After WW two, the last war we won there was a war profits tax, windfall profits tax and the idea was if there had not been a war the profits would not have been there for the firms involved.Ths helped pay for the war costs and America came back from a staggering debt and the companies invoved thrived anway.
When Exxon can retire a CEO at a quarter of a Billion dollars( and screw 30,000 Alaska fisher men for 20 years negotiations in court delayed settlement) and pocket profts just because of circumstances they did not innovate that calls for contribution to the overall good of the United States and not just for Exxon execs and stockholders.Figure we are sixty trillion in debt and it has to come from somewhere other than the fifty percent of Americans who live from pay check to pay check or from Illegal immigrants

Doing away with the precentage depletion allowance for large oil companies would be tax enough. Assure they pay the same tax rate as the rough-necks and refinery workers.

Working for a large corporation, managers were subject to two things: meeting revenue numbers and maintaining profit margins. Exxon is no exception to satisfy their shareholders. However, the gasoline situation conflicts with public and private policies which the two in and of themselves are mutually exclusive. That's the problem. Some resolution is required if this situation persists into the future - alternative energies notwithstanding. It would require delicate tinkering between the two issues : private vs public interests.

Interesting to note that even if we take away all of ExxonMobil's earnings for 2007 ($40 billion), and use it to subsidize gas prices, the reduction would be a whopping 27 cents per gallon for consumers. How is this a logical or even a long term solution to our high cost for gasoline?

For more details, read on....
Let's say we punish ExxonMobil for gouging the public by charging "high" gasoline prices by taking away completely their 2007 profits (which by the way, also takes away their reason to exist as a company since we proclaim we do not need them, wonder what does that do to supply of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, jet fuel, etc.). That could give $1,000 to 40 million families, as suggested by the one of our Presidential nominees, right? But wait, what is some families don't drive as much as others? Perhaps a more equitable way is to distribute the $40 billion per year to a fund to lower the prices of all gasoline consumed in the US. Demand for gasoline today is 9.5 million barrels a day. That would be $40 billion divided by 400 million gallons a day for 365 days, helping to reduce price of gasoline by a whopping 27 cents per gallon! Nope, that is still not going to lower our price of gasoline, not to mentioned diesel, jet fuel, etc. by much at all. Also, this is definitely not the long term solution to provide affordable energy to Americans.

We have come to a cross road in the US and in the world for that matter where Captalism has it's negative effects. When we look at whats happening in the financial markets and the rising price of energy's effect on our total economy we must consider some regulation to preserve and protect the general welfare of all American citizens. Certainly any oil company with the ability to reap the kind of profits that the oil companies are showing don't really nead any tax breaks or incentives or cheap Gov't leases to encourage them to do furter exploration for energy of any kind. When we realize that all these incentives are paid for by the US gov't which is the American people, then we should have the right to expect some sort of partnership or consideration when it comes to our cost as well and that just isn't happening. While the board members and share holders of these companies are making exorbitant salaries and great quarterly dividends, the tax payers get higher prices across the board for their every day needs. You can't take money from the American people going in and gouge them going out and that is the issue and the reason why people think that they aren't getting a fair shake.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices: 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. No mater what party your for, no mater how you figure it, all the encumbents have to go. They either took special interests money to turn their backs on the American worker and the Poor, or they are just too stupid to protect you. So do your part to straighten it out and vote all the BUMBS out.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices: 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. No mater what party your for, no mater how you figure it, all the encumbents have to go. They either took special interests money to turn their backs on the American worker and the Poor, or they are just too stupid to protect you. So do your part to straighten it out and vote all the BUMBS out.

The oil industry is enjoying the lowest employee /revenue ratio. The last time I read it was something like averaging over one million of dollar in revenue per employee, in other words, oil employees are the most productive of all other industry employees. It is all gravy, but this is not what I mean by windfall profits. The trouble with big oil is that it is one of our most daily purchases like fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, you name it. It is easly over two or three trillion dollar industry or in other word a real elephant in our economy probably second to real estate industry.
continued....

Big oil is a huge business and it holds a huge sway in our economy. We have to be careful about where it is going without being trampled by it. Sure, it did nothing wrong but just keep on pumping oil and refine it in assorted fuels and asphalt stuff. What it did so wrongly is for failing to warn carmakers that it is not gonna to keep up with their fleets of SUVs and PickUps. The big Oil just sat on hands and watched gleefully as its dream came to fruition ... Sure enough, millions lost homes and even SUVs. This is probably what we meant by windfall profit or maybe even better called tornado profits!!!

Take copper which is a very small industry not even one hundredth of big oil in revenues. Now copper just went up to over $3 a pound from below a dollar a few years ago. Sure, copper miners made big profits for its size, but we dont notice it until there were rampant thefts of copper all over. Because of that, we artificially supressed aluminium prices out of fear of similar rampant aluminium thefts when and if aluminium ever go up in price to catch up with its cousin, copper.

