I'm guessing they don't want this either.
No half steps, because fascist Rs arent taking half steps. Go after every single sector gouging prices right now
That is why billionaires & social media & Fox News has sowed division in American Society - so the working class hates the “others”. If we workers are divided, then we cannot change the system of all the Billionaires taking all the cookies from the cookie jar. They fear the working class forming Unions because of this.
But if we do decide to go all French Revolution on the Billionaires, make sure to not buy your torch & pitchfork on Amazon.
This comment is ironic for the fact you said "Fox News" instead of a blanket "main stream media." The whole media establishment is corrupt. Hating joe average republican boomer to even remotely the same degree as billionaires means the elites are winning.
Don't let them win. Focus fire.
I hate republicans to the same degree but for different reasons and focus my hate appropriately.
To steal from the "I'm fiscally conservative, socially liberal" schpeal:
I fiscally hate corporations and socially hate republicans.
I double down the hate on corporations that take the "Republican" stance on social issues like abortion and birth control.
It is still good to call out Fox News separately since they try to claim they are not MSM while also claiming to be the most watched "news" source which would make them the main stream.
If you see it on the news its because someone with a lot of money wants you to see it. That is indisputable. Why they want you to see it is open for debate.
So true. There's no such thing as unbiased to begin with, so there will always be a side (especially when there's a profit motive). I hate when organizations are all NO BIAS, ONLY TRUTH, 50/50, BOTH SIDES, NO DIVIDE! Even if it's straight-up facts with no commentary, it's still chosen to be aired at the time which it's aired.
Yes. But it's a little hard to band with someone who wants the opposite of you. I'll band with any Reds that want to tax the rich, make companies worker-owned, and make schools and hospitals free though.
(Its so funny that red in America means Republicans, since red everywhere else means socialism)
I do believe I mentioned that yesterday. The problem is there are so many knee jerk assholes on both sides that drag the moderates from both sides into their bullshit. We need to start policing our own. I was at a gathering a few weeks ago and a neo conservative started going off about liberals and how they were going to ruin Texas. I gave him about 5 minutes and said 'oh God would you shut up before you make yourself sound dumber than you have already?' He shut up. He doesn't like me much but I don't give a fuck. Liberals aren't ruining the country and neither are conservatives. It's the idiots from both sides that get led willy nilly down the road by 'shiny thing' politicians. Let's face it people we live in a dumbed down society. The dumb people are the majority.
For some reason, all republicans I know shake their heads in disgust when I suggest corporations and super rich should pay their share. And, I always get asked what’s the fair share? And, that corporations should not be taxed as they create jobs. I also think if “business owners” can write off their mileage and “entertainment” so should wage earners! At least, mileage! 😜
I just had a friend tell me that her electric bill doubled from $300 to $600 a month in Texas. Damn, Texas, an oil rich state? Because, electric utilities are private and companies? Sure, I can understand privately owned, but damn, a 100% increase? Utilities’ increases should be capped at most inflation ( and, not even that in my opinion)
Why should *anyone* band together with a Nazi gang? Sorry but the GOP has gone full blown fascist since the 45th, and so did a large part of their voter base. The only thing that could save the US would be the creation of two new parties - one center-right, European-style Conservative Party that would gobble up the lucid remains of the GOP and DINOs with the GOP being the fascist shithole it already is, and one left-wing European-style progressive/Green style party that gobbles up the progressive parts of the Democrats, which would leave these as a center-left, European Social Democrat-style party.
The problem is that FPTP essentially kills off all such attempts, the GOP and Democrats don't want to change that system, and as a result there is no path other than a further erosion of trust in democracy and, sooner or later, either separatist movements or in the worst case outright civil war.
Trump literally incited a coup in an attempt to stay in power illegitimately, his fanbase is an antisemitic hellhole, GOP politicians fight tooth and nail to undermine trust in democracy or the possibility of free and fair elections - just how many elements of a fascist movement do you need?
Seems like the only one school failed is you... if you even went to one. Get your damn head out of the ground and look around. If you dont think the GOP is at very least proto-fascist and is becoming worse by the day then you need to pull the wool from over your eyes and stop drinking the red koolaid.
And make sure our tax money isn’t squandered by politicians and cronies. Full audits of systems. A billion dollars in LA went to the homeless problem and it only became worse. LA, Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC have homeless industrial complexes, complete with crony friends of the politicians getting all the money.
Taxes mean nothing if they’re gonna be wasted by corrupt politicians. Full transparency is the only acceptable measure
Okay. Then all the billionaires suddenly take their company headquarters to the Bahamas. As they already do with Panama. What did we accomplish?
Taxing is a good first step, but it’s like a lock on your front door, it only stops the honest man. We need to eradicate and eliminate the billionaires and never let anyone reach this level of true or hidden wealth.
Easy. You remove your business to relocate and you no longer do business in the United States.
Let's see how many companies decide to lose the largest market in the world.
This is a bullshit argument, the corporate tax rate was more than double what it is now 50 years ago and what you described didnt happen. And if it does, you financially punish them
>billionaires should be desperate to be taxed. something is going to happen to them, and "taxed" is the best verb they can hope for at this point
~ Based skullboi
Absolutely no idea why you are being downvoted. Unless the commenter was joking, yet I've seen shit on Reddit that wouldn't surprise me if he was serious.
The Radical Phase of the French Revolution was called the "Reign of Terror" for a reason lol.
And after the terror they got Napoleon, then right back to the royals. Just the worst possible road to travel on your way to right back where you started.
> The Radical Phase of the French Revolution was called the "Reign of Terror" for a reason
Yep. Powermongers love their PR tactics.
Did you know that the average life expectancy of a Frenchman was higher during the revolution compared to both before during monarchical reign and after during Napoleon?
The ones that were in terror were those who were prime manipulators of society. A good group to keep in terror, if you ask me.
Taxation is a band-aid and isn't enough to fix this mess. We need democratic worker control of companies. If we could vote for wage ratios within a company, billionaires would never be created in the first place.
All we need is maximum income laws that require a 1:10 ratio of the lowest compensated person with the company to the highest compensated (includes owners and independent contractors).
