Oh, like what Tommy?...Lasers?...Railguns?....Advanced stealth?....Cloaking tech?
Or are you going to bring up nuclear weaps? Because you already know why they are truly needed.
So no, I really don't cry about stuff that keeps us safe while being grossly more advanced than anything, anyone else has.
I like knowing that our premier fighter, the F-22, is totally untouchable by any other aircraft or ground defense system on our planet. Yup, it is totally expensive to produce.
To be fair to you Tommy and your school of red herring, I do have a problem with flagrent waste.....Like when the Navy pays $26/gallon on 'bio-fuel' or when the AF pays $59/ gallon for 'bio-jet fuel'
The F-22 is "untouchable" because they are sitting on the ground fully most of the time. Those things have been grounded, far more than they've been airborne, and once the iron out one problem, another one pops up. Who exactly do the F-22s have to be invisible to? Some camel jockey with an RPG that Reagan sold to him 30 years ago?
Our nukes, are sheer overkill. When the cold (fake) war ended, Russia admitted that they had less than 20% of the weapons that we claimed they did.
Reagan didn't end the cold war, Russia went bankrupt doing the same thing we're doing now. Russia was folding, and Reagan was just the rooster taking credit for the dawn.
I'm sorry Buck, but I don't live in fear, and I don't think increased defense spending is going to make us any safer, when a few guys with nail clippers can bring the whole country to it's knees.
Bin laden is doing the same thing to us as we did to Russia. We are bankrupting ourselves because of a bunch of war mongering chicken hawks have enough pansies believing that we are going to die any minute unless we give them more money.
When did this country become such a bunch p*ssies?
The pipeline was not going to get oil to US more cheaply. the pipeline was going to the gulf, for export. The oil isn't going to the US, at all. Did you really think they were installing spigots along the way so that people in Tulsa could get their oil cheaper?
That's rich. THE KEYSTONE LAWN SPRINKLER!
No silly, I fully understand that commodities are traded on the open market. Oil prices are based on global market price. which are based on supply and demand(and speculators). It doesn't matter if it comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia or Canada. But...The oil still has to be delivered. Whether it is oil tankers from the Middle East, oil tankers from Alaska, or oil car tankers from Canada, or a PIPELINE. So if oil is trading $100 per barrel, it still has to get to market, and delivery is an added cost. According to the Bloomberg article, shipping oil via the pipeline is a $3 per barrel saving in comparison to Buffett's rail car tanker.
Based on the 4 phase plan of the pipeline construction, as the pipeline travels through the United State toward the Gulf there are multiple areas where it can be deliver to U.S. refineries, U.S. tank farms, as well as areas where domestic oil can be added for export.
So, your attempt at witty sarcasm fails. This pipeline adds oil to the global market to keep up with global demand, and does it more efficiently, which mean more cheaply.
No silly, I fully understand that commodities are traded on the open market. Oil prices are based on global market price. which are based on supply and demand(and speculators). It doesn't matter if it comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia or Canada. But...The oil still has to be delivered. Whether it is oil tankers from the Middle East, oil tankers from Alaska, or oil car tankers from Canada, or a PIPELINE. So if oil is trading $100 per barrel, it still has to get to market, and delivery is an added cost. According to the Bloomberg article, shipping oil via the pipeline is a $3 per barrel saving in comparison to Buffett's rail car tanker.
Based on the 4 phase plan of the pipeline construction, as the pipeline travels through the United State toward the Gulf there are multiple areas where it can be deliver to U.S. refineries, U.S. tank farms, as well as areas where domestic oil can be added for export.
So, your attempt at witty sarcasm fails. This pipeline adds oil to the global market to keep up with global demand, and does it more efficiently, which mean more cheaply.
Your attempt at logic fails. The oil industry is currently the most profitable industry in the history of the world. US oil production is the highest it's been in years, and it's one of our biggest exports. Do you really think that helping them make more money is actually going to benefit us? No, it will add to THEIR bottom line, and OUR liability.
At what point are they profitable enough to begin passing a little bit of all the savings, tax breaks, and subsidies we have been giving them, back to us?
Why don't you take the time to also find out how much money the oil companies pay in taxes, how much is spent on exploratoration, and then tell us how much real profit they make.
Why don't you take the time to also find out how much money the oil companies pay in taxes, how much is spent on exploratoration, and then tell us how much real profit they make.
PROFIT... is what's left AFTER paying taxes, exploration (which is also tax deductable) paying their employees and all other costs.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I don't care anymore about their expenses, because no matter how much we give them, it's never enough.
Stop worshipping corporations, it makes you look like a moron.
I don't care who gets the oil out of the ground. I don't care if it is a not-for-profit, I don't care if it's a church, I don't care if it's a corporation - does it really matter? The fact is, the developed and developing world is dependent on oil. How it get's out of the ground doesn't much matter.
...If this pipeline was a government project like FDR's jobs program, this pipeline would be revered by the left as the greatest infrastructure project of the 21st century. Even if the project takes twice as long and cost twice as much, and riddled with twice the fraud than a private business, it would have been described as a great success. That's because the politicians in government decided who was going to get rich at the expense of the taxpayer.
Stop cursing businesses that are responsible for powering the computer you are typing on, it makes you look like a moron.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Home • Ask FactCheck • Gasoline Tax Profits Gasoline Tax Profits Posted on April 11, 2008
Q: Does the government really make more in taxes from the sale of a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies do?
A: Possibly. Both taxes and profits account for a large share, but which is larger depends on too many unknown factors to allow for a clear answer.
