What do Americans care most about this election season? The troubled housing market, and the short supply of oil. That's why HIllary is here with a plan. Specifically, a plan to discourage investment in the oil industry through a windfall profits tax, and to destroy the mortgage market by freezing foreclosures and interest rates. That way, no one has to worry about oil or houses, because there won't be any to worry about. That's just the kind of thoughtful, caring politician she is.
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You're right that she's so much worse than the other candidates, neither of whom support a windfall profits tax. I mean, that is after you just assume that they're lying about everything you disagree with and will listen to advisors that they've fired. It's like you've brought the entire 2nd Armored Division these days.
Obama supported a similar tax holiday in Illinois, and it worked here.
"Specifically, a plan to discourage investment in the oil industry through a windfall profits tax"
What exactly do you propose the oil industry invest in, and where? Seems like everyone in congress is against drilling anywhere in the US.
If you will read below, I also criticized Obama's sillier moments. My snark knows no bounds.
Since US forces are sitting in the Gulf doing nothing anyways, why don't they just invade Saudi Arabia, wipe out the entire population not engaged in oil production, keep the small % that actually works in oil production, and under new management, just take the oil for the US only?
The Saudi oil can then be exported to the US at cost which is something like $10 a barrel, and there will be no shortages in the US.
Definite hat tip on the snarkiness... Sorry I misinterpreted. (I'm no Hillary fan, btw. I was just asking).
I think there's enough silliness to go around for all the candidates these days: Rapturous Barack "Never mind those guys I hang out with up until last week" Obama, Crazy Laughing "I have as much experience as the White House Chef" Hillary and Mr. Old Guy "Did you know I'm a little nuts?" McCain.
That question about the oil is something I'd really love for someone to ask all the candidates though... Gas went up 20-30 cents a gallon today, and those oil corps keep saying "we're investing". In what? Apple stock? They can't be investing in new oil drilling, at least not in the US, and that's where it'd help the most right now.
Yes, Hillary is pandering on the gas tax. Good catch! And to think the media was just going to let this fall through the cracks. [/snark off]
Since US forces are sitting in the Gulf doing nothing anyways, why don't they just invade Saudi Arabia, wipe out the entire population not engaged in oil production, keep the small % that actually works in oil production, and under new management, just take the oil for the US only?
...and flying ponies that eat hazardous waste and crap out gold bricks. When can we get those? Are they part of Obama or Hillary's environmental, transportation, or economic plans?
Mouse,
Sure that's a serious question, but what I want to know is, are Obama and Clinton for turning sand into ice cream? If not, why? Do they want the children of America to go without ice cream? Where's their legislation supporting this venture?
I can't possibly vote for a candidate who doesn't like ice cream, or doesn't think that the American people can turn sand into ice cream. That's just defeatism, and we don't stand for that in America!
Hillary's gas tax holiday idea is plain stupid; there's no doubt about it. But I'm supposed to worry about how it would discourage investment in oil companies? Hm. I'm finding it difficult to dredge up even an ounce of concern about the financial condition of companies making the largest profits in the history of the planet.
During the Great Depression, many States passed laws which froze foreclosures for years.
Numerous comparisons to foreclosure rates during the Great Depression are being made.
It didn't happen last time, but Megan McArdle swears that if you let those damnable poor people stay in their homes next winter you will destroy the housing market!
It drives me to tears to think that someone pays money to publish detached, spiteful ignorance like this.
Josh -
You are clearly an idiot. Just because the country made a mistake once and survived does not mean that we should do the same now.
I don't dispute that "During the Great Depression, many States passed laws which froze foreclosures for years." However, most sane economic analysis of that period has concluded that such steps only made the situation worse. And it is indisputable that that kind of heavy-handed intervention inevitably raises borrowing costs for individuals across the board. Megan may be engaging in a bit of hyperbole, but the fact remains that the kind of insane voiding of private contracts that Clinton proposed last night would be a disaster for the mortgage market generally, with costs born primarily by first time home buyers and sensible borrowers who didn't get in over their heads.
I don't want more oil investment! There's a finite supply, you know, and the faster we drill, the faster it will run out. We've got to make it last.
This goes double for domestic drilling. Why drill now, at $120/bbl when we can drill in 20 years, at $200/bbl? Or did "buy low, sell high" cease to be a worthwhile economic principle?
