Obama suggests windfall tax in response to gas prices

[BTW]

If oil companies pass along their refining expenses, their employee expenses, their oil expenses, and even their tax expenses to the consumer, why wouldn't they pass on Obama's windfall profit tax? Would they say "oh, this meant to help the consumer so we will eat the expense"?
Why wouldn't gas go from $4 a gallon to $4 + windfall profit tax a gallon?

This is the idiocy you get when Obama actually says something other than platitudes.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00963020080609

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Ah yes, the liberal solution to EVERYTHING, tax the profits.

[Maverick]

There is a limit to everything, even the air. If you continue to tax and reduce it the ability to make advances or increases in anything will diminish. Taking from some to spread to the masses didn't work for the Russians or the Chinese, it won't work here. Dem's have seen the funding for the govt. increase when taxes were drawn down yet the only solution is more taxes as far as they are concerned.

[bj229r]

This is what you get when 80% of our elected officials are LAWYERS, and their only time ever spent in the private sector was in a law firm, playing a legal version of Robin Hood. They really haven't an effing clue about economics, and I think libs, beyond that, refuse to acknowledge the existence of the  law of supply and demand

[Mr No Name]

How stupid can one get... the cost of all taxes are always passed down to the end-user

[RedTop]

Or ya get this....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364743,00.html

Now THIS is the very type of thing we should all be thankful for .......don't ya think?

I mean come on...losing 4 million so people don't lose thier jobs...payrolls of 250,000.00 for a month....for "Sub-Par" service even? We should all be mad that we don't lose another few million of our dollars so that they can keep it run by themselves.

what a frikin crock.

[BTW]

How stupid can one get... the cost of all taxes are always passed down to the end-user

Thats about it. I just wonder who feeds on that rhetoric. In highly competitive industries, taxes can cut into profits which succeeds in depressing the industry. But the US oil industry is NOT highly competitive. Any tax will be passed fully to the  consumer. Obama speaks idiocy.

[DREDIOCK]

Right idea. Wrong target.

The oil companies arent the problem.
Its the commodities speculators artificially manipulating the prices that need to be reigned in.

Im all for free trade. But I recognise that in some cases. Some degree of regulations are needed on vital items.
You cant just let people run amuk and do what basically amounts to extorting money out of people because they can on something they HAVE to have.
Gas and heating oil isnt like Ice cream. where if you dont like the price for Bryars this week Edys may be cheaper.
And if it isnt. You just dont buy it because really its not something you absolutely have to have.
This is something we HAVE to have.
Not to mention a higher prie permiates itself into every aspect of our lives by not only causing us to pay more for it at the pump. but also in the goods. and some of the other vital goods we consums. thus squeezing the people from both ends.

"Of the people. By the People. and For the People"
Isnt just forbig business. the very wealthy or those who stand to gain the most from a particular item.
Its also for the general good and welfare of ALL the people. The country as a whole.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

Correct. Consider this. In the last 12 months, the cost of oil per barrel has more than DOUBLED. However, the demand for oil has not doubled, or increased even 10%. Nor has the amount of oil being pumped and sold DECREASED. So, while supply and demand has NOT changed radically, the price has. Two things can cause that, speculation and regulation (regulation includes taxation). Well, the speculators, being unregulated, have more than doubled the cost of oil for us. So the response by the regulators (Congress) is a proposal to increase TAXES. On the producers. Makes perfect sense.

[zuii]

I cant take it!
(said while running for cover)
Obama is a socialist and a closet communist!
there i said it! Blaa!

[Shuckins]

Raise your hand if you actually believe that the monies gathered from a windfall profits tax on the oil companies would be paid directly back to the consumers....

[Bones]

It's all lip service.  Honestly people, have any of you actually listened to politicians and compared what they say to what they actually do?

He, and every other politician running for something, is simply going to say what they are told "we" want to hear.

It is what politicians/lawyers do.  Yet, for the life of me I cannot figure out why we keep on voting them into power.  I guess we are collectively a bunch of idiots.  Politicians treat us that way, so it must be true.

[Nashwan]

Correct. Consider this. In the last 12 months, the cost of oil per barrel has more than DOUBLED. However, the demand for oil has not doubled, or increased even 10%. Nor has the amount of oil being pumped and sold DECREASED.

Oil production has not increased. Demand is increasing.

There are 3 main variables in the oil market. Production, consumption, price.

You can't consume more than is produced (in the long term, anyway). If production is fixed, and consumption increasing, then the price has to rise to keep consumption down.

Consider that all the oil being produced is being used, with the price at $120+ per barrel. How much more oil would we be using if the price was $65 a barrel? Where would that extra oil be coming from if production is not increasing?

There's nothing artificial about the oil price, although speculation will always produce narrow price swings around the true, consumption/production driven price. If speculation was causing an unnaturally high price then consumption would have reduced and oil stockpiles would be increasing. They aren't, so all the oil being produced is being consumed at $120 a barrel.

[john9001]

gas sales in a US have dropped 5% in the last year.

[Saxman]

In what alternate dimension, john?

This time last year I was paying just under $3.00/gal, MAYBE just over. Now I'm paying nearly $4.00, in the Midwest where prices are generally lower.