Why shouldn't the oil companies give something back to America?

[techs]

For many, many, years the people of the United States of America have given huge amounts of money to oil companies. From the "oil depletion" allowance, to the Armed Forces of the United States protecting overseas oil interests, to scientific advances by government supported research programs, to generous giveaways of rights to oil on public lands, etc, etc, the oil companies have made fantastically huge sums of money from the pockets of the citizens of the U.S., not to mention the very blood of our children.
Why, at this time of fantastically huge profits, which the oil companies are NOT using to find more oil, shouldn't the U.S. get back some of what we gave them???

 

[Darwin333]

Because they already do?

 

[akshatp]

One word can answer your question.


Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaainage.



They drink our milkshake. They drink it up. We lose.

 

[winnar111]

Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: techs
For many, many, years the people of the United States of America have given huge amounts of money to oil companies. From the "oil depletion" allowance, to the Armed Forces of the United States protecting overseas oil interests, to scientific advances by government supported research programs, to generous giveaways of rights to oil on public lands, etc, etc, the oil companies have made fantastically huge sums of money from the pockets of the citizens of the U.S., not to mention the very blood of our children.
Why, at this time of fantastically huge profits, which the oil companies are NOT using to find more oil, shouldn't the U.S. get back some of what we gave them???

uh...for what we give them, they give us a product. Pretty simple. If you want a piece of the pie, but stock somehow i.e. 401k, IRA, whatever. A public company owes no one except shareholders monetary compensation for anything. Unless I misunderstood? Did you mean something oher than money?

I know it gets overshadowed, but no one is putting more $$$ towards alternative enrgy than oil companies. They *do* give back. But we dont like to focus on that.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

IIRC Exxon Mobil made that much profit in ONE quarter this YEAR only.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

yep.

A billion is a thousand million.

A billion seconds ago, it was the year1959.

Humans first learned to write 252 billion seconds ago.

A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

If you count one number a second without stopping until you reach a billion. That task would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hours, 46 minutes, and 40 seconds.

Multiply by 27.

 

[woodie1]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: winnar111
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

IIRC Exxon Mobil made that much profit in ONE quarter this YEAR only.

And their taxes will go up accordingly.

 

[akshatp]

Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaainage.

 

[Auric]

Given? No, exchanged monies so as to have the oil drenched lifestyle they want. And guess what, the oil companies such as Exxon Mobile are American. Shocking, is it not? 81000 employees and exponentially more shareholders, the majority of which must be American. And again, a meager 8% profit is less than inherent to most goods and services Americans consume. Get over it.

 

[Deeko]

This is a really stupid question.

 

[bamacre]

Last time I gave them some money, they gave me some gas.

End the subsidies though. You would think the Democrats could that done.

 

[BrownTown]

They pay taxes just like any other company, and their profits are no more then alot of other companies which nobody ever complains about. Oil is just a very big business so the number seem very large, but in terms of percent profits its not all that unreasonable. Not to mention the fact that them paying more taxes just means they have to charge more money, I can't understand how anybody can be dumb enough not to understand that fact, even if they pay 90% taxes it still exactly evens out because they just have to raise the price of gasoline enough to cover it.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: techs
For many, many, years the people of the United States of America have given huge amounts of money to oil companies. From the "oil depletion" allowance, to the Armed Forces of the United States protecting overseas oil interests, to scientific advances by government supported research programs, to generous giveaways of rights to oil on public lands, etc, etc, the oil companies have made fantastically huge sums of money from the pockets of the citizens of the U.S., not to mention the very blood of our children.
Why, at this time of fantastically huge profits, which the oil companies are NOT using to find more oil, shouldn't the U.S. get back some of what we gave them???

Good lord you are stupid. Failpost.

 

[dahunan]

The OIL should belong to the people of America... What payment do we get for the oil?

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: blackangst1

I know it gets overshadowed, but no one is putting more $$$ towards alternative enrgy than oil companies. They *do* give back. But we dont like to focus on that.

^^^ Is this humor? Bush just gave them a 40 billion tax cut to research alternative energey.. and guess what --- they will charge USA the MAXIMUM allowed for the "alternative energy" once they create it

 

[dahunan]

Instead of going to Mars and shit... we should DO OUR OWN OIL EXPLORATION and tell Exxon and Mobil et al to fuck off

 

[seemingly random]

Because this is not the american way and the profits did not all come from selling to americans.

 

[dahunan]

Oil speculators, funded by Oil Corporations, have almost destroyed GM and Ford and any truck or SUV producer

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: winnar111
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

It's very hard to comprehend. In fact, for the average human, a hundred of anything is hard to visualize. I can't comprehend how much we're spending in iraq. I do comprehend that 27 billion is peanuts in comparison.

Now remind me, why we are in iraq. I heard it's for the oil, to ensure the free flow, but maybe it's something else.

 

[StageLeft]

They do, it's called gasoline!

 

[Double Trouble]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: winnar111
Over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend.

IIRC Exxon Mobil made that much profit in ONE quarter this YEAR only.

No, Exxon broke it's own record by making a 11.7 Beeeellion dollars in the second quarter this year. They paid $27 beeeeellion in taxes on average over the past 3 years.

I know it's hip to blaim the oil companies and accuse them of "windfall" profits and all, but if you were to look a little further than just the headlines (which very few people do), you'd see that 11.7 billion is not a particularly good return on equity, or a particularly good profit margin. In fact, exxon has been doing fairly poorly by most financial measures. A good snippet from a recent article:

If companies such as Walt Disney Co. and Eli Lilly & Co. could rack up Exxon-like sales while maintaining their current profit margins, nobody would pay much attention to Exxon?s results. Instead, there would be demonstrations in Anaheim demanding that money-grubbing Disneyland cut the price of churros and cotton candy on Main Street.

Exxon gets oil out of the ground, and they sell it on the world market. They don't control the market or even set the price, they are just one participant. When world oil prices go up on the markets, exxon makes more money, when prices go down, they make less. Why does everyone want to blame them for their profits when they are directly tied to a world market price they can't control?

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: dahunan
The OIL should belong to the people of America... What payment do we get for the oil?

Dave? Is that you?

I've advocated this very same thing for MANY years. That's not Exxon's oil, it's MINE, and YOURS, and OURS...They want to drill and refine MY fucking oil, they need to pay for it. The pittance they pay in royalties (and they pay NONE in Kahleeforneeya) is just that, a mere pittance.
What no one here ever wants to admit to, is that the "8% profit" numbers are pure bullshit. That doesn't account for the massive profit the oil company makes when they buy oil from themselves, (many oil companies DO own exploration, drilling and other oil services as subsidiary corporations) nor the fact that much of that oil they get for only a few dollars per barrel. It's all accounting smoke and mirrors to make people think they're only making a low "acceptable" return on investment...

 

[seemingly random]

I can't wait to see the outrage and the debunker's defense when pickens' cornering of the water supply in texas comes to fruition.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: dahunan
Instead of going to Mars and shit... we should DO OUR OWN OIL EXPLORATION and tell Exxon and Mobil et al to fuck off

....there's a country that does that. Come on, I might not like George Bush, but he's not Hugo Chavez!

Do you guys even THINK before you speak?