FULL ANSWER
Let’s start with the basics. According to the Energy Information Administration, in February 2008 state and federal excise taxes accounted for 13 percent of the average price per gallon of regular gasoline sold in the U.S.
That figures to just under 40 cents per gallon as a national average. However, the actual amount paid varies greatly by state. Federal taxes are a flat 18.4 cents per gallon of regular gasoline, no matter the price at the pump. State taxes range anywhere from 7.5 cents to 34 cents per gallon, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And on top of that, the oil industry points to additional taxes and fees, such as sales taxes and inspection and environmental fees, that drive up the state-local fees to as much as 45.5 cents per gallon (in California).
And even these figures don’t account for income taxes that the companies pay on their profits. Those taxes would drive the tax total higher yet, but we know of no authoritative source that has attempted to break down how much income tax should be allocated to each gallon of gasoline. One big problem in trying to calculate such a per-gallon amount is that income can be earned on the sale of any number of products besides gasoline, such as diesel, home heating fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, crude oil and whatever else a company might sell.
The same goes for profits. The EIA does not attempt to calculate an average figure for the profit earned on each gallon of gasoline. "It’s not that these guys [the oil companies] are obfuscating; it’s that the processes are intertwined," EIA economist Neal Davis told FactCheck.org. He added that trying to reduce profit figures to a per-gallon average for gasoline would be "heroic at best" and "sadly misinformed … at worst."
Nevertheless, the oil industry has tried to do something close to that. A publication from the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s principal lobbying arm, displays a graphic stating that "taxes" made up 15 percent of the price of gasoline at the pump in 2007 (that figure comes from EIA) and showing a figure for "earnings" (a measurement API prefers to straight "profit") of 8.3 percent. This figure is the average earnings for the industry per dollar of sales.On closer examination, however, that 8.3 percent earnings figure turns out to be after-tax income. The pre-tax profit margin would be considerably higher. And that’s only an average. The profits of any particular oil company could be higher or lower. For example, in 2007, ExxonMobil’s after-tax earnings were 10.4 percent, much higher than the industry average. Furthermore, any particular gallon of gasoline might have passed through several companies as the product moved from the oil well to the refiner to the retailer that owns the pump.
Another complicating factor is that the percentages change from month to month, sometimes dramatically. State and federal excise taxes are generally fixed at a certain number of pennies per gallon, so as the price of gasoline rises, the percentage paid in excise taxes goes down. As shown in this breakdown, state and federal excise taxes made up 32 percent of what motorists paid at the pump in January 2000, when the average price for regular was only $1.29.
"Unfortunately, there’s no real simple answer," says Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, which conducts economic analyses of energy issues and is supported by oil companies. It depends on when the gasoline was purchased. "If you bought it right now, I’d say the government is making more." If the gasoline was purchased a month ago or last year, that may not have been the case. And the answer further depends on what type of company the question refers to. Refineries, Pugliaresi says, are hurting right now. "If you’re an independent refinery, the answer is definitely they’re making a lot less than the government." So, to the question of whether motorists pay more per gallon to the government than to oil-company profits, we can say only this: The answer depends on the state in which the fuel is purchased, the company that produced it and sold it, and when the motorist bought it.
Do you know the difference between total profit and profit margin? It would be more effective if you compared apple with apples.
Quoted Text
Oil Industry Profit Margin Ranks #114 out of 216 The integrated oil industry profit margin is about 6.2% of sales. Over half the industries have a higher profit margin. Details below.
By my reckoning, even if gasoline is selling for $4.66 in CA ($4.00 after state and federal excise taxes), that comes to a profit of about 25 cents a gallon -- and I'm not even counting the gas station gross markup.
So the government charges the buyer 66 cents, the oil company makes less than a quarter a gallon and -- oh yeah, the goverment THEN takes about 40% of that profit as state and federal income taxes.
Excessive profit? Not for the oil companies. For the oil FIELD owners, perhaps, but most of those "fields" are owned by despotic governments. "Big Oil" owns less than 6% of the world's oil producing properties.
As the article below details, there are a 113 industries with higher profit margins than Big Oil -- but somehow our indignant politicians find them less attractive targets than evil-oil. Of course, our economic-challenged media heartily agrees with the selection.
I don't care who gets the oil out of the ground. I don't care if it is a not-for-profit, I don't care if it's a church, I don't care if it's a corporation - does it really matter? The fact is, the developed and developing world is dependent on oil. How it get's out of the ground doesn't much matter.
...If this pipeline was a government project like FDR's jobs program, this pipeline would be revered by the left as the greatest infrastructure project of the 21st century. Even if the project takes twice as long and cost twice as much, and riddled with twice the fraud than a private business, it would have been described as a great success. That's because the politicians in government decided who was going to get rich at the expense of the taxpayer.
Stop cursing businesses that are responsible for powering the computer you are typing on, it makes you look like a moron.
It's a one time hit, and run thing, it's not an ongoing jobs project.
I should love the people powering my computer? If they didn't, I'm sure someone else would be glad to do it. Hell, this thing could run off a single solar panel the size of a notebook.
And hell, if having a computer is going to harm me, then I don't need it. I excelled quite nicely in analog, long before computers.
I should love the people powering my computer? If they didn't, I'm sure someone else would be glad to do it.
You shouldn't love the people, but at least realize it needs energy to run. How and what type of energy is debatable, but it is necessary. Maybe you like nuclear energy. Nobody wants that either.
Who would do it? Are they doing it for free? If not, what is a fair price for oil for Tommy?
I took a look at the Venezuelan model for oil production and price controls. Not too good. Looks like they are dealing with food shortages and inflation. Go figure.
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