SBW

Imbecile

SBW

:thumbdown: :thumbdown:

What exactly does that have to do with oil company profits?

Jakebrake Loc: Broomfield, Colorado

Wow, I think I'll just stop buying their gasoline. That will teach them!

2Dragons Loc: The Back of Beyond

If that is what EXXON made, just think of what our government made as the tax per gallon on gasoline is 18.4 cents, diesel is 24.40 and then the states step in and tax an average of 26.49/gal for gas & 27.24 for diesel. And the kicker is that the companies like EXXON make an an average of 7.6 cents per gallon. So, before we start throwing rocks at the oil companies, who are the REAL greedy ones stepping up to the plate?

SBW

:thumbup: :thumbup:

Thank you.

Jakebrake Loc: Broomfield, Colorado

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Jim Plogger Loc: East Tennessee

All of that profit and gas was selling for less than $2 a gallon!

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

Yes, there is a huge difference. A physician getting a few hundred dollars (and sometimes the cost of attending the conference and a night's hotel stay) for giving a talk which is prefaced by a disclaimer saying that the talk is supported by the company - but giving what is obviously a talk promoting a specific product - the talk having been vetted as meeting very strict FDA guidelines as to what can and cannot be said - is MUCH different than a politician who has a role in making policy for our government getting a grossly inflated amount of money for giving a talk.

But I agree with you that the ethics is still questionable. There are very good conferences but then there are many that are totally supported by drug companies. I have offered to give educational talks - even for free - at conferences on various subjects with which I am very familiar (I am a nutritionist as well as a family physician, for example) only to be told that I would need to have a "sponsor" - in other words, I can talk about how to help our patients lose weight but only if the talk involves a specific weight-loss medication (which doesn't work very well anyway). The big catch is that the drug companies at these conferences "get to sponsor a speaker" by paying for a booth as well as the speaker's fees. So the speaker may only get a reasonable amount as discussed above, but the conference organizers may get $10,000 for the exhibit space. So the warping of the doctor's minds is not only the small amount paid to the speaker but the fact that in many of these conferences the ONLY speakers allowed to present are those associated with specific products.

I am disgusted by how much influence money has in medicine - not as much as in politics, but it is getting that way. There are now even for-profit medical schools, which I find appalling. Medical education is so expensive that no one can afford to go into primary care. Pediatrics is the least-paid medical specialty - and is what a pediatrician does any less valuable than what a cardiologist does? My GI doctor will get $1500 for spending 20 minutes shoving a fiberglass tube up my ass and looking around, but as a family physician I get about $90 for spending 30 minutes with a diabetic hypertensive patient trying to help them get their diseases under control. Why would a medical student consider primary care?

I am one of the few physician socialists you will ever find. I think there needs to be a "Medicare for all" program. No American should be denied health care. Medical schools should be paid for - but physicians should be required to provide four years of care in the public sector before entering private practice. This would allow physicians a more free choice of what kind of medicine they wished to practice. I am not against private practice and rewarding hard work - I like knowing that my favorite cardiologist gets paid well enough and doesn't mind coming in to do an emergency heart cath at 3 AM. On the other hand, I know a cardiologist who does a cath on everyone who walks in the door and makes enough money to live in a mansion and a few years ago spent over $2 million on his daughter's wedding.

In a visit to Cuba in 2010 to study their health care system, I was very impressed with how they organized their system to provide care for everyone. They have very few resources, but the structure of the system is very creative. I did a photo-essay of this at:
http://www.drblythe.com/Cuba/default.htm

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

When you say "our government made" you mean we the people made, since our government represents us. And what did they do with that money? They spent it on roads and bridges and highway safety and law enforcement and systems to study automobile safety and develop safety standards that have reduced highway fatalities dramatically over the past decades. I think it is money well spent, having been in other countries without such wonderful things.

As Thurgood Marshall said: "I enjoy paying my taxes, because with my taxes I am buying a civilized society".

bigwolf40 Loc: Effort, Pa.

And the price of fuel keeps going up. Yes we are being ripped off by big business of oil companies and in the pockets of the people in government of both parties....Rich

SBW

Right. That might be a good thought if so much of our tax money was not wasted on things the government has no business be involved in. Shrimp on a tread mill comes to mind.

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

Not really that good of a quarter OR that big.

This represents a meager 3.7% return on sales of $48.7 billion.

Apple, on the other hand, had revenues of $75.9 billion, and PAT of $18.4 billion...........a return on sales of 24.2%.

If we want to whine about profits, being ripped off, etc., perhaps turning an attuned eye towards Apple is in store? You know, the energy-sucking, dump polluting, off shore sourcing company treated almost like a deity by our media and citizens?

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

It would be nice to think our government does a good job (or even an adequate job) of spending our money, the numbers do make one question it all.

Examples:

The Total 2015 U.S. Budget - $3.8 trillion of which only $1.1 trillion is discretionary.

In this $3.8 trillion, only $85 billion goes to overall transportation. That's not really a lot of bridges or roads, and most of the safety gains have been made by private companies making a better product.

