Price of gasoline, petroleum.. etc.

[cajun312]

It can't be a clean playing field with all the subsidies and tax breaks.
The more there are the more advantage it gives to larger businesses over small.

How many lawyers and tax accountants does it take to take advantage of all these. Who can best afford not only to take advantage of current tax deductions but to LOBBY for new ones - the small guy or the large guys.
Who can best use tax laws, subsidies and special regulations to minimize their competition?

So none is the cleanest playing field for tax deductions.
Why should the government be involved?

I agree the big guys shouldn't be able to lobby for their own gain.

Top 30 American companies that pay no income taxes, hmm I wonder why no oil companies on this list. Ohh Exxon did pay some taxes. Exxon Mobil paid $8 billion in income taxes in the first quarter on $18.9 billion of income, which translates into a 42.3% effective income tax rate on its income.Those numbers are for the first quarter of 2011, American taxes only.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/03/360185/30-corporations-no-taxes/

And having friends in high places doesn't hurt either. General Motors had a profit of $7.6 Billion but paid no income taxes. How is that? In it's specially structured bankruptcy it was allowed to carry over $46.6 Billion in losses from the old GM to the new GM. They won't be paying taxes for many, many years.

 

[randya]

I agree the big guys shouldn't be able to lobby for their own gain.

Top 30 American companies that pay no income taxes, hmm I wonder why no oil companies on this list. Ohh Exxon did pay some taxes. Exxon Mobil paid $8 billion in income taxes in the first quarter on $18.9 billion of income, which translates into a 42.3% effective income tax rate on its income.Those numbers are for the first quarter of 2011, American taxes only.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/03/360185/30-corporations-no-taxes/

And having friends in high places doesn't hurt either. General Motors had a profit of $7.6 Billion but paid no income taxes. How is that? In it's specially structured bankruptcy it was allowed to carry over $46.6 Billion in losses from the old GM to the new GM. They won't be paying taxes for many, many years.

.

Thanks for making my point about government involvment in business, the tax code and special favors.

We all get tax deductions or none of us get them.

.

I still say 'none'.
Let the Market work.

 

[cajun312]

.

Thanks for making my point about government involvment in business, the tax code and special favors.

.

I still say 'none'.
Let the Market work.

If we go with no deductions, would that affect your next equipment purchase since you wouldn't be able to expense/deduct it from gross income? It would for me, unless with no deductions you lower the tax rate also.

 

[randya]

So one cannot run a business without help from the government?
Little wonder government is as small as it is.

I can support NO income tax:

Income for federal government. Tariffs have played different roles in trade policy and the economic history of the United States. Tariffs were the largest source of federal revenue from the 1790s to the eve of World War I, until it was surpassed by income taxes. Since the revenue from the tariff was considered essential and easy to collect at the major ports, it was agreed the nation should have a tariff for revenue purposes.[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United_States

 

[round man]

I really dislike the idea of saying I told you so but ya'll need to read this
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/opinion/sanders-gas-speculation/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

 

[cajun312]

I really dislike the idea of saying I told you so but ya'll need to read this
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/opinion/sanders-gas-speculation/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

I quit reading when I saw who wrote this. Does speculation raise the price of oil...yep.
Someone promised to put a stop to that when he was elected...................

 

[randya]

And probably nothing works better than a bunch of war mongering propaganda on petroleum rich countries to drive speculation through the roof.

Looks like about 1/6th of oil, and a good deal of natural gas pass through the Strait of Hormuz, make this area unstable and of course oil 'prices' go up.

Follow the money.....

 

[cajun312]

And probably nothing works better than a bunch of war mongering propaganda on petroleum rich countries to drive speculation through the roof.

Looks like about 1/6th of oil, and a good deal of natural gas pass through the Strait of Hormuz, make this area unstable and of course oil 'prices' go up.

Follow the money.....

I read somewhere that they will finish a pipeline this year that will allow ships not to go through the Strait of Hormuz.
If we could drill in more places we could eliminate a lot of our dependency on middle east oil. Our government won't allow drilling off the coast of Florida. But 40 miles from Key West a Chinese made drilling rig, staffed by a Spanish oil company is drilling in Cuban waters. Because of our embargo on Cuba, that rig can't use any American technology that is less than ten years old, which means no new style blow out preventors or computer controls.
Shame foreign companies can drill and we can't.

 

[randya]

Yes, embargos are bad too.
They do the opposite of what are claimed about them.
They cause the people to rally around their government, not oppose it, like its proponents want to claim.
Embargos against Cuba, ONLY made Castro stronger.
Care to guess what embargos against Iran are doing?

But the problem goes back to about hundred years of subsidizing oil.
Government interferance in the market place pushed out other technologies, drove sub-urbanization - so people live farther away from work and shopping, gave rise to big autos, etc.

Ok, let's say they get a pipeline and by pass the Strait of Hormuz.
Instability in ANY of the countries that contain the pipeline will STILL cause speculation, whether that instability is deliberate or not.
Is this the pipeline you are referring?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski56.html

Like Fred has demonstrated, drilling is not the answer.
Demand here is down, but we are exporting gasoline in record amounts.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-12-31/united-states-export/52298812/1

And certainly war (even MORE government offering to fix the problems that it created) and war mongering 'fuels' the problem.

