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back to top31 Comments to “Whirled Views 5.6”
Bernard M. Baruch – Who also said,”Never answer a critic, unless he’s right.”
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Baruch (not Barack!) also said “I’m not so much concerned about the return ON my money as I am about the return OF my money.”
Today is the anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster. Oh the humanity!!
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Samuel–Enjoy your coffee of the day!
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Could someone explain this gas tax holiday and just how is it supposed to help?
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Kim, it lowers the price of gas considerably during the summer travel season so that people in the large travel industry will think they have “done something ‘ about the oil situation and vote for them in November.
Makes some kind of sense: political, non, whatever. The one who gets my vote will propose punching more holes in the ground. Till then, nada.
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Kim, it’s akin to the “No payments till next year!” ploy.
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Kim,
There are two ways it can happen, and neither are likely to help in the long run.
One version suspends the federal gas tax at the pump. Sounds good: we’ll pay less temporarily, see just how much the government rakes off the top, etc. But the feds rarely go without their piece of the pie for very long–they just find other ways to take another slice.
The other version is to tax oil companies’ windfall profits. This is based on the idea that the oil companies are making too much and should be penalized for successful capitalism. However, the oil companies are likely to pass their losses on to us at the pump, resulting in even higher prices to help make up the difference in their bottom line. This was tried in the Jimmy Carter years, I believe, with little success.
Profits allow for refinery updates, job expansion, and so on. If it were allowed, profits could allow for new refineries and new drilling, but that’s another topic for another day.
All of the above is said better in an article over at http://www.townhall.com
Here’s the shortened direct link: http://tinyurl.com/6pokzj
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Oh so it’s the old “one hand giveth and the other taketh away” trick.
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Let’s talk about obscene windfall profits, that the socialist want to steal from the oil companies, now that the 1st quarter profit reporting season is almost over.
Average US company net profit margin – 10%
Oil companies profits – 8.3%
Federal and State taxes on gasoline – 14%
Drug companies – 14.7%
Local and regional banks – 16.2%
Information technology – 22%
Microsoft – 28%
The oil companies make much less profit than the average US corporation while the government taxes gasoline at way more than the Average US company profits and nearly twice as much as the profits of US oil companies.
US oil companies have invested trillions of dollars to explore for and produce the fuel we all need to survive, no to mention developing the technologies required to fined and extract more difficult reserves. At great effort and cost making less profit than they should, oil companies have managed to keep fuel available for all Americans.
The government on the other hand has done very little, besides dole out a few billion dollars in oil subsidies, to put any fuel in your tank and these subsidies are insignificantly tiny, But the politicians stole the huge pile of fuel tax money, the real windfall, that you paid them, and spent it on other things than building and fixing roads like it was supposed to be used for. As a result, America’s transportation system and network of roads is dilapidated and near collapse for lack of maintenance because the money was stolen and spent on earmarks and other projects your elected officials wanted as pork.
So the only windfall profits were the taxes you paid to the criminal, wasteful and spendthrift politicians, who did virtually nothing to provide one gallon for fuel and then stole taxes that were supposed to be spent on road maintenance and new roads.
Now these insane politicians are trying blame the innocent and telling you it is all the oil companies fault for everything because of their ‘windfall profits’ when in reality it is the politicians who are the criminals here and the ones who extracted ‘windfall profits’ as taxes for doing absolutely nothing as a reward to get them, then stealing these windfall taxes, causing the transportation infrastructure of the US to collapse as a result.
Pay no attention to socialist politicians who will steal you blind and then blame someone innocent else, usually you, for it and try to steal more from someone else.
There are thieves out there all right but it but they don’t work for oil companies, they are supposedly working for, you but they are too busy ripping you off to get much work done.
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Llama, I don’t disagree with anything you said, however, isn’t it somewhat the proverbial “apples and oranges” (do llamas eat fruit?) to mix a gas tax percent in with corporate profit percents?
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Kim- so far you have received some good explanations. I’ll add this: It is only supposed to help someone get elected. Any time the government intervenes in the financial realm, the consumer is hurt (with perhaps the FDIC as an exception).
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McCain is reaching out to the doubters of his stance on Supreme Court nominees. At least that’s whats implied.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D90G9LKG0&show_article=1
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Hey Llama, that gas tax raiding sounds just like the Social Security lockbox. It’s not really locked when you have the key.