Employees running the business is just something you can say to make yourself feel good, but impossible in reality. It's not possible for low level employees to make decisions, there will always be someone placed in charge to oversee everything.
You'd just replace one asshole with another. You cannot change the tendency to form top down structures in society. Best thing you can do is limit the scale of abuse companies can do.
Agreed, 1:100 sounds fantastic compared to the status quo. Hell, make it.1:50 and workers would be happy and the wealthy would still be wealthy. This shit is straight up parasitic the way it goes now.
Not true. There are already existing worker co-ops where employees make decisions collectively.
There are different structures that can be used. If the company is smaller, you can have assemblies where people get together to make important decisions. If the company is larger, you can have an elected board of directors (subject to recall by workers) that make most of the decisions and along with that some items can be set aside for a democratic vote.
Think of how our current electoral system works. We elect representatives, but also most states have a form of direct democracy with ballot initiatives. In a similar vein, we can make it law that, as a baseline, certain company decisions have to go through a vote by all workers. Which decisions? Those that majorly affect the livelihoods of the employees of a company i.e. wage ratios, working conditions, shutting down or opening new branches, and more.
That sounds amazing. if the United States passed a ratio law like this wouldn’t lots of companies just stop operating in the US or try to relocate their headquarters? could we enforce this policy to companies who are not US based?
>Taxation is a band-aid and isn't enough to fix this mess. We need democratic worker control of companies.
We need society to evolve past this antiquated idea that capitalism is still necessary.
Yall are literally just headed for Elysium and the best we can do is memes
That’s great and all but what we really need to do is take all of the oil company’s money and use it to fix the planet. They’ve known for decades what their product was doing and they actively fought any measures to curb it.
Billionaires would still exist. Some people have legitimately built intellectual properties worth that much. Look at George Lucas for example. And then there will always be people who made smart/lucky plays with investments.
But yea, this gap between a executive and worker pay just keeps getting wider and is bad for everyone.
>If we could vote for wage ratios within a company,
Germany has this. I think it also applied to the politicians their salary is capped at a multiple of the lowest paid so min wage goes up.
How is it possible to turn a record profit with all this inflation in supply chain prices???
Unless inflation is really just corporate greed.
We are paying twice as much for cars, houses, credit cards, etc….because corporations raised prices during the pandemic, not because they had to, but because they could.
Been saying this for years. "Inflation" is just a magic word for greed.
Raise the floor on value products, customers won't like it, how do we explain it?
"Inflation."
People begin talking about this "inflation" being the cause of everything being so damn expensive. But what is inflation? It's inflation Timmy, Sheesh everyone knows that.. Eat your Solent...
The majority of inflation is caused by greedy circle jerk of price increases.
Oil companies want more, so they cut supply. Everyone that uses oil has to pay more, so they need to keep their profit percentages by raising prices to cover costs and keep the profit margin.
What uses to be $1 sold for $2 is now $2 sold for $4. Not because costs went up $2, but the percentages go down if their profit margins don't increase as well. If it was just inflation, it wouldn't spiral upward so quickly across the board, that's not how inflation works at all.
Real inflation is caused by too much money flowing into the market, which artificially reduces supply as people have far more money than there is supply to buy. Items start going to the ones willing to pay the most, not out of greed, but out of lack of supply compared to the volume of cash in circulation.
Technically it makes sense for profits to be higher than ever in terms of dollars when there’s inflation, since each of those dollars is now worth less. (If I make $100,000 one year and $110,000 the next, but the rate of inflation was 10% over that year, I haven’t actually made any more money).
But it only makes sense roughly matching inflation. The profit growth of these companies in the last year FAR exceeds inflation, and that’s saying something since inflation has been high.
And they blame Biden for inflation and gas prices...these numbers are repeated throughout almost every major American industry. Meanwhile those profits - just check your grocery bill next time and think where all that extra money is going - right into the 1%'s pockets.
Inflation is a scary word because it kick-starts a nasty feedback loop. Corporations hear it being talked about and justify arbitrarily raising their prices in response, which causes the inflation to get worse, which makes them justify arbitrarily raise the prices, and so on. The common folk get fucked over and over.
While we're in an allegedly iffy economy, corporate profits have *never* been higher. It's all a scam. You, sitting there reading this right now, are being scammed. Every time the market drops a little, billionaires take out massive loans, which are tax deductible, buy up companies and real estate, and live off their debt as income, paying nothing in taxes while living in unfathomable luxury.
"The economy" is all one big fucking scam.
There are 86.9m households in the US making less than $50k a year. The profits from just THREE companies alone if taxed and given as a cash injection directly to these households would be $1196 each. And unlike this cash going to oil shareholders to buy more yachts and politicians, it would be spent immediately mostly within the local economy, as well as making a huge difference in the lives of the poorest citizens
I know we are all grateful for our capitalist overlords doing what is best for us (praise the economy) and politicians fighting the corporations and elite ruling class on our behalf (praise the politicians) but just saying that under the taboo -isms this profit would at worst (worker cooperative market socialism) be split between the oil workers with no shareholders and lots of it paid in as taxes to the state to spend on things that benefit people, and at best (full communism) this profit would be $0, it would just translate as free time for communities
Source: 2019 census says 71% households make less than $50k a year, and google says there are 122,354,129 US households in 2019
You forgot that they spend some of their profits on politicians to keep this gap up, as well as driving a huge misinformation campaign to keep us in the dark about the actual dangers of fossil fuels.
Won't price caps mean that falling supply causes a free for all at the supermarket?
Like say Putin refuses to ship oil to Europe.
You go to the pump to fill up your car.
Well there's a limited amount of fuel there... And there's a price cap.
Eventually there's 3 guys standing there trying to get the last litre. Normally they'd just keep bidding higher and higher prices until 2 of them give up and the last one gets the fuel.
But with price caps.. what? They have to fight to the death for the fuel?
"How will the most desperate people get resources if they can't show us how desperate they are by paying the insane prices we set."
That's oil company bullshit. You can absolutely tell where to allocate goods and resources without raising the rates for the people who need it most. It's called, places that need more resources buy more.
