biggest in history??

[_Tarski]

In the middle of this economic crisis with people losing their homes and McCain wanting to stimulate the economy Bush style with extended giant tax cuts for huge corporations we have this:

Exxon Mobil: Biggest profit in U.S. history
Largest U.S. oil company surges past analyst estimates to post net income of $14.83 billion.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/30/news/co ... 2008103009


Poor Exxon, might get taxed. Boo hoo.
.
.


.

[_Jason Bourne]

Please list 3-5 large tax cuts Bush has given to large corporations.



On another note, the tax regime US corporations operate under is one of the reasons they have become less competitive on a world wide scale. Sure there are very profitable US companies and big oil is among them. But one of the reasons our economy is in the dumps is because it is 72% consumption based. We don't make much of anything any more. And one of the reason this has occurred is due to the unfriendly corporate tax structure in the USA. Other things have added such as over regulation and wage pressures.

So we now have primarily a service based economy which mean lower wages for many Americans. You want to see ud decline further? Don't change the way corporations are taxed. Like it or not they create the jobs that fuel the economy.

[_Tarski]

Please list 3-5 large tax cuts Bush has given to large corporations.

3-5?
Cute.

Ya that's the way it works. Bush and company explicitly give a series of tax cuts (3-5?) to specific corporations (not).
LOL

The question is one of decreasing progressivity.

You might read:

http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpr ... nough-tax/ (Buffett comments)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... ntyre.html

If you look at, say, from 1950 to 2000, corporations averaged about 17 percent of the federal taxes. … All of a sudden now, down to 7 percent -- 7 percent of the government paid for by corporate taxes, compared to [a] quarter or a third 30 years ago, and even the whole period, 17 percent. So, yes, they're paying a whole lot less than they used to, and the rest of us are picking up the tab for it. ---Robert McIntyre

In the sixties, corporations paid about 22 percent of all federal taxes. In the seventies, that fell to 15 percent. It plummeted in Ronald Reagan's first term, down to as low as 6 percent. It then made a comeback to some degree, after Reagan reversed his policies, but now it is back way down again ---Robert McIntyre

You might be interested in this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4I5jf9WmE

[_dartagnan]

I wonder if Tarski can explain for us why gasoline prices have dropped nearly fifty percent from what it was in Atlanta just a few weeks ago.

Only an idiot would think that poor woman in Tarski's post is suffering because of Exxon Mobil.

[_antishock8]

Wow. This is the American electorate.

Thank god Tarski can add and subtract really well. At least he'll know how much less he has in his wallet in about a year after B.O.'s plan goes into effect.

What do you want to bet that fatass will still be sitting on her plastic chair feeling sorry for herself after B.O.'s "change"? Odds?

[_dartagnan]

What Tarski doesn't understand, is that there is a difference between profit and gross profit margin. Here is a similar articlefrom the same source saying it is "foolish thinking" to tax oil companies more heavily.

The Washington postalsomakes mincemeat of this ridiculous Liberal myth:

in 2004 Exxon Mobil earned more money -- $25.33 billion -- than any other company on the Fortune 500 list of largest corporations. But by another measure of profitability, gross profit margin, it ranked No. 127

Neal Boortz does a good job explaining this:

Let's say you sell widgets. It costs you 92 cents to make a widget, and you sell the widget for a dollar. You make eight cents on the sale of that widget. Your profit is eight cents – your profit margin is 8%. Now, let's say that your cost of business, comprised mostly of raw materials, goes up. Now it costs you $1.84 to make a widget. You respond by raising the price of your widgets by a dollar. They now cost $2.00 each. Subtract your cost of doing business ($1.84) from sales revenues for one widget ($2.00) and you have a profit of 16 cents. Wow! Your profit has doubled! But wait! What is your profit margin? How much is your company making for every widget it sells? Nothing has changed. Your profit margin is still 8%. Profits have doubled .. the profit margin has remained the same. The only reason the profits doubled is that the price of your raw materials has gone up. Has anyone looked at the price of crude oil lately?

Last year the big five oil companies made around $123 billion in profits. Pretty strong. But what was their profit margin? Around 9%. Same as the year before and the year before that. The politicians can't pander to the dumb masses by slamming profit margins ... so they play the dishonest game of slamming the gross profits, and the media lets them skate. They start talking about "windfall" profits. Tell me ... how is it a windfall profit when the profit margin is remaining effectively the same? Some windfall.