I had read about oil industry and the horizionatal drilling technology which was relatively new and innovative that could boost old existing "depleted" oil reserves by several times its original number. I thought that our oil industry would not be running out of oil ,yet we bought SUVs and PickUps without any fair warnings. It is no different than ensure that buildings are built to meet codes to make it safer to live inside. Our government could have notified carmakers that we had been imported much more oil than ever and that our domestic oil industry had been unable to keep up with our domestic oil demand. it must be a easy no brainer. But nobody did that. This is not about windfall profits. It is more about wind bag politics as usual. We have a brickwall kind of politics that is we do nothing until we hit into a brickwall. We do not want to talk about preparation, wisdom, fairness during cocktail parties. We just party until we run out of the proverbial punch bowl. So well, we start all over again.

Politicians seem to assume that we can patiently wait for several years until they come up with bills passed to solve the oil issue. Ditto for widening highways that usually take decades... Politicians thought that we can suck in and stand by gas pump that keep robbing us at $4.00 a gallon. Al Gore must think that it is ok to keep paying $120 for a barrel of oil while he keep showing his film "Inconvenient Truth" and preach to us about the need to convert to alternate energy that is made relatively affordable by artificailly high oil prices that destroy so many households. The founders of alternate energy businesses just dont wish to compete on price and they expect us to climb up ladders to meet them at their own terms.. oh, shitty! They aint gettin it1!

Politicians seem to assume that we can patiently wait for several years until they come up with bills passed to solve the oil issue. Ditto for widening highways that usually take decades... Politicians thought that we can suck in and stand by gas pump that keep robbing us at $4.00 a gallon. Al Gore must think that it is ok to keep paying $120 for a barrel of oil while he keep showing his film "Inconvenient Truth" and preach to us about the need to convert to alternate energy that is made relatively affordable by artificailly high oil prices that destroy so many households. The founders of alternate energy businesses just dont wish to compete on price and they expect us to climb up ladders to meet them at their own terms.. oh, shitty! They aint gettin it1!

After elections, the democrats will stop any idiot from passing a bill to drill for more oil. The best way out is to start conserving energy yourself. the windfall profit will go away in an instant... I am not saying that the politicians are always up to no good and taking money on the sidelines. No sir, They are distinguished gentlemen who are very thoughtful and helpful to all people in America. It just happens that we have brickwall politics , that is all, folks!@After elections, the democrats will stop any idiot from passing a bill to drill for more oil. The best way out is to start conserving energy yourself. the windfall profit will go away in an instant... I am not saying that the politicians are always up to no good and taking money on the sidelines. No sir, They are distinguished gentlemen who are very thoughtful and helpful to all people in America. It just happens that we have brickwall politics , that is all, folks!@

Buffoons (like DOYLE) on here who just rail against ExxonMobil disturb me to no end. You are Marxists even though you don't know it (DOYLE said (ExxonMobil) "pocket profts just because of circumstances they did not innovate that calls for contribution to the overall good of the United States" - right out of Marx's manifesto.). Why should ONE company, its employees, and its shareholders pay for the debts (to cover ALL of the BENEFITS that YOU eagerly ACCEPT as BRIBES from politicians so you vote for them) that the said politicians caused? I take offense to this thinking. It is un-American, selfish, irresponsible, and of course, Marxist. You want corrupt GOVERNMENT run "benefits" like Social Security, Medicare, and possibly UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE and when the country's debts pile up, you want EXXONMOBIL, its employees, and its shareholders to PAY FOR THE MESS caused by GOVERNMENT. GET BENT....!!!

Bernie, actually you really need to look at the facts. First, can you defend the tax cuts that the oil companies were given by this administration? Were they an industry in need of government assistance? I bet you hate welfare but why is individual welfare so much worse than corporate welfare? These same great guys haven't built a refinery in America in something like 30 years. XOM paid five times the taxes to foreign governments than it did to America last year. And they haven't exploited 80% of the lands that they currently hold under lease agreements. ANWAR is expensive to develop and the cost of production will probably reduce the profit but opening up the Great White North to drilling means that they'll be able to gain access to all federal lands. That is the big prize. I'll guess that your heros include George W. and Ronald Reagan both of whom have made Lyndon Johnson look like a cheapskate when it came to government spending. And oddly, the stock market has performed better under Democrats than Republicans. 14%-11%.

Social Security is a fine govt. program designed to help people save painlessly for their retirement and medicare was designed to make sure that people could afford health care when they get old.
Both were meant as supplements and will not cover everyone. America should be able to cover the costs of these programs but when we spend so much money on wars and corporate largesse it becomes impossible. Zero isn't able to save us. Are you happy with the manner in which HMOs treat patients?

Believe me I'm no Marxist but I understand why others may become disenchanted with our way of life and become susceptible to a flawed ideology.
People react to their experiences and the more people that experience a declining standard of living all the while watching as corporations grow wealthy and the buying power of their paychecks are truncated, the more people will be tempted to take up ideological arms against an increasingly bleak American way of life. You can argue any way you'd like but it is true that the American way of life has been under siege not from without but from within. Bush has sent two checks to Americans: once when he was elected by the court, how Marxist was that, and most recently to jump start our economy all the while putting us further in the red. Personally, I'll trade it any way you'd like. I was short the dollar for the past five years and I'll buy anything and I own XOM. Don't worry about me, I'll never show-up at your door wearing a bandana but remember Che and Castro started out as liberators of their people and turned into oppressors. If we don't educate ourselves we'll fall for any dogma regardless of its liberal or conservative leanings. Either way the dead fish will come wrapped in the flag not the newspaper.

Beltway Greg