My good friend Les has been trying to get me to read a recent column by Ann Coulter on the price of oil, and how that subject fits in the political arena. Knowing that I'm not a fan of Ms. Coulter's work (to say the very least), he thought this was a column where she was spot-on.
I didn't. . .um. . .see it that way. But that is a fun part of having a diverse group of friends: difference in opinion and spirited (but never nasty) discussion. Hopefully, Les won't mind getting feedback here on a public forum--particularly since my portion of the blogosphere is rather invisible! I'm aware that my response is somewhat disjointed, because there are so many areas in the piece that I disagree with! Oh well. . .
[Excerpt]
You can't fuel all of the people all of the time
Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles. [snip]
B. Hussein Obama's response to soaring gas prices is to have the oil companies collect even more money from us at the pump, proposing a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies. "Corporate taxes" sound like taxes on rich people, but all they do is force corporations to collect taxes on behalf of the government. . .
Read more at (of all places): Jewish World Review
Nothing backhanded about any of that, right? On to my disjointed, rambling response:
Les,
I'm not as enamored of the piece as you are. For instance, the "oil companies pay too much taxes" bit. What about the massive subsidies given to the oil companies by the Bush Administration? I would say that offsets their tax burden by quite a bit.
"B. Hussein Obama?" C'mon. . . there's only one reason she's doing that.
Windfall profit taxes come AFTER the profit is declared, which would be (at least in the short term) a difficult tax to pass on to consumers. . .because then they'd make more profit. . .and then pay more taxes.
I'm not an expert on this subject, but I have a problem with the logic in Coulter's column (and elsewhere in conservative opinon). The question not being asked: what happened in the last 18 months or so to make oil spiral upward? There seems to be a complete disregard for a big part of the real problem: speculators. We've had pretty much a status quo in where and how we get our oil over the last couple of years. Not drilling, or exploring, or getting new leases or whatever didn't just happen in the last year and a half. But it's only in the last year and a half that gas has doubled in price.
It can't be supply and demand. Demand is down. Supply is not curtailed. And yet gas is $4.30. I'm not sure how getting more oil (5 or 10 years down the road) will help that at all, I really don't. And if the oil companies have to go to the expense of drilling all over the place, getting new leases, etc., don't you think they're going to pass on THAT expense to consumers?
And why are so many conservatives so defensive of big oil, anyway? From my perspective, if the cost of materials for making a product go up, you raise your price accordingly. But your profits in that case would remain flat. The oil profits have ballooned bigger than any profits ever recorded for anything in human history. How did that happen?
Some links (which from another perspective might be as irritating as Ann's column was to me):
I'm not as enamored of the piece as you are. For instance, the "oil companies pay too much taxes" bit. What about the massive subsidies given to the oil companies by the Bush Administration? I would say that offsets their tax burden by quite a bit.
"B. Hussein Obama?" C'mon. . . there's only one reason she's doing that.
Windfall profit taxes come AFTER the profit is declared, which would be (at least in the short term) a difficult tax to pass on to consumers. . .because then they'd make more profit. . .and then pay more taxes.
I'm not an expert on this subject, but I have a problem with the logic in Coulter's column (and elsewhere in conservative opinon). The question not being asked: what happened in the last 18 months or so to make oil spiral upward? There seems to be a complete disregard for a big part of the real problem: speculators. We've had pretty much a status quo in where and how we get our oil over the last couple of years. Not drilling, or exploring, or getting new leases or whatever didn't just happen in the last year and a half. But it's only in the last year and a half that gas has doubled in price.
It can't be supply and demand. Demand is down. Supply is not curtailed. And yet gas is $4.30. I'm not sure how getting more oil (5 or 10 years down the road) will help that at all, I really don't. And if the oil companies have to go to the expense of drilling all over the place, getting new leases, etc., don't you think they're going to pass on THAT expense to consumers?
And why are so many conservatives so defensive of big oil, anyway? From my perspective, if the cost of materials for making a product go up, you raise your price accordingly. But your profits in that case would remain flat. The oil profits have ballooned bigger than any profits ever recorded for anything in human history. How did that happen?
Some links (which from another perspective might be as irritating as Ann's column was to me):
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