We need to take some lumps and let the Market work.

 

[binki]

We have a guy in Los Angeles that protests high gas prices (he owns a gas station) by pricing a buck over everyone else. He is somewhere near Alvera St.

http://losangelesgasprices.com/

 

[ProWraps]

remember what happened last time gas shot up this high?

it slammed back down to $1.60/gallon.

it will happen again. take away 2-3% of demand due to high prices and the oil companies shat their pants.

 

[Colin]

I'm going to start cycling the five miles to work

Best decision ever. I remember before I started my own business (19 years ago) I used to ride the 25 km to work most days, and then do a 70 km alternate route on the way home. Now my commute is 10 steps to my shop, and therefore have a mere 80,000 km (50,000 miles) on my 10 yr old truck which I bought new in '02. Don't drive unless I have to, and even then I try to do more than one needed thing when out.

The insanely high price of gas predicted for the summer has been in the local news for the last few days......scary.

 

[AzGene]

When I was a kid back in the 60's I vividly remember my father going off about gas prices hitting 25 cents a gallon. Guess it's all relative, everything costs more nowadays.

 

[Colin]

When I was a kid back in the 60's I vividly remember my father going off about gas prices hitting 25 cents a gallon. Guess it's all relative...

Of course it's relative, he's your father!


:Big Laugh

 

[Sideshow]

considering how much everything costs, id rather adjust my needless spending and move forward then worry about whats out of my control...or care for that matter. gas prices dont bother me one bit. if its too high i will find other means of travel, or adjust spending, so it shot up a quarter a gallon, well i fill my tank evey 2 weeks, so ill switch to the 16 oz coffee every morning instead of the 20... whats that, it went up another quarter...ok ill drop to the 12 oz, or just fill my cup at home. for me, problem solved. i dunno, i never concerned myself over gas prices, its such a global manipulation gimmick IMHO and not in any of our hands to control, so why waste energy worrying?

 

[phototec]

You may not be concerned about the price of fuel (gas), however, the rising fuel cost will raise the price of everything else, including coffee that is transported by big rig 18 wheelers.

Here is Texas we are very spread out, not like in large metro areas, kids going to school live long distances from schools and every morning and every afternoon a fleet of yellow school buses are used to pickup the students and the take them home, the rising fuel cost is crippling the school districts, they budgeted funds for the normal fuel prices. Some areas are saying they may have to raise property taxes to pay for the fuel increase. This will effect me twice, at the pump and raise my property taxes.

Most milk and beef are transported by the big rigs, so we have seen those prices going up weekly as well. My electric company has sent me an email, saying their cost are going up so they will have to raise there price to me.

Where will it stop?

Raising fuel (gas) prices will effect us all and not just at the pump!

 

[WeekendDirectionals]

Best decision ever. I remember before I started my own business (19 years ago) I used to ride the 25 km to work most days, and then do a 70 km alternate route on the way home. Now my commute is 10 steps to my shop, and therefore have a mere 80,000 km (50,000 miles) on my 10 yr old truck which I bought new in '02. Don't drive unless I have to, and even then I try to do more than one needed thing when out.

The insanely high price of gas predicted for the summer has been in the local news for the last few days......scary.

Thanks for the reminder. My bike sits in the window at my office, it needs to be on the street for a variety of reasons. Economic, environmental and physical.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Here is Texas we are very spread out, not like in large metro areas, kids going to school live long distances from schools and every morning and every afternoon a fleet of yellow school buses are used to pickup the students and the take them home, the rising fuel cost is crippling the school districts, they budgeted funds for the normal fuel prices.

One thing I liked about growing up in Plano (about 20 miles NE of Dallas) is that it was setup for alternative methods of transportation. Walking/biking trails were setup that you could get somewhere with minimal interference with the vehicular traffic.

Now where I live now in mid. TN, there are million dollar walking/cycling trails, but they get you nowhere unless you do it purely for exercise. Which causes people to get on the road to do for the exercise and get somewhere. The irony is that walking/cycling along the road isn't as good for you in the long run then using areas that are off the road. It has to do with VO2 max. Your body is trying to get all the oxygen that it can, but I can promise you it's probably sucking less oxygen then anything else there. Especially considering how DRWs are setup around here.

 

[anotherdog]

So given everyone is so worried about the price of oil, Why is the US blocking a pipeline from Canada FULL of cheap oil?

Can't be because of Oil Sands pollution because Coal is so much more polluting on every level.

Oil is the price it is because of speculators that are allowed to control the supply of oil.

The money isn't made at the refinery because we are seeing refining facilities go bust (one just went in the UK).

Actually the UK is a good pattern for how things will develop. Things will still function, just fuel will have a greater factor in business costs. Personal vehicles will get smaller and we are beginning to see more european diesel cars. I think trains will see more use for long distance shipping costs.

On the good side with increased shipping costs China Manufacturing will get more expensive so we may see US manufacturing come back.

There is a limit to the cost of Oil (not counting taxes), the ability to make synthetic Gas from other sources like coal will kick in (remember how polluting coal is).

I really don't have any hope for us stopping Global Warming...but Hey, I'm in Canada.