I wasn’t in the least offended, nor did I feel attacked. It’s just some times I veer off the subject, one question making me think of a relatied issue, and the next thing I know, I’m way off topic.

I’ve been thinking about this government/business issue and how that works in terms of subsidies and contracts. The more I think about it, the more questions I have, but I don’t think this is the time or the place for that. I’ve been doing some research, only to come up with more questions still.

Besides, doesn’t their glee at using the contract loophole on their leases to cheat the American public doesn’t make you feel the least bit slimy?

Given the number of ways our government cheats us (imho) bothers me just as much. I’m not at all impressed, for instance, at the way Louisiana’s royalties were set. The government was just as gleeful about LA’s fiscal problems.

No, I don’t like it, but I think I’m more perturbed by the smoke and mirrors being thrown around the global warming debates. That relates (like alternative energy) right back to the larger worries about the whole situation.

Domajot — I’m sorry if I’ve offended. I was trying to understand how far you were willing to take your line of thought. I didn’t mean to make you feel attacked.

How our country handles energy in the future is one of my big worries; I see this as tied into so many other of our problems, and I’m a very strong advocate of pursuing alternatives. That said, though, the hooks are in very deep; it’s a symbiotic relationship, and thus, a real tangle.

The oil companies are threatening legal action over that bill. I sincerely wonder if Bush wouldn’t veto it as well. It’s future is very uncertain.

It was a mistake for me to comment on this thread, because I was not advocating, I was merely making an observation.

We seem to debate what course our country should take in bits and pieces and on an either/or basis. Since I’m a cautious person, I wouldn’t blindly trust government or business to take care of everything. Everyone is fed up with government, and so we fall in love with business. I prefer to keep a wary eye on both.

In general, though, I think it’s very important to keep all segments of society rowing in the same directionn. To that end, we should be ready to help everyone, not just the most able, climb into the boat.

They are not. They just keep singing the same tune……..Oil..oil and more oil.

While googling for that, though, I also came up with this:
U.S. House Votes To Rescind Big Oil Tax Breaks

House Democrats checked another box during their first 100 legislative hours in charge of the 110th Congress last Thursday, after a bill rescinding oil industry tax breaks passed by a comfortable majority.

The CLEAN Energy Act passed 264 to 163, as a group of Republicans joined Democrats to vote for the measures, which will roll back about $7.6 billion in tax breaks and impose an additional $6.3 billion in royalties on companies present in territorial waters in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.

The bill would also create a Strategic Renewable Energy Reserve to invest in clean, renewable energy resources and alternative fuels, promote new energy technologies, develop greater efficiency and improve energy conservation.

Shows how well prepared I was for this thread, eh?

Anyway — am I missing something? They’re evidently killing the tax breaks and adding the royalties, to the tune of ~$13.9 billion.

I should perhaps mention that I’m not involved at all in the oil industry; I’m merely concerned at what feels a bit like a witch hunt.

We are subsidizing businesses that have realized these huge profits. Shareholders, ordinary people who are taxpayers benefit. But there are lots of ordinary taxpayers scraping by who can’t afford to be shareholders in anything but their food bills and mortgages. So, the nation’s resources are being used to aid a limited class of citizens.

Looking to the future, I think it would be wiser to invest in a broader range of citizens, so that they, too, can share in the nation’s wealth, and, thereby contribute more to it. Healthcare insureance would be one form of investing in the future, because a healthier people are more productive, can contribute more, and less of a drain.

I don’t like the idea of taxing profits just because they’re big, but
to the extent that the government aids business in realizing these profits, it’s not outrageous to expect a little return of the favor.

I think you’re a little mild on the subsidies and tax breaks. And the incentives for exploration make sense when prices are low but are utterly insane at $50 a barrel much less the $60+ they were at. Besides, doesn’t their glee at using the contract loophole on their leases to cheat the American public doesn’t make you feel the least bit slimy? And what about that unending intellectual honesty on global warming?

Do you have a view of stockholders as being economic giants or something? For the most part, they’re part of ordinary people’s retirement and investment portfolios.

