Democrats vote NO to lower gas prices, page 3
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ATS Members have flagged this thread 3 times


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 06:25 PM by C0le
reply to post by dgtempe


Very true stuff like this is nothing more then a trick to deceive those who still cant see that both parties are two sides to the same coin hoping to distract us all from the larger picture...


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 06:45 PM by harvib
reply to post by S1LV3R4D0



Well said! I wish everyone was able to take a step back from these polarized debates and realize we don't have to decide on choice A or choice B. We can demand a choice C, D, E, etc. I hope people will learn to expect more from their leaders then mediocrity.


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 08:35 PM by jasonjnelson
here is a thread I did months ago that died flat. It's ok, but it shows my opinion either way..
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Oil Companies; Political Patsies or Greedy Fat-cats?

I have recently noticed the building anger towards the oil companies and their ridiculous profits...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well this got me thinking, and bear with me, because I believe this is my first researched thread, and I want to get my point across.

Americans use a huge amount of gas every day....

it shows that the United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil each day. If you look at the statistics on a page like this one, you find that a barrel of oil (which contains 42 gallons or 159 liters) will yield something like 19 or 20 gallons (75 liters) of gasoline, depending on the refinery. Therefore, in the United States, something like 400 million gallons (1.51 billion liters) of gasoline gets consumed every day.



auto.howstuffworks.com...

And profits for the last quarter were 11 Billion for one company alone.(EXXON MOBIL)
In total, there were over 120 BILLION dollars in profit by oil companies last year. So why am I calling the oil companies "Patsies"?
For one, Exxon paid over 40% of it's profits to taxes. They were the largest payers of taxes in U.S. history.
seekingalpha.com...

If you were to do the math, the oil companies make less than 1 dollar per gallon of gas, being as I cannot get the figures for overseas fuel sales by these American Companies. So not to be liberal with the math or anything, but how much profit should be taken from the very corporations who we all have stock in?


Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).



By comparison, grocery stores RAKE in the profits on a Gallon of milk, and yet there is no uproar at the direct gouging done by those camps...

At one point in 2003, the profits that retailers earned for everygallon of milk equaled the wholesale amount farmers were paid
per gallon, Cotterill said in a report he issued on milk prices last year.


www.fmpc.uconn.edu...

So what is my point? The company that pays more taxes than the lower half of wage earners combined, is also contributing 90% of it's profits to the various mutual funds that we all own, and has raised prices 25% when costs have risen 120% for it's product.
www.eia.doe.gov...

Read the data, and if you compensate for current prices for crude, you will see that there really should be MUCH HIGHER prices for fuel right now. If it was not for our low gas taxes, there would be much more to complain about.

So what's the conspiracy? Are we deliberately being maligned so that we begin to loathe the middle east and seek some war "spoils"? With ethanol costing more than twice the cost of regular fuel, (it takes a gallon of fuel to create a gallon of ethanol) and considering it uses the same amount of corn per gallon that a human eats in an ENTIRE year, are we being pushed to create the conditions for a complete destruction of the oil producing nations, and a famine for the rest of the world that we don't want to support anymore?
I am not rich, actually fairly poor, and I drive a gas guzzler, so please avoid the bias argument. Thanks, and please be gentle.


Sorry, figured it to be way relevant... Jason




[edit on 12-6-2008 by jasonjnelson]

[edit on 12-6-2008 by jasonjnelson]


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 10:19 PM by Anonymous ATS
reply to post by sos37



Well, considering that all the locations we could drill for oil within our boundaries of our own coast lines is located right on a major fault line, the logic behind voting no to spend billions to construct the equipment needed in the right place would be something like this: "Hey, if there's an earthquake on that major fault line we'd lose billions of dollars for nothing." So, if you're all about throwing away billions of dollars, then by all means, go right ahead. But, please don't use MY tax money to do it.


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 10:36 PM by Hal9000
Originally posted by sos37
I'd like to hear the Democrats and Liberals explain this one away.

Am I the only one that saw this?

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., dismissed the need for oil explanation, speaking with FOX News Wednesday.

"There are 68 million acres right now that is available for exploration right now that the oil companies have — an area the size of Illinois and Georgia. We ought to be focusing on doing that," Blumenauer said, adding that a legal gap he referred to as the "Enron loophole" exempts energy trading from oversight of the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

I would have expected Fox to leave that part out. Whoops.

Originally posted by passenger
Oil companies make about $.08 (eight cents) per gallon in profit. The Federal Government takes $.184 (eighteen point four) cents per gallon. Who’s making a bigger profit off the sale of gas? Why doesn’t the government cut back a little. It might not be $.50 (fifty cents) per gallon, but it’s a start.

If this were true, then certainly the democrats would allow more drilling for more revenue, No? Oh, I get it. The "government" is a different entity than the democrats.


This whole attempt at blaming the democrats for the price of gas is ridiculous. The price is going up because demand is going up, namely from China. But every cloud has a silver lining. Amazingly, I see my fellow Americans are now starting to conserve and doing what we should have all along. In a way, I think this has been good for us.

edit to add: Also forgot to mention the price of gas is also going up due to the weakening dollar, as well as higher demand from China.

[edit on 6/12/2008 by Hal9000]


reply posted on 12-6-2008 @ 11:48 PM by harvib
reply to post by Boone 870


My friend, while you watch your team vs. the other team play it out the guys in the sky box are robbing us blind.


reply posted on 13-6-2008 @ 04:58 AM by skyshow
reply to post by GradyPhilpott


so then is this why thousands of permits have been granted to drill off shore?

- More Drilling: Domestic drilling has not led to lower prices. Since 2000, drilling has increased dramatically – climbing about 66 percent– while gas prices continue to increase. and gas companies have shown that they cannot keep pace with the rate of drilling permits that the federal government is handing out – over the past 4 years they have received and are sitting on nearly 10,000 permits that they aren’t using to increase domestic production. Since 1999, drilling permits for oil and gas development on public lands increased more than 361 percent.

Tens of thousands indeed, but no drilling! Hello! You have oil executives in the white house, and Bush cronies (oil executives) staffing the federal agencies...if you buy and tow the Republican line, you have been lied to! Yet you people continue to defend the Republicans...what the hell for?


[edit on 13-6-2008 by skyshow]


reply posted on 13-6-2008 @ 05:17 AM by jasonjnelson
reply to post by skyshow


Drilling permits do not equal oil.

Oil found does not always mean available.


reply posted on 13-6-2008 @ 05:29 AM by skyshow
reply to post by jasonjnelson


finally we agree on something...of course it doesn't mean more oil. Are you finally seeing it here? The conspiracy is "they don't want more oil on the market"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ding ding ding!!!!
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