What we got to do is just invade and occupy the countries with lots of oil.
Who says the US have to let other countries buy the oil in an American occupied country?
Ms. McArdle displays considerable disingenuousness here. You'll note that when Clinton does something wrong, it reflects the "kind of . . . politician she is"; shen Obama does something wrong, it's just a "silly moment."
The Clintons apparently are a paint (the campaign) by the polling outfit. They had a feminist vote, the BHO scares me group. The group in play was apparently the aforementioned willing to believe in flying ponies that eat hazardous waste and crap out gold bricks Democratic subgroup. As an afffiliate member of the BHO scares me group, I thought her rhetoric in this regard sounded like a Broadway musical but, heh, not everybody is a much an artiste as those of us from Peoria.
discourage investment in the oil industry through a windfall profits tax
=======
At these levels of profitability for the major oil companies, this is a false tradeoff.
As the oil price has gone from $20 to $120, has the spending on projects also gone up six times?
The truth is that the companies are making so much money they do not know what to do with it.
Meanwhile, there are forward-looking public projects that require collective action. One of them is putting in place an infrastructure for hydrogen fuel cells, possibly.
Without public-private partnership (aka public pressure), you are not going to see private companies dump $1 billion in this direction, to see if they cannot get critical mass for such an 'experiment' in new energy going in, say, California.
Amicus:
How in the world were we able to put into place the infrastructure for an oil-based energy economy without taxing the excess profits of the horse and buggy industry?
It just defies all explanation...
This is an old fashioned expansion to the point of maximizing current capacity in oil, steel, natural gas ,cement etc. Like all such spikes a combination of increased efficiency (conservation if you like) and increased capacity will eventually resolve this. But the increased structural rigidity in areas such as oil due to environmentalism and renationalization that restricts production (see PEMEX and PVDSA) will slow the response.
The political urge for magic solutions that do not involve heavy lifting is always used to put off the real solutions until later. I think that $4 gasoline, $10 natural gas show we are at that point.
This is an old fashioned expansion to the point of maximizing current capacity in oil, steel, natural gas ,cement etc. Like all such spikes a combination of increased efficiency (conservation if you like) and increased capacity will eventually resolve this. But the increased structural rigidity in areas such as oil due to environmentalism and renationalization that restricts production (see PEMEX and PVDSA) will slow the response.
The political urge for magic solutions that do not involve heavy lifting is always used to put off the real solutions until later. I think that $4 gasoline, $10 natural gas show we are at that point.
someone who supports the most lefty senator has the gall to whine about the less lefty senator's socialist policies?!
not only your snark, but your lack of irony knows no bounds either!
Oil companies are spending ridiculous amounts of money to extract oil from the deep water Gulf of Mexico, offshore Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Ghana, etc.
Do any of you complaining about their profits understand that their profit margins -- however high they are -- are in the single digits percentage-wise?
Do any of you understand that there is no offshore development priced in anything under the billions of dollars UP FRONT to get started?
Do any of you understand that "Big Oil" -- Exxon, Shell, bp, Chevron -- are pikers in the world oil market? That the state-owned oil companies own and produce a supermajority of the world's proven reserves?
Do any of you understand that there are barely enough engineers available in the E&P industry to accomodate the projects that are on the books now, much less for the projects on the horizon?
Do any of you understand that the US has oil, but cannot produce it because of the restrictions that Congress and federal and state and even local regulatory agencies have enacted, generally at our own short-sighted request?
You cannot possibly be even remotely familiar with the facts and still speak as you do.
How in the world were we able to put into place the infrastructure for an oil-based energy economy without taxing the excess profits of the horse and buggy industry?
Now, that's just really, really funny. There are several books on how it was done and, no, it was far less pretty than taxing buggy whips ...
You cannot possibly be even remotely familiar with the facts and still speak as you do.
Good grief. Take a deep breath.
Over the past five years, how much money did the majors return to their shareholders? How does that compare with an average of the previous ten years?
As someone noted in the prior thread (by some birdy), if the E&P industry has been flat out for more than a few years running right now, how do some people conclude that a profits recovery tax will starve investment?
Of the state-owned companies, how many are involved in exploration outside their sovereign borders?
1. Q.E.D., and thanks for the non sequiturs.
2. A "profits recovery tax"?! as in, the government "recovering" the profits that the nasty, grubbing, shiftless, lay-about oil companies took from them?