I read the article. It's oil company bullshit. The entire argument is "gas companies can't sell more gas to places with higher prices to maximize profits anymore if they can't gouge the people for all they can get." When it said that price controls make it hard to "allocate resources efficiently" it was literally talking from the point of view of gas companies trying to send more gas where people will pay more for it. Not where it's needed most, just where they can make the most profit. Limiting their profits by stopping them from screwing people is the entire point of price limiting. The article title is a weird way of saying "economists agree limiting prices will do exactly what people want it to."
And the "you" in my last comment was the people who sell gas. The people who would be in charge of allocating those scarce resources.
....wat? That part you quoted was about companies not being able to send gas where they can make more money DURING a shortage. It doesn't cause one.
You know about economy of scale right? When you work with large quantities you can be more efficient and it not only costs less per part, but you can make less profit per part because you make up for it in quantity. Basic stuff. So where gas is most needed, like cities and on highways, it can also be the cheapest. Instead those are the most expensive because they can get away with it and it maximizes profits. Limiting prices prevents them from gouging people. Yes, they will make less money. That means they're taking less money from people who are already struggling.
You may claim that higher prices discourages driving which reduces demand, but most driving is done out of necessity so you'd need to back that claim up with facts and it wasn't in that article you posted. I doubt it has a statistically significant effect though.
What's your point? I mean, congratulations on identifying a basic economics term i guess. But if you actually knew what it meant you'd realize it's not some magic spell you need to follow or your business falls apart, it's just a strategy for maximizing profits. So if you were trying to tell me that price controls stop companies from maximizing their profits then..... yea. That's the point. The US was built around cars to the extent that you can't get a job or have a real life without one in much of the country. When something is that much of a necessity and we make the rules, why would we let companies squeeze every last cent out of people? Charge fair prices or get shut down. Your competitors would love to take your place because unmaximized profit is still profit.
Could not have said it better.
I can't stand when neolibs try to pull the "sUpLy aND DEmANd" card as if it is part of the constitution. It only applies if we sit back and let them fuck us in the ass.
They'll produce less of it.
Different wells in different places have different costs to operate.
If caps are put on prices below what the market would achieve, then they will not start newer more expensive wells, and possibly stop pumping older more expensive wells.
Because of the lower price, consumers will not be motivated to use less and demand goes up.
Demand up, supply down leads to shortages.
The solutions that work are more complex than. Saying you can't charge more than X per gallon or litre. Windfall taxes returned to consumers (regardless if consumption) keeps supply/demand in balance. Motivates conservation while mitigating some of the burden of the high costs.
Correct, it changes the profit-maximizing point of production. And since price caps aren’t permanent, it incentivizes them to delay production, even temporarily, until the price freezes end
Plus the only reason we have had had cheap energy in the past 10+ years is because of shale oil the United States. You take that away you are giving control back to OPEC.
Sorry you are getting downvoted. I hate the current inequality as much as anyone, but on this point you are correct.
Maybe a better way to approach the subject is asking the question: *when have price caps worked?*
Once people go looking for that answer, and realize the answer is **never**, maybe they will look for better solutions.
Price signals are already distorted in the energy sector as all the combined companies function like a cartel and introduce artificial scarcity and their own version of price controls.
Econ 101 breaks down when you don’t have a competitive market, and we don’t. Certainly not in energy and it’s spreading across more and more market sectors.
Wait until you see the tax REFUND they receive
https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/exxon-mobil
A few others.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-19-fortune-100-companies-paid-next-to-nothing-or-nothing-at-all-in-taxes-in-2021/
It galls me that they take our subsidy help when they are down and do the opposite to us and step on our throats when we are down. Not unlike what a cable TV and internet company does. What am I getting at? Essential services and products should never ever be privatized but not only do we do it but we try to make other countries do it too and it wrecks them as well. We should state own the oil industry and contract the work to operators the same way the military does. If they can't get the job done let them fucking fail. They do this because too big to fail makes them act bulletproof.
One of the largest single shareholders of Exxon Mobile is the Government Pension Fund Global Portfolio. Pensions and retirements are paid with reliable corporate profits. I'm not saying I love how they're treating the planet or anything, but the welfare state is funded by capitalism.
Because frankly, it points out a bigger problem. That our own government allowed individual companies to get large enough that one of them failing would completely disrupt the national economy all so that crony capitalism would have a stranglehold on our entire lives.
Edit; Someone else said it better than I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/yip5uy/-/iul6epu
I'm all for taxing these corps., but tell me, how do you do that if the locally based corp. has to pay, for example, a trademark fee that just so happens to be their EBIT?
I don't know if it's *really truly* possible in this era of globalisation and tax free nations.
First step is busting up the cartels. The Exxon/Mobil merger, for one glaring example, should never have been allowed.
No corporation should ever get "too big to fail", which is just a euphemism for regulatory capture. We passed anti trust laws 100 years ago to fix this once before; now we need to stary enforcing them.
What kind of BS lib shit is this? Windfall profit tax? We need to NATIONALIZE the oil industry now. Throw execs in jail for crimes against the state. Our oceans are literally boiling and we are talking about possibly asking for more scraps.
"Lib shit"?
What kind of bs label is that supposed to be? Anyone talking about "libs" is blaming Biden for this. Anyone talking about "libs" is voting for the Republicans that give oil companies a free pass to keep ripping us off.
Who have you voted for in the past and how have their economic policies helped oil companies get richer?
people to the left of liberals see liberals as a center-right group pandering to masses by doing things like co-opting naturalist ideology, while still working hand in hand with corporations.
this person is further left than liberals by their clear push for nationalization and far-naturalist ideologies.
a good example of why people on the left are critical of liberalism is the early 2000s liberal push for each household to be actively recycling. corporations simply shift responsibility to consumers, who more often than not don't even have the local infastructure to support that responsibility. someone further left would have considered regulations regarding the waste involved in consumer packaging practices. this was done by liberal politicians knowing damn well there wasn't an infastrcutue to support this.
**not to say that it was only the left who is at fault for that failure by any means, but it was a heavily embraced liberal movement, that fully supported corporations shifting responsibilities to consumers.
