Updated** Exxon Mobil Post Profits - Hillary "I want to take those profits" - media and politicians attack
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Update... Hillary responds
Windfall Profits? Exxon-Mobil, Oil company Powerhouse, Or Pathetic?
Today news broke that the despicable “oil giant” Exxon-Mobil, made a profit of $39.5 billion in 2006.
Reaction?
“But it comes at a time in history when Americans are being asked to pay more at the pump, so why the divide, and why aren't gas prices cheaper?
Exactly five years ago, drivers were paying $1.30 per gallon of gasoline nationwide. Now, that number is around $2.20, if not higher in some places.
And as we began paying more, the big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil began making more.”
A quick look at the math. Five years ago, the average price in ’01 for oil was around $25.00; recently it’s been well above $50, but thankfully declining. Any one of my five children at an early age could sit at the dinner table and do the math on this equation at and figure out that the $2.20 gas is well discounted.
Factual omissions by the reporter op/ed writer, total revenue. $377.64 billion for the year. For those who can’t calculate percentages, and percentages are critical when you look at profits, income statements, little things like that. The way you do it is to divide the profit number by the revenue and then move the decimal point over a few places. See what I mean? All of a sudden that $39.5 Billion is a mere 10.46%
If you owned a business that had revenue of a million dollars yet showed a profit of $104,600, would you feel elated or more like you had an off year?
Another omission, Exxon paid $27.9 billion in income taxes last year.
More of the assault....
from CNNMoney - "earning more than $75,000 every minute of 2006"
Sen. Bob Casey - "The first opportunity I have is the U.S. Senate to vote against tax breaks and tax cuts for oil companies"
Bashing Exxon AP Style...
In the time it takes to read this, Exxon just made over $6,000
Tick. Tick. Tick. In those three seconds, Exxon Mobil made $3,750 last year.
In the same three seconds, the average American worker made about a penny.
More than ever, time is money. And for oil conglomerates like Exxon Mobil Corp., the money has never been better.
Very dramatic headline, and then the tick tick tick can't you just feel his hatred, the loathing, is this theatre or news?
The AP writer/drama queen/critic/journalist/ect is all about facts and telling it like it is. Without writing like this I don't know how I could ever get through an article.
Exxon Mobil's profits didn't go unnoticed on Capitol Hill, where one lawmaker called them "outlandish" and said oil companies have benefited too long from a Republican-backed energy policy that cheats American taxpayers...
Not everyone was applauding the results. U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources committees, said the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress have consistently "stuffed energy bills full of goodies" that benefit oil companies at the expense of taxpayers...
Exxon Mobil's record profit is "the direct result of a Bush energy policy that for seven years has used every lever of the American government to tilt the scales toward satisfying the special interest demands of a single industry at the expense of the public interest," said Markey, noting the companies have not paid all royalties required of them for drilling on federal land.
Ken Cohen, Exxon Mobil's vice president for public affairs, said the company's profits are the result of billions in capital investment over long periods in a volatile industry. He also noted the company's U.S. tax obligation in the past five years was about $60 billion - about $20 billion more than its U.S. net income for the same period.
"When we make more money in our industry, the government gets significantly more money," Cohen said.
There is lot's more more folks but no point in laying it all out, it's going to be all over the news for weeks, hearings in congress.
And for what? A 10.46% profit... If that's the criteria for congressional investigations and windfall profit laws, we are all in trouble, BUT I wan't to see every member of congress that has ever made a deal where they made more pay up first. AND I want to see Harry Reid writing checks for the windfall profits on the sweet land deals he seems so fond of.
They are reinvested to more oil and gas. A producer that fails to reinvest his profits is essentially having a "going out of business sale" for every barrel he produces.
Any boom cycle increases the costs the producer sees. Rising commodity prices make exploration and development more economically attractive. Oil companies compete with each other for the limited supply of available drilling rigs. In fact, the costs of all oil field goods and services rise along with oil and gas prices.
But only if you elect her, because she's a woman.
And why isn't this diary on the Recommended List? But let's be clear:
If you owned a business that had revenue of a million dollars yet showed a profit of $104,600, would you feel elated or more like you had an off year?
If Hillary is going to use this standard as the threshold for "TAKING THOSE PROFITS" then we're going to be a Socialist country if she gets elected. Point Blank.
I hope one of our resident Economists will talk about the profit numbers in some more depth across a number of different industries because if this is where Hillary is drawing the line to run her campaign, my feeling is that the entire United States is about to go down the tubes. If 10.5% profit is too much, why not 5.25%? Why not 1.382%? Why doesn't she just take all the profits?