Here’s a niffty little site that will show you the gas tax in all states. And remember the govt doesn’t earn this, it just takes it.
http://www.pennsylvaniagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx
And I love the little note at the bottom that says; Please note the above rates are meant as only guidelines of pump taxes and may not represent the full tax amount at the pump
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And now even the states are trying to get in on the “gas tax holiday” idea.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06gas.html?_r=3&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Somebody needs to teach me how to do that tinyurl thingy.
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This, from the AAPS News (AAPS is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons):
“Tort reform notwithstanding, a California radiologist and cardiologist were hit with a jury verdict of $67 million after actor John Ritter died at age 54 of an aortic dissection, misdiagnosed as a myocardial infarction. Though non-economic damages are capped at $250,000, economic damages were calculated on the assumption that Ritter would have continued to work until his retirement at the same income he was receiving for his current gig, a new sitcom entitled “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter.”
“Physicians may want to think twice about taking on the care of a high-earning celebrity. Most high earners have purchased life and disability insurance on their own, but few physicians are in a posistion to make such people whole in the event that negligence is proven against them (Medical Justice News Bulletin 3/17/08)”
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Even states are trying to get in on the “gas tax holiday”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/us/06gas.html?_r=3&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Somebody needs to teach me that tinyurl thingy.
And if this posts twice, it’s because wordpress ate the first, and spit it out later.
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AJ,
Very cool link–thanks!
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Llama, you have made an astute observation. However, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. The evil oil companies are guilty of punching holes in the ground and disturbing the fossils of long dead creatures. They are guilty of global warming, causing the polar bears to drown and icebergs to melt. If it wasn’t for the evil oil companies there would be no suburbs, no big box stores and no auto accidents.
I own a little Chevron, but I don’t tell anyone. One of my secrets is that I’m kinda glad they make a profit. If most of the people who have pension funds knew it, they would be kinda glad too. What we need to do is develop alternative renewable fuels. What we really need to do is define what alternative renewable fuels are. Seems everybody talks about it but nobody defines it. Except ethanol. My son –the chemical engineer- says that ethanol doesn’t burn hot enough to be an efficient fuel. Where does that leave us? Besides talking about it, that is.
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Excuse me while I butt in here and change the subject.
Is anyone aware of any polling that is taking place in states where the primaries have already been held that show what effect the Jeremiah Wright controversy will have on those states in the general election?
The reason I ask is because I am sure Hillary is factoring this into her equation of electability while courting the superdelegates.
If anyone knows of a link, could you pass it on? Thanks in advance.
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Metanoia
I googled this–wright impact on obama poll numbers–. Lottsa stuff, might help ya. Also realclearpolitics.com has tons of stuff that might help.
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Stubob,
Yes, that’s disgusting. One thing that disturbs me about today’s world is that death is always seen as somebody’s “fault.” It seems to me that a low-earning breadwinner might have more need for damages that the family of a man who’s already wealthy! But the courts shouldn’t be putting money values on death in such a way anyway, that an actor is more valuable than a Walmart employee. If he wanted life insurance, he should have gotten it.
If the doctor had saved his life, would he (the doctor) have gotten a percentage of future lifetime earnings? Should a doctor have to use more care with a person who’s “worth” more? Pity the poor single mom, if that’s the case.
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I’ve had four posts eaten by wordpress today. What gives?
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The Real AJ – Wordpress must be Real Hungry today.
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AJ,
I have found that when I try to cut and paste a link, it will not post. If I go back to recent pages and refresh, sometimes I can get it to come back up.
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AJ- Go to http://tinyurl.com/create.php and follow the instructions. (You basically just paste the URL into the space provided, click a button, then copy and paste the new tiny url into here.)
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Thanks folks, and especially Peter L. One of the eaten posts was a really long cut and paste, with a request for someone to explain the tinyurl thingy. I appreciate the info.
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Just tryin’ it out. This link is about the India govts warning about the storm that Mynamr.
http://tinyurl.com/5ek333
Let’s see how it works. This is only a test.
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COOOOOOOOOL!!!
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Now I just need to work on my spelling.
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Peter L,
Thank you. I knew it was something to do with the link–but didn’t know what to do about it. I could get my post back, but I couldn’t post my post!!
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And for those of you who yesterday on the When the past catchs up to you post talked about drug use and dealing being a victimless crime, check this out.
http://tinyurl.com/68jvxg
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