfall tax extortion than Big Oil. The point is that what constitutes an abnormal profit is entirely arbitrary. It is in the eye of the political beholder, who is usually looking to soak some unpopular business. In other words, a windfall is nothing more than a profit earned by a business that some politician dislikes. And a tax on that profit is merely a form of politically motivated expropriation. It's what politicians do in Venezuela, not in a free country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Same with me. Two sick days in two years, first vacation coming up in two years. I may not take sick days but I take plenty of vacations. Going to Buffalo next week and DC in September for a total of five vacations this year. Two of which were paid for by the company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 This Op-ed in the WSJ sums up the best arguments for why Obama's mystical windfall profit tax is absurd. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1217806362..._mostpop_viewed It's not how much the profit is that determins who pays a windfall tax, it's who has those windfalls. Big bad oil MUST be stopped dammit!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swede316 Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Hmmm...here's something interesting...Seems Mr. Obama voted to give the oil companies some of those windfalls in 2005!!! Another flip-flop: "On July 29, Obama voted for and Clinton opposed an energy bill that included incentives for greater production of oil, gas, coal and nuclear power and also encouraged conservation and a reduction in the regulation of the electric power industry (conference report adopted 74-26). The final passage culminated a grinding, four-year debate on energy policy." http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ar...n-obama-voting/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pBills Posted August 5, 2008 Share Posted August 5, 2008 Since we're talking about big oil. Here's an interesting snippet from the Houston Chronicle: McCain's contributions from energy interests spike John McCain received prolonged applause from the oil executives who gathered June 17 in Houston to hear the Republican presidential candidate's speech on energy policy. Now it appears that McCain received something else: Lots of campaign contributions. John McCain's contributions from energy industry interests happened to spike right around his Houston speech (and a fundraising tour of Texas). Is it a coincidence, the result of aggressive Texas outreach -- or is it a show of gratitude? Let us know what you think. Here's the list: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ENERGY INTERESTS DATE.....................AMOUNT April......................$40,000 May.......................$96,950 June 1-15.............$219,550 June 16-17...........$303,400 June 18-30...........$313,950 Link Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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