Because really, folks, even if Hillary was successful in taking 90% of Exxon-Mobil's profits, that's still only ~35.5 billion dollars. That's chump change for the federal government, especially the Department of Health and Human Services. So to really follow through on her Socialist agenda, she can't possibly be claiming that she's going to stop "TAKING THOSE PROFITS" at the oil companies. Sure, she can start there. But to really do what she wants is going to require several hundred billion dollars a year in "TAKEN PROFITS" and that means, as far as I can tell, the entire U.S. economy. Every single one of us.
About why this diary isn't in the Recommended Blogs section: Because lots of people are too busy tying themselves into knots over MITT ROMNEY to notice that Hillary is talking openly about "TAKING THOSE PROFITS" in the national media.
Sigh.
Is anybody beginning to understand why Hillary looked like she was sucking a lemon when Bush spoke about reforming Social Security and other entitlements during the State of the Union address?
I'd say that when you watch that video above, you're seeing the reason why. I think there's a very good reason for her sourpuss, and I think it's because she mentions "TAKING THOSE PROFITS" like it was something she would have done years ago. Not just from the oil companies to fund alternative energy boondoggles, but from EVERYONE ELSE AS WELL to fund Social Security and Medicare.
Get it? Or am I all wet?
Can you imagine the media revolt if the other side of the isle were to have a brian malfunction and utter something so stupid?
Sure it SOUNDS like a lot of money but the math is simple, oil and gas is an expensive business so a 10.46% profit is no big deal.
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
And just say that everybody who claims to be "infuriated" by "excessive" oil company profits should really take a chill pill and read this.
Now I know that Hillary might take several different kinds of pills, but chill pills aren't among them. But frankly she's talking out her arse. If enough people buy into it, though, I can promise you that nobody is safe from her arse.
the way Hillary spoke of taking those profits is no different from Hugo Chavez nationalizing Venezuela oil. It really scares me to think that the USA could elect a Hugo Chavez wannabe to be the next President of the US. Charles pointed out that she was not saying windfall profits can be taxed. Instead she said she wants to take those profits.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Charles pointed out that she was not saying windfall profits can be taxed. Instead she said she wants to take those profits.
The difference is just semantics. Any windfall profits tax is simply a more subtle way of saying what Hillary said. And the Democrats have already shown there attempts to imitate every two bit dictator around the world with their bill to force oil producers to "renegotiate" their contracts with the government.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
Americans are being asked if they would like to pay $2/gal at the pump. In most states driving is a privelege, not a right.
Harry Reid is to ethics reform what HIV was to free love!
Much harder to see that the same is done for others.
I would hold that the above demonstrates Hillary's and all those that clapped, fundamental unfitness for office. Envy has no place as a political philosophy.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
from cattle futures. $1000 invested $100,000 return in a year. So she made 1,000% profit let's hold congressional hearings...
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
After doing so well with HillaryCare ("I can't go out and save every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America" re jobs lost when small businesses go bankrupt under her mandates), Hillary is pushing a variation of Carter's "windfall profits" tax on oil companies. That really did a good job of holding down gas prices and reducing dependency on foreign oil producers in the 70's, right?
Hillary apparently has more self-discipline than Bill, but otherwise on policy and political skill she's clearly Clinton the Lesser.
right off the hop on gas the feds get $.185 per gal and then here's a chart to see how much your state will tack on to the price of gas you pump, then the politicians can claim that the oil companies are sticking it to us...
http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgastaxes.asp
this is an eye opener, check out the prices of diesel and it's no wonder that transportation costs have gone through the roof
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
She appears to be speaking to a partisan audience (DNC? www.democrat.org?). And then look at that throwaway line "biggest profits in the history of the world (smirk)," without mentioning any company. Obviously this wasn't a thought-out line of reasoning.
Clearly enough, as someone said, Hillary (like any Democrat) can pull anything she wants out of her backside and not get called on it, but that's not new.
As far as actually appropriating business profits for some harebrained alternative-energy scheme, I have to believe she's smart enough not to try it, if she becomes President. If she does, it'll blow up in her face so badly that we won't have to worry about anyone trying it again.
In the same speech HillaryCare made a reappearance. She's moved pretty far on the war also. I think she has come to the conclusion she has to shore up the rabid moonbat base to fend off the competition, and just they love that kind of stuff.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
I think we are fated to have socialized medicine. That's because, unlike the energy sector, there are huge swaths of the healthcare system that just don't have their act together from a business point of view. I read it as a large collection of mom-and-pop establishments that somehow add up to a $2 trillion industry.