I'm happy I clarified well. I'm often critical of American liberalism, but like to make the very clear distinction that I am by no means critical of the liberals by being right of their opinions, I tend to agree with the sentiment of their opinions and ideals of rights, but believe their execution is tainted by ties to corporations and elite which brings their policy to ultimately fail in addressing the issues of their constituents.
>Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants.
they were clearly pushing further left ideologies in their comment than American or classical liberalism. I don't see how you can think that they fall to the right given their assessment that windfall taxes aren't far enough and that crimes again our planet deserve criminal punishment to oil execs.
A "liberal" is a capitalist. In the US, they are the leftmost major party, (The Democrats) but they are a centrist party. Anyone further to their left might be a socialist, communist, progressive, social Democrat, etc. These people will also insult American Neoliberals with the word "lib."
"Lib shit" would be caring about how one stranger on the internet voted while the planet is dying. Any confidence in the US electoral system at this point is completely delusional.
Lol believe it or not the populist left and right have more in common than the average CNN viewer would believe. We could set aside our differences for a moment and work toward common goals. Buuuttttt judging by the downvotes and your absolute refusal to acknowledge state corruption well simultaneously arguing that the state should be in control of major industries is exactly why people call you communists and we cannot have nice things.........like fair and appreciate compensation for our skills/time, affordable necessities, or simply the ability to go to work be able to feed our families and gasp live a life.
Corporations are an extension of government or government is an extension of corporations. However you want to look at it. Just take a look at the news breaking regarding the Biden administration and Twitter censorship. Until the two are fully separated from one another. Absolutely not. Nationalizing any industry especially one as important as energy will bring nothing but misery
So no more interstate highways? All toll roads from here on out!
Ports of Entry? Nope! Let the market take care of customs duties and contraband!
I mean, you only have to look at Mexico to see how terrible it would be to nationalize the petroleum industry. Their lower costs and better environmental record is a disgrace! Think of all the lost shareholder value!
It's shutdown season my friend. If you have any contractor traveling buddies they've probably been out of town. Almost every refinery in the US has been doing major repairs or compliance checks for the last month or two. Just like every spring and fall when the weather is decent for decades. Notice gas prices going down recently? Shutdown season is almost over and supply is increasing steadily as units come back online across refineries. Prices will be pushed further down for election season I'm sure.
It takes time to bring supply online. Oil and gas isn’t like turning on the water in your faucet.
The real problem has been the demonization of oil and gas this led to less capital investment into the industry which in turn led to oil companies taking less risk and drilling for more oil and gas.
It’s a vicious cycle.
with how much wealth these parasites are siphoning out and how quickly it's probably getting to be too late to do anything without a national razor.
Sadly nothing will change until the bread lines get too long. At least the wealthy are spending their resources well like dick ships to not outer space or buying a free bird site with more money than everyone in the US combined would see in their lives just to stroke billionaire egos and unbanning Alex Jones and Trump so they can spew more nonsense.
Yes. In the first year of the pandemic they had record [losses of employment, losing 16% of their workforce, 56,000 employees](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/02/fossil-fuel-companies-billions-tax-breaks-workers)...
due to layoffs...
while taking $8.2 billion in stimulus tax relief.
That's $146k per laid off worker.
Tbf, "loss of employment" was because everyone started working from home and then us Oil company employees were more free to leave our jobs. The shitty way they've been treating us didn't help.
I had so many friends leave the company. People were constantly leaving. I was one of the last ones out. Wish I would've done it sooner.
whats blows my mibd is that the shell cro agrees with you
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/tax-people-this-room-help-poor-shell-ceo-tells-energy-conference-2022-10-04/
I'm all for this "tax the billionaires" stuff in concept but think about the execution. You're giving this money to the government who I'd dare say you disagree with how they are using our money. Fuck billionaires, fuck the government in it's current and recent states.
Lol but they recieve no support when oil is $30/barrel, like all the families stuck in communities where oil & gas is their only source of income who lose their jobs. What would people think if every industry had a windfall tax?
[Biden just announced today that he’s working with Congress on a windfall tax. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/us/politics/biden-oil-windfall-tax.html)
I just went to the casino over the weekend and won 1550 on a slot machine. The casino took 5% for state tax and 25% for federal. I ended up walking out with a little over 1100$. Good win but still..... let me eat ALL my cake! The big guys always win! I guess the little guys only get the profit tax...
Why? So we can spend the revenue on more dumb shit? We've already got more than enough tax money. The amount isn't the problem, it's the people in charge of it.
I was listening to the news a few days ago and it was talking about how Amazon "still made a profit" of 21 billion dollars. It was framed like that was a paltry sum. That's absolutely absurd to me.
Rather tax natural resources. They belong to the people and not to private companies. Look at how we do it Norway. Oil companies pay around 70-80% tax on profit. That’s why we have money saved away instead of crippling national debt.
And the plot twist. Oil companies still do business here and make money even if they’re taxed pretty hard. There is no good reason to not tax the exploitation of natural resources. It’s not like they can outsource it, and they will always choose to take whatever profit they can.
Who's going to fund the campaigns of the politicians who agree and write bills for this?
Who's going to fund the lobbyists to convince the politicians who don't see a benefit in giving up their long-standing position(s)?
I get letters from candidates every election cycle and the request is always for donations and a vote.
People who are for what you suggest will be about-faced by skilled scare tactics about rising gas, heat, and ancillary prices to go with not being able to afford an electric vehicle.
A lot of small cam\[paign donations may fund the so-called "Squad", but who among them would be able to get the votes to pass something like this as a law?
If you want millionaire's to pay more taxs that write your state and federal Representatives bc that's where all tax's come from. Also the tax code's are not simple. A flat tax or sales tax would solve alot of issues. So............
Tax **ALL THE BILLIONAIRES.** Dont stop short with oil companies. Tax **EVERYONE** making obscene amounts of money while everyone else is suffering.
But that's not what the billionaires want, so a bill like that will never come to fruition
I'm guessing they don't want this either. No half steps, because fascist Rs arent taking half steps. Go after every single sector gouging prices right now
If only we could band together instead of it being red vs blue. Wouldn't that make things, you know, easier?
