Stephen Eisel wrote:You are also assuming that once the tax is cut that fuel prices would instantly be increeased to match the cut.
Not assuming just applying basic economics ;-)
And what happens after summer? We go back to the same way of doing things that got us into this mess in the first place.
If there is one thing americal is lacking it is that ability to see the need to drastically change the way we do things and then act on that fact in a speedy manor. Like I said above this is nothing more than a finger in the dyke of really crappy energy policy.
Adjusted for inflation, oil prices spiked higher in the late 70's and early 80's and then drastically fell from 1982 - 1986.
That is bad logic. We did not have nearly the demand we had then.
Also if I remember correctly (although I was not alive yet) we also tried to implement a windfall profits tax on the oil companies in the late 70's early 80's That tax is widely regarded as a failure. That goes to my other point. We have a terrible time learning from the past.
CRS also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent. A side effect was declining, not increasing, tax collections. Figure 1 clearly shows that while the tax raised considerable revenue in the initial years following its enactment, those revenues declined to almost nothing as the domestic industry collapsed.
Stephen Eisel wrote:You are also assuming that once the tax is cut that fuel prices would instantly be increeased to match the cut.
Not assuming just applying basic economics ;-)
And what happens after summer? We go back to the same way of doing things that got us into this mess in the first place.
If there is one thing americal is lacking it is that ability to see the need to drastically change the way we do things and then act on that fact in a speedy manor. Like I said above this is nothing more than a finger in the dyke of really crappy energy policy.
Adjusted for inflation, oil prices spiked higher in the late 70's and early 80's and then drastically fell from 1982 - 1986.
That is bad logic. We did not have nearly the demand we had then.
Also if I remember correctly (although I was not alive yet) we also tried to implement a windfall profits tax on the oil companies in the late 70's early 80's That tax is widely regarded as a failure. That goes to my other point. We have a terrible time learning from the past.
CRS also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent. A side effect was declining, not increasing, tax collections. Figure 1 clearly shows that while the tax raised considerable revenue in the initial years following its enactment, those revenues declined to almost nothing as the domestic industry collapsed.
not at all.... It was the same game as today but they had actual "shortages"... There are two parts to the equation production and demand... just a little detail that you forgot... production
Ahhh. But you see the production is part of the problem. What we need to do is to spend the money not on building new refinery's and killing baby monkeys drilling new wells. We need to spend said money on technology that will provide jobs and reduce our dependence and need for oil period. That is the future!!
Is there an enormous growing backlog of extracted oil waiting to be refined?
The morning news had a pretty clear representation of Hillary Clinton's endorsement of the summer gas tax holiday. She said something about having the "oil companies" pay that portion of the tax for the summer. I'm not sure why they wouldn't raise their prices proportionately. It may even give them more clout for asking for further income tax breaks. They can do that, because there are only a few of them: we let them go through all those mergers and acquisitions over the last few years.
The gasoline tax vacation is a base con job and the lowest pandering. John McCain and Hillary Clinton don't deserve trust or respect for the remainder of their political careers.
The whole topic is a non-starter. There's little to no support for this in Congress, and Bush will certainly veto any offsetting windfall profits tax on the oil companies.
Nobody from the McCain or Clinton campaigns has answered the question "what will stop the oil companies and gas station owners from raising their prices to negate any savings from the tax cut"?
Brian Pedaci wrote:Nobody from the McCain or Clinton campaigns has answered the question "what will stop the oil companies and gas station owners from raising their prices to negate any savings from the tax cut"?
And I doubt they will. That wouldn't make for good campaign speechery, especially since some of said oil companies are likely to spend on both campaigns. Obama has taken the higher road on this one. Too bad he can't get out from underneath the media's relentless pursuit of Rev. Wright's connection to Obama.
I should have stated that post:
"Nobody in the media has effectively put the question to the candidates in a public forum". I wouldn't expect them to bring up that subject voluntarily.
The headline news is that oil companies are having record profits. Someone else here stated the supply is "stable". Assuming the expense of paying workers and buying machinery are nearly the same, the increase in the price of oil has nearly all been profits.
The controversy is over the special tax breaks oil companies get.
All the Economics professors would draw the same basic graphs. they explained that when profits are up more firms would enter the industry. All the horse buggy industry would enter the automobile industry.
firms should be forming all over town to drill for oil all over town. All our old technicians and laborers and engineers from the downsized automobile and appliance manufacturing sectors will be forming oil companies and alternative fuel companies any day now.
We need competition to keep the oil companies from having a monopoly. You don't need anti-trust enforcement when you can just have most surviving firms merge to compete in the Global Market Place.
Some analysts are predicting oil will hit 150 bucks a barrel soon. I'm not sure exactly what an analyst is, other than someone who encourages oil commodities traders that no matter how high a price they pay for oil they will profit selling it for an even higher price.