The government can take over the whole kit-and-caboodle (except for sectors like pharma and medical devices) without creating a highly visible mess. It will still be a big mess, but most of the cost will take the form of less-good outcomes for individual patients. People will say "why aren't things better?," rather than "things were better in the old days."
And rather than doing away with the insurance industry, HillaryCare will find some irrational way to bolt it into the picture. This is what happens when you look at business problems from the point of view of "the art of the possible." Business isn't politics, but Hillary doesn't know that.
There are free market solutions that can and would solve the problem but they will face enormous hurdles. The AMA is one of the truly incredible lobbying organizations and will fight like any other union to protect what they perceive with their members privileges.
Veritas magna est et praevalet.
And Hillary is very aware of it. There are about 13 million people employed in healthcare in the US. Those are 13 million potential new government employees, 13 million people to be subtracted from the free market/Republican column and added to the government/Democrat one. Think of all the money these people could pour into the Democratic party coffers; the Democratic party is.
Of course, I suspect that a great many business people would breath a sigh or relief if they could get out having to provide healthcare for their employees. I believe it was Nietzsche who said that there is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of business and the well-being of small-government conservatism. Sweden, here we come!
If I may say so, business people tend to be remarkably short-sighted.
My point about the insurance industry is that there's no need for it in a government-sponsored healthcare system. But rather than letting it die on its own, a prospective "HillaryCare" would try to co-opt it and make everything worse.
All of the priorities you mentioned, like creating 13 million new government employees, are classic political goals rather than business goals. As long as we can agree that government-sponsored healthcare initiatives are designed to capitalize on a political opportunity ("oh my Gawd, the healthcare system is broken!") rather than a business opportunity ("if we did things differently, we could make a lot of people healthier than they are now"), then we can make progress in the debate.
That would entail an acceptance that success is defined not in hard terms of healthier people living longer lives, but rather in fuzzier terms like "making sure that every American has health insurance" and "giving every American equal access to the highest-quality healthcare." I know which side of this question I come down on, but I'll probably be outnumbered.
That's one Nietzsche quote I'd need to see in the original. Cite?
Short-sightedness: we business people prefer to think of that as focus. ;-)
classic political goals rather than business goals
I'm 99% sure that the Democrats do not make that distinction. Everything in the state, nothing outside ...
Nietzsche - I was having fun with a quote I thought you would pick up on.
"There is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind." From BGaE, iirc.
and AFSCME are so heavily involved in organizing healthcare workers. What is truly troubling is the willingness of the providers to do voluntary recognition agreements with them. Government is already so implicated in healthcare policy and funding that you get a political symbiosis between the union and the employer in trying to reach further into the state treasury.
In Vino Veritas
I think it is inevitable and only a matter of time. We are already a long bit of the way there, anyway, with Medicare/Medicaid/VA and the coverage, pricing, and business practices of private insurers being micromanaged by state governments. In this state, an HMO can't even be a for-profit business. They must be organized as a not-for-profit (meaning the profits simply need to be squandered or funneled into ancillary for-profit businesses). No wonder health care is such a mess.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
but as I said above, I think healthcare is gone. It will be a fairly simple matter to create a "Medicare Part E" that will extend today's Medicare system to the non-elderly.
The welter of state regulations will need to be cleared away. I have no insight on whether that will be easy or not. The existing health-insurance industry will also need to be put to death. They won't go quietly, but I'm imagining that Hillary and her people (who lost their fight in 1993 in large part because of successful attack ads from the insurance lobby) have learned a few things from the last time, and will be better prepared this time.
And finally, the politics favors national healthcare. It's just too easy for ordinary people to see healthcare as something they can't do without, being provided to them as a freebie.
To repeat myself, socialized medicine won't solve the problem that healthcare is too expensive and not good enough. (In fact, it will exacerbate the problem by introducing de facto rationing of catastrophic care, and other inefficiencies.) But it will create at least a temporary sense that "something is being done," and people can indeed be induced to see that as good in itself.
Start eating healthier and exercising more. You'll need every advantage you can get, in regard to staying healthy.
... and oratorical style owe a lot to this fellow:
Now that was when we had *real* diversity in this country. She's such a pale shadow of that kind of rock-em-sock-em-rootin-tootin stuff. But she has her moments:
Whenever I see these profit numbers for oil companies, I always wonder how much money ADM made last year.