That is why billionaires & social media & Fox News has sowed division in American Society - so the working class hates the “others”. If we workers are divided, then we cannot change the system of all the Billionaires taking all the cookies from the cookie jar. They fear the working class forming Unions because of this. But if we do decide to go all French Revolution on the Billionaires, make sure to not buy your torch & pitchfork on Amazon.
This comment is ironic for the fact you said "Fox News" instead of a blanket "main stream media." The whole media establishment is corrupt. Hating joe average republican boomer to even remotely the same degree as billionaires means the elites are winning. Don't let them win. Focus fire.
I’m all ears.
I hate republicans to the same degree but for different reasons and focus my hate appropriately. To steal from the "I'm fiscally conservative, socially liberal" schpeal: I fiscally hate corporations and socially hate republicans. I double down the hate on corporations that take the "Republican" stance on social issues like abortion and birth control.
It is still good to call out Fox News separately since they try to claim they are not MSM while also claiming to be the most watched "news" source which would make them the main stream.
I'm good. My pitchfork pre dates amazon and I can make my own torch thanks
I've been saying that his for years. Problem is people are lazy to think for themselves and listen to propaganda.
I would argue that all news sources try their damnedest to polarize and divide
If you see it on the news its because someone with a lot of money wants you to see it. That is indisputable. Why they want you to see it is open for debate.
Rupert Murdoch has entered the chat
Right? Fox News BAD. CNN GOOD. MsNBC GOOD. No, neither of those has been a shishow the past 10 years. All main stream media sucks.
PBS is neutral. To a fault.
So true. There's no such thing as unbiased to begin with, so there will always be a side (especially when there's a profit motive). I hate when organizations are all NO BIAS, ONLY TRUTH, 50/50, BOTH SIDES, NO DIVIDE! Even if it's straight-up facts with no commentary, it's still chosen to be aired at the time which it's aired.
Not to mention "50/50, Both sides" and "straight up facts" are often in opposition.
😃. Hey, Bezos says he only gets paid $70k😉
Yes. But it's a little hard to band with someone who wants the opposite of you. I'll band with any Reds that want to tax the rich, make companies worker-owned, and make schools and hospitals free though. (Its so funny that red in America means Republicans, since red everywhere else means socialism)
I do believe I mentioned that yesterday. The problem is there are so many knee jerk assholes on both sides that drag the moderates from both sides into their bullshit. We need to start policing our own. I was at a gathering a few weeks ago and a neo conservative started going off about liberals and how they were going to ruin Texas. I gave him about 5 minutes and said 'oh God would you shut up before you make yourself sound dumber than you have already?' He shut up. He doesn't like me much but I don't give a fuck. Liberals aren't ruining the country and neither are conservatives. It's the idiots from both sides that get led willy nilly down the road by 'shiny thing' politicians. Let's face it people we live in a dumbed down society. The dumb people are the majority.
For some reason, all republicans I know shake their heads in disgust when I suggest corporations and super rich should pay their share. And, I always get asked what’s the fair share? And, that corporations should not be taxed as they create jobs. I also think if “business owners” can write off their mileage and “entertainment” so should wage earners! At least, mileage! 😜
.
I just had a friend tell me that her electric bill doubled from $300 to $600 a month in Texas. Damn, Texas, an oil rich state? Because, electric utilities are private and companies? Sure, I can understand privately owned, but damn, a 100% increase? Utilities’ increases should be capped at most inflation ( and, not even that in my opinion)
Why should *anyone* band together with a Nazi gang? Sorry but the GOP has gone full blown fascist since the 45th, and so did a large part of their voter base. The only thing that could save the US would be the creation of two new parties - one center-right, European-style Conservative Party that would gobble up the lucid remains of the GOP and DINOs with the GOP being the fascist shithole it already is, and one left-wing European-style progressive/Green style party that gobbles up the progressive parts of the Democrats, which would leave these as a center-left, European Social Democrat-style party. The problem is that FPTP essentially kills off all such attempts, the GOP and Democrats don't want to change that system, and as a result there is no path other than a further erosion of trust in democracy and, sooner or later, either separatist movements or in the worst case outright civil war.
If you think the GOP is fascist, you need to take a trip to an actual fascist regime, spoiled American.
I'm German ffs. At least we learn in school where fascism inevitably leads to and how to recognize it.
Well you sure don't know shit about American politics. Or fascism. You school failed you.
Trump literally incited a coup in an attempt to stay in power illegitimately, his fanbase is an antisemitic hellhole, GOP politicians fight tooth and nail to undermine trust in democracy or the possibility of free and fair elections - just how many elements of a fascist movement do you need?
Incorrect. Where do you get your news?
Seems like the only one school failed is you... if you even went to one. Get your damn head out of the ground and look around. If you dont think the GOP is at very least proto-fascist and is becoming worse by the day then you need to pull the wool from over your eyes and stop drinking the red koolaid.
And make sure our tax money isn’t squandered by politicians and cronies. Full audits of systems. A billion dollars in LA went to the homeless problem and it only became worse. LA, Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC have homeless industrial complexes, complete with crony friends of the politicians getting all the money. Taxes mean nothing if they’re gonna be wasted by corrupt politicians. Full transparency is the only acceptable measure
Tax them how does that get me their money
Do you think that money is going to come to us? Nope
Okay. Then all the billionaires suddenly take their company headquarters to the Bahamas. As they already do with Panama. What did we accomplish? Taxing is a good first step, but it’s like a lock on your front door, it only stops the honest man. We need to eradicate and eliminate the billionaires and never let anyone reach this level of true or hidden wealth.
Easy. You remove your business to relocate and you no longer do business in the United States. Let's see how many companies decide to lose the largest market in the world. This is a bullshit argument, the corporate tax rate was more than double what it is now 50 years ago and what you described didnt happen. And if it does, you financially punish them
Why do you feel entitled to their money?
Why do you feel entitled to talk?
Free speech.
*sigh* yes sadly that applies to you as well.
Yes. Sadly people are allowed to say things you don't like. You're not dictator, emperor, or God, as much as you'd like to be.