I’ll be the first to say that I cannot dissect the subsidies and tax breaks that Big Oil receive. Furthermore, while I understand incentivizing business for exploration and development, I suspect there are a number of these incentives that are unnecessary.

But as prior commenters have said, approaching the issue from that angle is quite different from going directly after profits.

Exxon and its 37 billion dollars in profit this year should be investing for the future. They and companies like them should be investing in ways to make money once the oil is gone.

Actually, if you read its annual reports, ExxonMobil does believe it is investing for the future. Its management just doesn’t share the same assumptions that many of its critics do. It believes that its stock is underpriced and that by buying it now they are acting in the best interests of the shareholders. Management may be wrong in its assumptions, and if one thinks so, then one should invest in Shell or BP, both of which are spending quite a bit of money on future alternatives to oil & gas.

The Peak Oil hypothesis is an example of an assumption they apparently don’t share with Upinsmoke. From a geological perspective, Peak Oil is a tautology. There is only so much oil in the earth; once you have produced the “easy” half of it, producing the other half will be harder and more expensive. (Precisely the same theory would apply to copper, lead, zinc, gold, or silver mining as well.)

Peak Oil True Believers will tell you that the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-is-at-hand. Western civilization was built on and forever will depend on cheap oil. Skeptics (apparently including ExxonMobil’s management) believe that the only end in sight is that of “cheap oil”, not oil itself. Society, rather than coming to an end, will adapt to more expensive oil.

Maybe ExxonMobil is right; maybe Shell and BP are right. Investors have a clear choice. However, if the US government gets into the business of taxing the profit out of oil & gas in the industry’s “good” years in order to subsidize the creation of “new” industries that will compete with the oil & gas industry to provide energy, we all lose. Either 1) oil & gas exploration and production will leave the US and go where it is better treated, increasing our dependence on foreign oil, and 2) the new industries that receive their subsidies from the windfall profits tax will wither(with the source of their subsidy gone), or 3) we will have no domestic oil & gas industry, and the subsidized alternative energy purveyors will become a drain on the taxpaying citizens.

A pity that politicians are not required to take the Hippocratic oath before they administer their leeches and bloodletting.

We can’t afford healthcare or social assistance programs for the poor and elderly, because this is bad welfare.

Did I get that right?

http://exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/OpEd_peakoil.pdf

Exxon and its 37 billion dollars in profit this year should be investing for the future. They and companies like them should be investing in ways to make money once the oil is gone. [snip]

While I on principal do not oppose any of these factors I do oppose the total and absolute lack of foresight and forward thinking these big oil companies have shown with these tremendous profits they have experience the last two years.

The industry is, as a whole, investing in various alternatives, and other explorative sources. ExxonMobil is one company, and since I’m not a stockholder, I don’t actually know what it is their stockholders are directing them to do.

Which brings up something else: these companies are all owned, at least at some level, by their share-holders. Targeting them targets, by definition, probably many thousands of people’s invested money. Going after Big Oil kind of overlooks the many other aspects of the companies themselves.

Well remember that Neoconservatives were actually democrats who rebelled against their former party and formed a coalition with Ronald Reagan. The tenets of neo conservatism does not necessarily embrace big business. It embraces big government and tax cuts which by its nature would benefit big business.

So no. I have no problem opposing big business and offering up my take on Global warming and protecting the environment at the expense of big business.

The lack of foresight on their part is only going to hurt Americans who have good paying jobs working for Exxon/Mobile. What will become of all those workers if we end our dependence on foreign oil? When oil once again is 10 dollars a bbl and the wells are capped as they capped them in the early 80’s?

They should be leading the way on renewable energy, Wind, solar and Ethanol and any other means to make money in a drastically changed future. Instead they are spending their money buying back shares to prop up their stock price and paying their CEO what amounts to an obscene paycheck.

While I on principal do not oppose any of these factors I do oppose the total and absolute lack of foresight and forward thinking these big oil companies have shown with these tremendous profits they have experience the last two years.