Sen. Sanders calls for taxes on big oil & limits on their power

[yurbud]

This is the kind of courage I'd like to see in a presidential candidate.

Of course anyone running for president who said the same would disappear from the corporate media radar and possibly disappear altogether.

As Big Oil Profits Soar, Sanders Calls for Windfall Profits Tax, OPEC Sanctions, Merger Moratorium -- 02/01/2008

WASHINGTON, February 1– Boosted by gushing oil prices, Exxon Mobil's $40.6 billion in 2007 profits exceeded the company’s own record for a U.S. corporation. Chevron also reported huge profits. At a meeting in Vienna of the international oil cartel, meanwhile, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies kept production quotas steady.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said: “It is absurd for oil companies like Exxon Mobil to be raking in obscene profits while millions of Americans are struggling to pay skyrocketing gas and home heating oil prices. We owe it to the American people to do everything we can to stop big oil companies from ripping off American consumers.

“Since 2001, Big Oil has earned more than half-a-trillion dollars in profits, but devoted less than a penny per gallon to produce clean and affordable renewable fuels in this country to reduce Americans’ dependency on oil. Instead, the president and his allies in Congress blocked efforts to repeal oil company tax breaks and devote those resources to incentives for the production of energy efficient vehicles and renewable energy,” Sanders added.

Congress should renew those efforts this year, he added, and also take these steps to rein in prices for petroleum products:

• Impose a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. Revenue from a windfall profits tax could make a substantial down payment on meeting the urgent need to repair crumbling roads, bridges, and highways.
  
• Urge the president to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against OPEC for illegally colluding to raise oil prices. “It's time the wealthy OPEC cartel obeyed international law and stop manipulating the price of oil,” Sanders said.
  
• Place a moratorium on big oil company mergers and give serious consideration to breaking up some of the biggest oil companies in this country, including Exxon Mobil, Conoco-Phillips and Chevron-Texaco.
  
  
  http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=291727">Sander's page on this

[RB TexLa]

1. A 10% profit is a windfall?

That is really going to zap a lot of companies.

[BeFree]

4. 10%?!?!

Where did you pull that number from?

The idea that exxon is within proper margins - as your post implies - at this stage of the game is absurd. Exxon is ripping us off.

Oil was at $50 a barrel last year and the price at the pump was over $3. Now with oil at @$80, the price is $3. Go figure that out.

[RB TexLa]

7. Oil and gasoline are two different markets. That easy to figure out.

Heating oil is a separate market. All the products that come from oil are effected by the price of oil but that is not the only factor that drives their individual markets.


I pulled that number from their earnings release, they made around a 10% profit.

[BeFree]

11. Yeah, right

Last I heard they made around 25% profit. If it's down to ten its because they are spending wildly on *extras*.

Let's see: you think Exxon is a good business model and good for America, right? And all the while they are killing us poor folk. Whose side are YOU on?

[RB TexLa]

12. $40.6B of profit from $404.5B of revenue is a profit margin of 10%

I don't know where your 25% came from, they only filed one 8-K and it reported 404.5B revenue and 40.6B profit, there was nothing reporting any other numbers.

[TahitiNut]

14. How much of that $404.5B is offset by the cost/bbl of oil?

If we were to exclude the "brokerage costs/revenues" (crude oil) then what percentage of the remaining business costs would that after-tax profit of $40.6B be? 30%? 40%

There's a question of equity, I believe. If, for example, a house painter BOUGHT the house, painted it, and then sold it back to the resident, would the house painter be 'entitled' to a 10% profit including the cost of the house? The processing 'business model' seems a bit bizarre when the material costs overwhelm other costs.

[RB TexLa]

15. You want it calculated as if they were getting their crude for free?

I have no idea what that come to.

[TahitiNut]

16. Why not? After all, an OPEC state-owned company would be able to do so.

What about the wells that Exxon/Mobil own? What if ALL the oil wells were owned by Exxon/Mobil? What would they book as the 'cost' of a barrel of crude, then? Does separation of the business into two (legal fictions) corporations make the commodity price part of a valid denominator in caclulating the percentage of profit?

Once upon a time, the oil companies owned the wells and the 'cost' was (supposedly) the amortized costs of exploration, drilling, and extraction ... plus whatever royalties were paid to the landowner, if any. Then came the "oil depletion allowances" ... a giveaway if there ever was one.