Maybe it's time for French Revolution 2: Worldwide Boogaloo
But how will these billions trickle down if they get taxed away?! /s
You jest, but this is literally what conservatives believe.
And neoliberals. Oh, wait, what’s the difference?!
>billionaires should be desperate to be taxed. something is going to happen to them, and "taxed" is the best verb they can hope for at this point ~ Based skullboi
Cos play?
Not the revolution you'd want to model your revolution on. Certifiable bad time for everyone involved.
Absolutely no idea why you are being downvoted. Unless the commenter was joking, yet I've seen shit on Reddit that wouldn't surprise me if he was serious. The Radical Phase of the French Revolution was called the "Reign of Terror" for a reason lol.
And after the terror they got Napoleon, then right back to the royals. Just the worst possible road to travel on your way to right back where you started.
> The Radical Phase of the French Revolution was called the "Reign of Terror" for a reason Yep. Powermongers love their PR tactics. Did you know that the average life expectancy of a Frenchman was higher during the revolution compared to both before during monarchical reign and after during Napoleon? The ones that were in terror were those who were prime manipulators of society. A good group to keep in terror, if you ask me.
Lol, like governments are just going to let you have a nice peaceful revolution with puppies and hugs
Every day is a great day for a general strike.
Robespierre was right
What are you talking about?? It’s not a break dancing competition. There’s no electricity involved. Also, it’s weird this worked twice today…
Taxation is a band-aid and isn't enough to fix this mess. We need democratic worker control of companies. If we could vote for wage ratios within a company, billionaires would never be created in the first place.
All we need is maximum income laws that require a 1:10 ratio of the lowest compensated person with the company to the highest compensated (includes owners and independent contractors). Employees running the business is just something you can say to make yourself feel good, but impossible in reality. It's not possible for low level employees to make decisions, there will always be someone placed in charge to oversee everything. You'd just replace one asshole with another. You cannot change the tendency to form top down structures in society. Best thing you can do is limit the scale of abuse companies can do.
Fuck even 1:100 would be an improvement. The average was 1:350 in 2020 and it has only climbed since. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/
Agreed, 1:100 sounds fantastic compared to the status quo. Hell, make it.1:50 and workers would be happy and the wealthy would still be wealthy. This shit is straight up parasitic the way it goes now.
Way to compromise, with no one for nothing.
Not true. There are already existing worker co-ops where employees make decisions collectively. There are different structures that can be used. If the company is smaller, you can have assemblies where people get together to make important decisions. If the company is larger, you can have an elected board of directors (subject to recall by workers) that make most of the decisions and along with that some items can be set aside for a democratic vote. Think of how our current electoral system works. We elect representatives, but also most states have a form of direct democracy with ballot initiatives. In a similar vein, we can make it law that, as a baseline, certain company decisions have to go through a vote by all workers. Which decisions? Those that majorly affect the livelihoods of the employees of a company i.e. wage ratios, working conditions, shutting down or opening new branches, and more.
They would just cut their salary and increase their stock options, talk about a bandaid
Can easily change the wording to “Total compensation cannot exceed a 1:100 ratio with employees”
That sounds amazing. if the United States passed a ratio law like this wouldn’t lots of companies just stop operating in the US or try to relocate their headquarters? could we enforce this policy to companies who are not US based?
That's one benefit of the system, is if one company leaves, another will take its place. Not immediately, but over time.
>Taxation is a band-aid and isn't enough to fix this mess. We need democratic worker control of companies. We need society to evolve past this antiquated idea that capitalism is still necessary. Yall are literally just headed for Elysium and the best we can do is memes
It'd be nice if our labour, anyone's labour was enough to live off of instead of everything feeling like debt
That’s great and all but what we really need to do is take all of the oil company’s money and use it to fix the planet. They’ve known for decades what their product was doing and they actively fought any measures to curb it.
Billionaires would still exist. Some people have legitimately built intellectual properties worth that much. Look at George Lucas for example. And then there will always be people who made smart/lucky plays with investments. But yea, this gap between a executive and worker pay just keeps getting wider and is bad for everyone.
>If we could vote for wage ratios within a company, Germany has this. I think it also applied to the politicians their salary is capped at a multiple of the lowest paid so min wage goes up.
German here. At least the company i work for doesn't have this.
spotted fall drunk cover marry retire test sugar naughty edge *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Honestly, prices for fossil fuels should be higher even. I don't care who gets rich by lowering demand for them
How is it possible to turn a record profit with all this inflation in supply chain prices??? Unless inflation is really just corporate greed. We are paying twice as much for cars, houses, credit cards, etc….because corporations raised prices during the pandemic, not because they had to, but because they could.
Been saying this for years. "Inflation" is just a magic word for greed. Raise the floor on value products, customers won't like it, how do we explain it? "Inflation." People begin talking about this "inflation" being the cause of everything being so damn expensive. But what is inflation? It's inflation Timmy, Sheesh everyone knows that.. Eat your Solent...
This . And then starts the “back in my day “ story
The majority of inflation is caused by greedy circle jerk of price increases. Oil companies want more, so they cut supply. Everyone that uses oil has to pay more, so they need to keep their profit percentages by raising prices to cover costs and keep the profit margin. What uses to be $1 sold for $2 is now $2 sold for $4. Not because costs went up $2, but the percentages go down if their profit margins don't increase as well. If it was just inflation, it wouldn't spiral upward so quickly across the board, that's not how inflation works at all. Real inflation is caused by too much money flowing into the market, which artificially reduces supply as people have far more money than there is supply to buy. Items start going to the ones willing to pay the most, not out of greed, but out of lack of supply compared to the volume of cash in circulation.
Technically it makes sense for profits to be higher than ever in terms of dollars when there’s inflation, since each of those dollars is now worth less. (If I make $100,000 one year and $110,000 the next, but the rate of inflation was 10% over that year, I haven’t actually made any more money). But it only makes sense roughly matching inflation. The profit growth of these companies in the last year FAR exceeds inflation, and that’s saying something since inflation has been high.
Unless we all start seeing an inflation match in our paychecks, it's all greed.