Do you know why they get away with this nonsense? Because the dumb masses they're preaching to were largely educated in government schools. If you shoved what they know about economics up an ant's ass it would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar.

Some politicians, of course, want to take this situation with gas prices and figure out a way to turn it into another government entitlement program. They point out that some low-income Americans pay as much as 10% of their incomes for fuel. So .. what to do? Let's make some more suggestions as to how the oil companies should spend their profits. Two senators, Republican (INO) Olympia Snowe of Maine and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island have asked the oil companies to voluntarily help "low income" consumers. They want the oil companies to contribute to a fund to help "low income" consumers pay for this upcoming winter's heating bills. Oh and to also pay for their transportation costs later this summer. The Senators complain that these big oil companies "need to share some of their profits with consumers who are in need." Since when it is the government's role to tell a private company that it needs to share its profits. It is not the government's money. This money belongs to the teacher's union retirement funds, the police and fire fighter pension plans and other organizations and individuals who have purchased stock in these companies. Every dollar these politicians wrestle away from the oil companies is money out of the pockets of the shareholders .. or money the oil companies aren't going to invest in more energy production. But what the hell ... we all know that the government can do a better job of spending this money anyway, can't it?

So there we were yesterday ... the non-productive political class telling these oil companies what they should and should not do with their profits .. profits that belong to the oil company stockholders.

[_Jason Bourne]

3-5?
Cute.

Couldn't do it? I didn't think you could.

Ya that's the way it works. Bush and company explicitly give a series of tax cuts (3-5?) to specific corporations (not).

That was not the request. Please give me 1 or 2 if you can specific tax cuts for companies that operate as C Corporations in the USE. You know, like did he cut the tax rate, give special tax credits or what? You are bitching that McCain just wants to cut corporate taxes even more than Bush did. So what corporate taxes did Bush cut?

http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpr ... nough-tax/ (Buffett comments)

This is talking about personal taxes not corporate.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/interviews/mcintyre.html

Ok. I see the fellow talking about loopholes. But he did not name one loophole or credit or tax break the corporations get nor that Bush has put in place. So take a stab at it. I know of one major one that is for manufactures that effectively reduces their tax rate from 35% to 29% currently and 26% iin a few years. But this is complex item called the Manufactures Production Deduction. I think it was great thing and targeted to help our struggling manufacturing base. I noted the problems we have with being competitive in my last post. Do you disagree?

If you look at, say, from 1950 to 2000, corporations averaged about 17 percent of the federal taxes. … All of a sudden now, down to 7 percent -- 7 percent of the government paid for by corporate taxes, compared to [a] quarter or a third 30 years ago, and even the whole period, 17 percent. So, yes, they're paying a whole lot less than they used to, and the rest of us are picking up the tab for it. ---Robert McIntyre

This does not address the reall dollar amounts, the fact that tax law changes for individual taxation has changed a lot since then including closing loopholes for individuals, cutting capital gains which raised more revenue and so on. So I am not surprised the % gas dropped. Plus there are less corporate profits to tax since we have less high margin manufacturing here. You know what they say about statistics and lies.

[_Tarski]

This does not address the reall dollar amounts

which is not the way to look at it. It should be about percents.
Also, the real value of a dollar to a person is in some sense a nonlinear function of that persons state of wealth. Ten dollars is worth the world to a starving person and six million is worth next to nothing to Bill Gates.
This is why progressive taxation makes sense. The value of money is not absolute but relative to wealth and position.

To take $5000,000 away from Exxon and give $500 to 1000 people doesn't hurt Exxon but may give life saving hope to those 1000 poor folksat a critical time.
Of course, we really wouldn't simply take the $5000,000 away from Exxon, we just return to a fairer level of progressivity in tax structure.

[_antishock8]

Are people starving to death in America? I thought we had an obesity epidemic? This is crazy, Tarski. Are you sure you're college eduated? You don't sound like a critical thinker. You're seriously all over the place with your thought processes.

[_dartagnan]

Ten dollars is worth the world to a starving person and six million is worth next to nothing to Bill Gates.

So are we talking about feeding Africa now?

The poor woman in that photo doesn't appear to be starving.

I wonder if you're going to concede the point that you haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about when it comes to oil profits.

Probably not.