This bar graph from Mike's America says it all and brings us a much-needed reality check.The various politicians demonizing oil companies are, at best, misinformed. In fact, as recently noted by LD Jackson of Political Realities, oil companies do not so much receive subsidies as they do tax breaks, which are available to other companies besides oil companies:
...What they are calling subsidies are nothing of the kind. Contrary to the rhetoric being used in this debate, the federal government is not writing a check to Exon, Shell, or any other oil company. What is happening is the tax breaks the oil companies receive through the convoluted maze of rules and regulations that is the American tax code.Read the rest of LD Jackson's "The Myth Of Big Oil Subsidies" HERE.
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Let’s be very clear about what is happening in the debate over oil company subsidies. As I have already noted, they are not actually subsidies, but tax breaks that all companies are allowed to take, to a certain degree....
Naturally, most Americans are bemoaning the rising prices at the pumps. Furthermore, come winter, those of us in the Northeast who heat our homes and businesses with oil will be struggling to pay our heating bills. Demonizing the oil companies is a fallacy that the American people should not succumb to, however.
Oh, lawrd. I heat my home with fuel oil and I don't even want to THINK about this winter's expenses...
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have never demonized the oil companies for it. I look to Washington for this.
Look to the fall in the value of the dollar as well for the increase in oil prices. Great graph. Says it all.
ReplyDeleteThe weak dollar is responsible for a large part of thrise of gasoline prices. What we don't know, or a least I don't know, is what part the ethanol in gas program is costing us. by mand ate the percentage of ethanol in our gasolone keeps increasing and with corn price in the stratosphere, ethanol prices must be rising rapidly also. In other words, Obama should be looking at his own policies a the culpret and not the oil companies.
ReplyDeleteAn additional bar should be the average that all governments receive in taxes at the pump - it would be even greater to see the total tax take graphed.
ReplyDeleteIn Washington State, at $4 a gallon, government gets 13+ cents per dollar. At $3 a gallon, it is over 18 cents. That's 2 and 3 times what the oil company gets per dollar and it is only the tax portion at the pump.
I can be angry and frustrated about the prices, but it isn't due to gouging by the oil companies.
In fact, if the government wants to claim that 6 cents on the dollar is gouging, criminal, and the result of extreme greed, can we apply that standard to all industries and in particular, the government?
What a graph....and Obama will give waivers to companies included above the Oil & Gas line.
ReplyDeleteThis is SO not about profits...that graph shows that's not the case.
"misinformed"? we can only hope they inform themselves before we run another industry into the ground forever.
Here's another graph worth a look:
ReplyDeletehttp://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j191/mikesamerica/mikesamerica2/CaptursdsdeDEFAULT.jpg
It compares the available U.S. fossil fuel resources to the rest of the world. If we would only use the resources we have, prices would have nowhere to go but down.
A picture is worth a thousand words as the old saying goes, and it's true here. that graph is something.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
I'm going to print this out and show it to the next leftist dufus who tries to tell me how rich those evil, greedy oil companies are.
ReplyDeleteAOW, I don't know if you know this or not, but my wife and I don't make much money. I have a very poor paying job since the economy drove me out of business in 2008, and my wife is unhealthy, and can't keep a job (due to health reasons) more than a few days at a time. except for a small death benefit stipend she gets every month from the death of her last husband, My income is all we have. We always have to decide which bills we have to pay and which ones will have to slide until next payday.
ReplyDeleteWe use fuel oil at our house for both our heat and hot water. The fuel company won't even deliver less than 150 gallons to our house. At today's prices, that's over $600.00.
We can't afford that. So, the fuel oil company representative told me that diesel fuel is basically the same thing as fuel oil. Ever since I learned that, I've been adding 10-15 gallons of diesel fuel every two weeks. It's still expensive, but I can spend 40 dollars every two weeks much easier than 600 every month.
This works for us during the summer months because we don't use much fuel just heating water. I don't know if it will work during the winter.
Wow. I have the same difficulty with having fuel delivered; they won't come out for less than an arm and a leg!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to run this diesel idea past hubby... If he thinks it will work we may wind up doing the very same thing!
If all those other industries were providing people with the back bone of cheap transportation and just about everything else, the progressives of the world would be demonizing them just as much as that do big oil.
ReplyDeleteYou see it's not that big oil is making profits, it's that they're enabling you to drive what you want, where you want, when you want; instead of getting into buses and trains at set times and going to a fixed number of places.
And we also need to remember that Big Government makes more off of oil than Big Oil does. Yes, the taxes per gallon are greater that the profit.
ReplyDeleteReal smart. Keep being a lap dog for big oil, boys. They're stealing your taxes and charging you more and more each year.
ReplyDeleteThe war on big oil is a way to divert outrage from the central banks and corrupt governments.
ReplyDeleteWow! That just ruined my day. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteThe libs will demonize big oil until election time comes a round and they need campaign cash. It's an old story. Yawn.
ReplyDeleteA little off topic but this is an interesting read. Of course only seen at Fox...
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/26/george-w-bush-father-modern-electric-car/?test=faces
Silverfiddle makes a point that I should have mentioned in my post:
ReplyDeletethe taxes per gallon are greater that the profit
I run a small business. Just imagine if the taxes I paid were greater than the profit margin! How could I stay in business?
Their profits margins are low but they do have volume on their side, because who amongst us don't need gasoline in our lives? None of us, of oourse. And if anything the government does to try to cut into that margin is only going to be passes along to us, the consumer, because the oil companies still want to make a profit.
ReplyDeleteYou've got to remember the number one rule of leftist logic Never let mere facts obscure the truth.
ReplyDeleteThank you, that comparison chart hits home.
ReplyDeleteGreat chart...people just don't know the truth.
ReplyDeleteAnd about the diesel fuel...it works. Hubby's family biz was heating oil and he said #2 heating oil and diesel fuel are basically the same thing.
Chuck nailed it...you can find speeches by both Bill Clinton and Obama during their campaigns where they promised to end these subsidies and after their elections----nothing. The lemmings in the DNC fall for this straw man every time its trotted out. I have a question for the libs and DNC followers on this blog are you really that easily manipulated?????
ReplyDeleteI would like this practice to end but only because I want the Government to stop choosing the winners and losers in our economy. But of course that would mean the end of lobbyists and their massive campaign contributions and there is no way Congress is going to vote itself out of power over us. For you see the way to defeat lobbyists is to return to Constitutional principles and those principles do not allow Congress to create such favorable treatments for some and not others.....or we can keep having this same tired arguement every 2 or 4 years...........
ReplyDelete