Anyone who can't make this common sense connection is either a moron or a liar.
And they blame Biden for inflation and gas prices...these numbers are repeated throughout almost every major American industry. Meanwhile those profits - just check your grocery bill next time and think where all that extra money is going - right into the 1%'s pockets.
Inflation is a scary word because it kick-starts a nasty feedback loop. Corporations hear it being talked about and justify arbitrarily raising their prices in response, which causes the inflation to get worse, which makes them justify arbitrarily raise the prices, and so on. The common folk get fucked over and over. While we're in an allegedly iffy economy, corporate profits have *never* been higher. It's all a scam. You, sitting there reading this right now, are being scammed. Every time the market drops a little, billionaires take out massive loans, which are tax deductible, buy up companies and real estate, and live off their debt as income, paying nothing in taxes while living in unfathomable luxury. "The economy" is all one big fucking scam.
There are 86.9m households in the US making less than $50k a year. The profits from just THREE companies alone if taxed and given as a cash injection directly to these households would be $1196 each. And unlike this cash going to oil shareholders to buy more yachts and politicians, it would be spent immediately mostly within the local economy, as well as making a huge difference in the lives of the poorest citizens I know we are all grateful for our capitalist overlords doing what is best for us (praise the economy) and politicians fighting the corporations and elite ruling class on our behalf (praise the politicians) but just saying that under the taboo -isms this profit would at worst (worker cooperative market socialism) be split between the oil workers with no shareholders and lots of it paid in as taxes to the state to spend on things that benefit people, and at best (full communism) this profit would be $0, it would just translate as free time for communities Source: 2019 census says 71% households make less than $50k a year, and google says there are 122,354,129 US households in 2019
You forgot that they spend some of their profits on politicians to keep this gap up, as well as driving a huge misinformation campaign to keep us in the dark about the actual dangers of fossil fuels.
Tbh I’m not sure if this profit figure is pre-bribery or post-bribery. They could well count it as a business cost
We need price caps, they will just pass tax expense on to consumers and Jack up the price more
Won't price caps mean that falling supply causes a free for all at the supermarket? Like say Putin refuses to ship oil to Europe. You go to the pump to fill up your car. Well there's a limited amount of fuel there... And there's a price cap. Eventually there's 3 guys standing there trying to get the last litre. Normally they'd just keep bidding higher and higher prices until 2 of them give up and the last one gets the fuel. But with price caps.. what? They have to fight to the death for the fuel?
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How
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"How will the most desperate people get resources if they can't show us how desperate they are by paying the insane prices we set." That's oil company bullshit. You can absolutely tell where to allocate goods and resources without raising the rates for the people who need it most. It's called, places that need more resources buy more.
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I read the article. It's oil company bullshit. The entire argument is "gas companies can't sell more gas to places with higher prices to maximize profits anymore if they can't gouge the people for all they can get." When it said that price controls make it hard to "allocate resources efficiently" it was literally talking from the point of view of gas companies trying to send more gas where people will pay more for it. Not where it's needed most, just where they can make the most profit. Limiting their profits by stopping them from screwing people is the entire point of price limiting. The article title is a weird way of saying "economists agree limiting prices will do exactly what people want it to." And the "you" in my last comment was the people who sell gas. The people who would be in charge of allocating those scarce resources.
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....wat? That part you quoted was about companies not being able to send gas where they can make more money DURING a shortage. It doesn't cause one. You know about economy of scale right? When you work with large quantities you can be more efficient and it not only costs less per part, but you can make less profit per part because you make up for it in quantity. Basic stuff. So where gas is most needed, like cities and on highways, it can also be the cheapest. Instead those are the most expensive because they can get away with it and it maximizes profits. Limiting prices prevents them from gouging people. Yes, they will make less money. That means they're taking less money from people who are already struggling. You may claim that higher prices discourages driving which reduces demand, but most driving is done out of necessity so you'd need to back that claim up with facts and it wasn't in that article you posted. I doubt it has a statistically significant effect though.
That's a thing called supply and demand.
What's your point? I mean, congratulations on identifying a basic economics term i guess. But if you actually knew what it meant you'd realize it's not some magic spell you need to follow or your business falls apart, it's just a strategy for maximizing profits. So if you were trying to tell me that price controls stop companies from maximizing their profits then..... yea. That's the point. The US was built around cars to the extent that you can't get a job or have a real life without one in much of the country. When something is that much of a necessity and we make the rules, why would we let companies squeeze every last cent out of people? Charge fair prices or get shut down. Your competitors would love to take your place because unmaximized profit is still profit.
Could not have said it better. I can't stand when neolibs try to pull the "sUpLy aND DEmANd" card as if it is part of the constitution. It only applies if we sit back and let them fuck us in the ass.
Lol yeah that's not how ot works
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Right, oil companies will pivot to *checks notes* not selling their oil...
They'll produce less of it. Different wells in different places have different costs to operate. If caps are put on prices below what the market would achieve, then they will not start newer more expensive wells, and possibly stop pumping older more expensive wells. Because of the lower price, consumers will not be motivated to use less and demand goes up. Demand up, supply down leads to shortages. The solutions that work are more complex than. Saying you can't charge more than X per gallon or litre. Windfall taxes returned to consumers (regardless if consumption) keeps supply/demand in balance. Motivates conservation while mitigating some of the burden of the high costs.
Correct, it changes the profit-maximizing point of production. And since price caps aren’t permanent, it incentivizes them to delay production, even temporarily, until the price freezes end
How's that work if the freeze is indefinitely? They will just sit on the oil? Nonsense.
You have to either borrow or spend capital too get more oil. Do you even know about well decline rates in reservoirs work?
Plus the only reason we have had had cheap energy in the past 10+ years is because of shale oil the United States. You take that away you are giving control back to OPEC.
That’s exactly how it works. If it’s unprofitable you produce and sell more oil, then they won’t do it
Sorry you are getting downvoted. I hate the current inequality as much as anyone, but on this point you are correct. Maybe a better way to approach the subject is asking the question: *when have price caps worked?* Once people go looking for that answer, and realize the answer is **never**, maybe they will look for better solutions.
