Gas Prices
Woo-hoo. Gas prices go up. And the only reason why this is the case is, of course, President Bush. (BTW, if you don't know me, read thick, dripping sarcasm into that last sentence.)
Chalking that up to good old-fashioned Bush-hatred, what I really don't understand is the 50% windfall profit tax. This would appear to be the democrats' way of "reaching out to the electorate" by saying: "Since gas prices are going up, we're going to tax the gas companies more."
Let's see if we can make sense of this. Certain left-leaning politicians (and a couple of centrists) want to impose a 50% windfall profit tax on gas companies, thereby making themselves essentially half-partners. This is bloody genius: it's like owning stock without buying into it in the first place-basically stealing stock. Hell, why don't they just impose a new sort of windfall profit tax on Microsoft, Starbucks, etc. (BTW, that $4 mocha costs more than a gallon of gasoline, if you have trouble doing the math.) The government gets to share in the company's profits without the actual act of investing.
Now, I didn't get a degree in business or econ, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like that isn't likely to help the problem. I figure investments, alongside of profits, allow companies in any field to improve on what it is they sell/produce. R&D, that sort of thing. You know, come up with more efficient vehicles, better energy sources, yada yada yada. Do a better job at what they do.
It also seems to me that having to pay more in taxes and thereby earning less profit, gas companies would be more likely to raise prices as opposed to lowering them. "Hmm. We aren't pulling in as much profit now that the government it taking half of it. Let's lower prices so our profit will go down even more!" Even assuming that prices don't go up drastically, I'm still going to end up paying just as much. Unless the windfall profit tax that goes to the government somehow gets funneled back to me in the form of a check sent to my home address, nothing has changed except that the government has found a new way to get money from taxpayers. We can just call them consumers now.
But none of this is new. Most of these are from last fall:
Walt Williams.
Thorndike.
Glassman.
Tax Foundation.
Chalking that up to good old-fashioned Bush-hatred, what I really don't understand is the 50% windfall profit tax. This would appear to be the democrats' way of "reaching out to the electorate" by saying: "Since gas prices are going up, we're going to tax the gas companies more."
Let's see if we can make sense of this. Certain left-leaning politicians (and a couple of centrists) want to impose a 50% windfall profit tax on gas companies, thereby making themselves essentially half-partners. This is bloody genius: it's like owning stock without buying into it in the first place-basically stealing stock. Hell, why don't they just impose a new sort of windfall profit tax on Microsoft, Starbucks, etc. (BTW, that $4 mocha costs more than a gallon of gasoline, if you have trouble doing the math.) The government gets to share in the company's profits without the actual act of investing.
Now, I didn't get a degree in business or econ, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like that isn't likely to help the problem. I figure investments, alongside of profits, allow companies in any field to improve on what it is they sell/produce. R&D, that sort of thing. You know, come up with more efficient vehicles, better energy sources, yada yada yada. Do a better job at what they do.
It also seems to me that having to pay more in taxes and thereby earning less profit, gas companies would be more likely to raise prices as opposed to lowering them. "Hmm. We aren't pulling in as much profit now that the government it taking half of it. Let's lower prices so our profit will go down even more!" Even assuming that prices don't go up drastically, I'm still going to end up paying just as much. Unless the windfall profit tax that goes to the government somehow gets funneled back to me in the form of a check sent to my home address, nothing has changed except that the government has found a new way to get money from taxpayers. We can just call them consumers now.
But none of this is new. Most of these are from last fall:
Walt Williams.
Thorndike.
Glassman.
Tax Foundation.
posted by the jake at 8:47 PM
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