[RB TexLa]

17. I don't think XOM owns that much mineral rights. I do know their profit from refining when down

for the fourth quarter which has people concerned.

[Toots]

24. Any company that makes a Net Profit of OVER one hundred million dollars per day

Year after year after year while the price of their wares continues to rise is gouging and certainly enjoying a huge windfall. You can say all they are making is 10% all you wish but common sense knows better.

[Selatius]

2. I'm assuming Exxon-Mobil's 40 billion in annual profit is after they take out taxes???

Am I wrong in that assumption?

[RB TexLa]

13. Yes, it is.

[originalpckelly]

3. ExxonMobil is the largest company in the world revenue-wise, hence the profits.

They're actually about 10%, which is far less than many other companies out there, some of them are even drug companies. Why not go after those first?

I think Senator Panders *cough* Sanders needs to stop bitching about this company and move on to the bigger problems.

The structural problems this nation has will not be solved by moaning all day long, but by actually fixing the problem. The problem is the idea of a corporation, it is a tool of economic domination over the individual, and as such it is the enemy of personal freedom.

Theoretically, a free market ought to cause wealth to redistribute, as the rich spend their money away on useless and overpriced bullshit, it goes into the rest of the economy.

The only reason why that's not happening, is that they always have a new source of income from we, their slaves. We are slaves, it's just a less cruel form of slavery. Instead of whipping us, they put us out on the street and starve us to death if we stop working. If the rich stop working, they don't have to deal with that, now do they?

It's inherent inequality.

We ought to own ourselves, our drive to work should not be for lack of the basics, but for want to better ourselves and society.

[bluestdogest]

5. Headline should read: Senator Sanders calls for higher gasoline prices.

[BeFree]

10. Ya know?

Why we call them bluedogs? Cause they've beaten black and blue by the pubbies.

Just like what you said.... the pubbies blame the high price of oil on everything and everyone but the rich suppliers.

Nationalizing the oil companies is the only way and chance we have to keep from being bent over the barrel. Don't you think?

[bluestdogest]

18. Nationalize the oil companies—are you kidding?

No, I guess you are not. That sounds a bit fascist—don't you think?

[iamthebandfanman]

21. i think you have terms mixed up

that would be the most anti-fascist thing you could do.
now if the oil company took over the government(which is pretty much already happened with the help of the military industrial complex), then itd be fascism.

[bluestdogest]

22. In order to seize the oil companies from private ownership, it would

be necessary to utilize force and/or coercion. That's what fascists and socialists do.

Fascism and socialism involve property rights. It is true that fascism leaves ownership in private hands; however, control is transfered to the government. And ownership without control is not ownership at all.

Fascism and socialism are merely flip sides of the same evil coin.

[yurbud]

26. how did they get that property in the first place? Drilling oil on public lands?

[yurbud]

19. oil companies can choose to not pass on that cost, particularly since it is a penalty for gouging

in the first place.

Good repetition of right wing talking point though.

[bluestdogest]

23. Gouging? A 10% profit is not gouging.

If you want to know who is gouging you, look no further than the government. Depending on the state, the government's take can exceed 20%. At least the oil companies provide something in return. On the other hand, the government is like the mobster who threatens to break your leg if he doesn’t get his cut.

[yurbud]

25. and what did the oil companies do to Mossadegh in Iran and doing to Iraq with Hydrocarbon Law now?

They demanded a coup and got it because they didn't like Mossadegh's terms, and now they are pressuring the Iraqi parliament to pass a Hydrocarbon Law that only gives a 12.5% royalty to the Iraqis, a deal no major oil-producing country would accept without a gun to their heads. They even went as far as to offer a $5 million bribe to parliament members to get them to vote for it.

[Enrique]

6. then Hillary is your candidate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1PfE9K8j0g&eurl=http://politics.wizbangblog.com/2007/02/06/hillary-seize-oil-company-profits.php

[L. Coyote]

8. What happened to the last windfall profits tax?

[iamthebandfanman]

9. i think power/electricity should be nationalised

but thats the only industry.

does that make me a communist ?

lol

[yurbud]

20. it makes you someone who wants your lights on. I was in CA for rolling blackouts from

deregulation.

They used the blackouts to blackmail our governor out billions, then blamed him for the resulting deficits and shoe-horned Arnold into office with recall election.