Narrock wrote:Put on your thinking caps, and listen to the substance of what Obama says. Hard to do isn't it? That's because there is no substance to Obama's speeches.
Oh there is plenty of substance in his speeches. Nearly every speech I hear or read that comes from Obama has substance, true it might be buried within eloquent speech to stir feelings, but in the end it's pretty clear where he wants to take this country, and frankly to say he doesn't speak substance is to ignore the very frightening realities of what he says, proposes or hints at. Let me give you an example.
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/08/02/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_102.phpAbout halfway through the speech:
The other day, we learned that Exxon Mobil made nearly $12 billion last quarter. To put it another way, they made $1,500 every second. That's more than $300,000 in the time it takes you to fill up a tank of gas. And Senator McCain actually wants to give oil companies like Exxon another $4 billion in tax cuts. Well, I don't think we should be giving tax breaks to oil companies that are doing better than ever at a time when you're struggling more than ever. It's time to use some of their record profits to help you pay record prices by putting a $1,000 emergency energy rebate in the pockets of working families.
The other day I caught part of a speech were he was talking about going after oil companies for price gouging. In around 30 investigations looking for price gouging the last several decades, the finding are the same, that rising gas prices are not the product of collusion or price fixing, but that of the market. In the above quote he's talking about the concept of a windfall tax, something that failed to pass congress a few years ago, but the plan as it's described sure looks the same.
First of all I take issue with the general idea of a "windfall profit tax". The very concept is that government determines that profit was excessive and levies and additional tax on the profits. The devil here is in the details. I would submit that you can not institute a windfall profits tax without establishing a threshold as to when profit becomes "windfall". To give government discretion to decide a profit was excessive without some hard quantitative lends its self to subjectivity that has a high propensity to evolve into something tyranical. In other words we can't just let congress decide willy nilly when a number is too large, we already have a tax system that empowers government by allowing it to be manipulated to reward some behavior and groups and punish others, the last thing we need is to give government greater power to enforce via taxation what it can not legally accomplish through legislation. Now Obama doesn't speak to this, and at best case he has some formula in mind... at worst he wants to give government nearly uncontrollable power to fleece businesses (and potentially individuals). Do we know for sure what he has in mind in this regard? Nope but either way it's bad news.
Best case scenario he has some number in mind that constitutes excessive profit, and we know that oil companies are over that number. So where exactly is that line, what magic number makes that determination? Exxon Mobil is a huge company, it's total profit expressed in dollars will naturally dwarf the profits of many small businesses, and even larger companies, so logically one can not take only the reported profit into account, but must relate it to the companies profit margin. Exxon's profit margin hovered around 10 percent last year, and as of the quarterly postings in July of this year it is around 8 percent, which is about average for oil companies. Now when you contrast this with the average profit margins of other industries you end up with oil companies falling somewhere around 60th. There are quite a few industries that make better profit margins then Exxon. That makes for a whole lot of industries and companies who are making excessive profits. Does Obama intend to go after them with windfall taxes as well? I doubt it, because what this is all really about is not excessive profit, but about government getting a larger bank roll to fund various activities he proposes at home and abroad. Never mind that Exxon has already paid more in taxes in almost the last decade then it's made in profits, government now needs a bigger piece of that pie.
Of course this doesn't really affect the average joe if some major oil company gets tapped does it? Newsflash this just in, companies don't pay taxes, they pass that cost on to the consumer. Exxon, and other oil companies aren't going to change their already mediocre profit margin to compensate, their employees will want raises, their stockholders want dividends. What will change the tax cost basis for their business model which will directly relate to the price at the pump. If you doubt that for a second, look at Britian who's pump price is nearly double our own (yes in USD), and it is directly related to government taxation.
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if anything, it just makes it clearer why he'd want others to do so--because he never did and it's a valuable skill. 