The biggest item in this $3.8 trillion? The military, perhaps? Nope!

Number #1 is Social Security at $1.28 trillion. (33.3% of the total)

Number #2 is Medicare & Health at $1.05 trillion (27.42% of the total)

Number #3 is the military at $609 billion (15.9% of the total)

I'm pretty sure the government is doing a mediocre-at-best job of spending our money and of representing us. Of course, as long as we allow life-long politicians, no term limits, and low voter turnout, we get what we deserve.

JOMO.

greymule Loc: Colorado

It might help that the Government gives it our taxpayer's money.

Exxon Pays a Lower Effective Tax Rate than the Average American

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s robust balance sheets have become a poster child for what The New York Times dubs the “paradox of the United States tax code.”
The company’s large 2010 profits allowed them to lead Fortune 500’s annual ranking of the nations’ most profitable firms for the eighth time in a row. But the oil giant’s average effective tax rates are roughly half the 35 percent tax rate that currently stands as the high-water mark for American corporations. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and other big oil companies continue to exploit tax loopholes for nearly $4 billion in subsidies each year. These subsidies include write-offs for drilling costs and a deduction for domestic production that was intended for manufacturers, not big oil producers.
Exxon Mobil registered an average 17.6 percent federal effective corporate tax rate on its annual earnings in the three years spanning 2008 to 2010. Its average domestic profits exceeded $6.8 billion. And as a 2011 Citizens for Tax Justice report points out:
Over the past two years, ExxonMobil reported $9,910 million in pretax U.S. profits. But it enjoyed so many tax subsidies that its federal income tax bill was only $39 million—a tax rate of only 0.4 percent.
Even when Exxon Mobil had a record profit of $40 billion in 2008 due to record oil prices it had only a 31 percent effective tax rate. That’s 13 percent lower than the maximum 35 percent despite being Exxon Mobil’s fifth year as the top corporate earner in Fortune 500’s annual listing. The company paid no taxes at all to the U.S. federal government in 2009 on its domestic profits of nearly $2.6 billion. It appears that they avoided the tax man that year by legally funneling their profits through wholly owned subsidiaries in countries like the Cayman Islands, and reinvesting their earnings overseas.
exxon's effective tax rate, 2008-2011
More striking still is the discrepancy between Exxon Mobil’s rates and those of most American breadwinners. The company’s effective rate of 17.6 percent is nearly 16 percent below the average individual federal tax rate, which according to the Congressional Budget Office was 20.4 percent as of 2007.
Individuals in the highest quintile pay an average tax rate just over 25 percent in the United States. Exxon Mobil, meanwhile, paid approximately the same effective tax rate as Americans in the fourth income quintile—which includes Americans earning from $62,000 to $100,000 a year.
Exxon Mobil’s accounting methods mask its relatively low effective tax rate. According to CNN Money the $3.1 billion in taxes the company claims to have paid since January 2011 includes both federal and state gasoline taxes—that are really paid by drivers—as well as employee payroll taxes.
Think Progress’s Pat Garofalo rightly observes that “Exxon is counting as part of its tax burden [taxes] that it simply does not pay,” making the exorbitant subsidies the company receives even more unnecessary.
These strategic maneuverings have not been lost on congressional Democrats. Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) introduced a bill to repeal at least one of these tax loopholes for large oil companies including Exxon. The legislation would result in $12 billion in revenue over 10 years by removing the Section 199 domestic manufacturing tax deduction.
House Republicans successfully blocked Democratic attempts to force a vote erasing this unnecessary oil subsidy on May 5 by passing a motion, 241-171, on two drilling bills.
But this promises to be only a temporary respite for Big Oil tax breaks. And a short one at that. The Senate is expected to vote next week on the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, legislation introduced by Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and other senators to address oil prices and subsidies for the five biggest oil companies.
Seth Hanlon, Director of Fiscal Reform at the Center for American Progress, explains that the glaring contrast between:
Today’s high gas prices and inflated profits have undermined the industry’s argument that their tax breaks benefit consumers.
Meanwhile, federal budget deficits have sharpened Congress’s focus on eliminating wasteful government spending—of which oil subsidies are one of the worst examples.
Right on cue, Rep. Max Baucus (D-MT), on the morning of May 6, called on executives from Exxon Mobil and its Big Five compatriots—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell—to stand before the Senate Finance Committee for a May 12 hearing on "Oil and Gas Tax Incentives and Rising Energy Prices." As of this writing, top-level representatives from each company have confirmed attendance, including ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson. He now finds himself with the difficult task of publicly rationalizing Exxon’s share of billions in subsidies, despite the company reaping enormous profits and paying relatively little in the way of taxes.

This article was from 2011, but still holds true today.

Corporations, especially large corporations, are not friends of the common man. Note that Republicans blocked the effort to remove a small portion of the subsidies for big oil. Republicans are not friends of the common man, despite a widespread mistaken belief that the Republicans are for the common man.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

Being the huge global company they are that's not a lot of money.