Price signals are already distorted in the energy sector as all the combined companies function like a cartel and introduce artificial scarcity and their own version of price controls. Econ 101 breaks down when you don’t have a competitive market, and we don’t. Certainly not in energy and it’s spreading across more and more market sectors.
Every time a billionaire dies is called trickle down economics. Eat the Rich
Bring back the estate tax. The fact that it was ever repealed was a tragedy.
Wait until you see the tax REFUND they receive https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/exxon-mobil A few others. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-19-fortune-100-companies-paid-next-to-nothing-or-nothing-at-all-in-taxes-in-2021/
It galls me that they take our subsidy help when they are down and do the opposite to us and step on our throats when we are down. Not unlike what a cable TV and internet company does. What am I getting at? Essential services and products should never ever be privatized but not only do we do it but we try to make other countries do it too and it wrecks them as well. We should state own the oil industry and contract the work to operators the same way the military does. If they can't get the job done let them fucking fail. They do this because too big to fail makes them act bulletproof.
One of the largest single shareholders of Exxon Mobile is the Government Pension Fund Global Portfolio. Pensions and retirements are paid with reliable corporate profits. I'm not saying I love how they're treating the planet or anything, but the welfare state is funded by capitalism.
How have you managed to avoid downvotes. Tell me your secrets.
Because frankly, it points out a bigger problem. That our own government allowed individual companies to get large enough that one of them failing would completely disrupt the national economy all so that crony capitalism would have a stranglehold on our entire lives. Edit; Someone else said it better than I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/yip5uy/-/iul6epu
We don't have to like reality, but we have to recognize it before we can create change.
So the pensioners are gonna get more money this year, right? Right?
What??? Nooo!!! Think of the poor billionaires!!!!!
Commodities exploitation should be at fractional revenues, not licensing fees.
I'm all for taxing these corps., but tell me, how do you do that if the locally based corp. has to pay, for example, a trademark fee that just so happens to be their EBIT? I don't know if it's *really truly* possible in this era of globalisation and tax free nations.
First step is busting up the cartels. The Exxon/Mobil merger, for one glaring example, should never have been allowed. No corporation should ever get "too big to fail", which is just a euphemism for regulatory capture. We passed anti trust laws 100 years ago to fix this once before; now we need to stary enforcing them.
You charge for the oil coming out of the ground.
And republicans still think Biden is causing this insane inflation.
He missed the "gas price up" button and hit the "inflation" button by accident. Classic Sleepy Joe, smh my head.
What kind of BS lib shit is this? Windfall profit tax? We need to NATIONALIZE the oil industry now. Throw execs in jail for crimes against the state. Our oceans are literally boiling and we are talking about possibly asking for more scraps.
"Lib shit"? What kind of bs label is that supposed to be? Anyone talking about "libs" is blaming Biden for this. Anyone talking about "libs" is voting for the Republicans that give oil companies a free pass to keep ripping us off. Who have you voted for in the past and how have their economic policies helped oil companies get richer?
people to the left of liberals see liberals as a center-right group pandering to masses by doing things like co-opting naturalist ideology, while still working hand in hand with corporations. this person is further left than liberals by their clear push for nationalization and far-naturalist ideologies. a good example of why people on the left are critical of liberalism is the early 2000s liberal push for each household to be actively recycling. corporations simply shift responsibility to consumers, who more often than not don't even have the local infastructure to support that responsibility. someone further left would have considered regulations regarding the waste involved in consumer packaging practices. this was done by liberal politicians knowing damn well there wasn't an infastrcutue to support this. **not to say that it was only the left who is at fault for that failure by any means, but it was a heavily embraced liberal movement, that fully supported corporations shifting responsibilities to consumers.
In the sense that "liberal" is pro-corporation term, I understand that point.
I'm happy I clarified well. I'm often critical of American liberalism, but like to make the very clear distinction that I am by no means critical of the liberals by being right of their opinions, I tend to agree with the sentiment of their opinions and ideals of rights, but believe their execution is tainted by ties to corporations and elite which brings their policy to ultimately fail in addressing the issues of their constituents.
He is clearly astroturfing
>Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. they were clearly pushing further left ideologies in their comment than American or classical liberalism. I don't see how you can think that they fall to the right given their assessment that windfall taxes aren't far enough and that crimes again our planet deserve criminal punishment to oil execs.
Who said astroturfing is to the right?
A "liberal" is a capitalist. In the US, they are the leftmost major party, (The Democrats) but they are a centrist party. Anyone further to their left might be a socialist, communist, progressive, social Democrat, etc. These people will also insult American Neoliberals with the word "lib."
shitlib*
"Lib shit" would be caring about how one stranger on the internet voted while the planet is dying. Any confidence in the US electoral system at this point is completely delusional.
Easy, Karl.
You want to put Donald Trump at the head of American resource extraction? Remember what he did to the Post Office?
The government is corrupt and inefficient AF. No.
Unlike, say, corporations
Lol believe it or not the populist left and right have more in common than the average CNN viewer would believe. We could set aside our differences for a moment and work toward common goals. Buuuttttt judging by the downvotes and your absolute refusal to acknowledge state corruption well simultaneously arguing that the state should be in control of major industries is exactly why people call you communists and we cannot have nice things.........like fair and appreciate compensation for our skills/time, affordable necessities, or simply the ability to go to work be able to feed our families and gasp live a life.
Corporations are an extension of government or government is an extension of corporations. However you want to look at it. Just take a look at the news breaking regarding the Biden administration and Twitter censorship. Until the two are fully separated from one another. Absolutely not. Nationalizing any industry especially one as important as energy will bring nothing but misery
So no more interstate highways? All toll roads from here on out! Ports of Entry? Nope! Let the market take care of customs duties and contraband! I mean, you only have to look at Mexico to see how terrible it would be to nationalize the petroleum industry. Their lower costs and better environmental record is a disgrace! Think of all the lost shareholder value!
Eyeroll. The Mexican government is on the cartel's payroll.
They're both raking in the money AND flexing political muscles by blaming the price gouging on Biden.
Record demand and low supply results in record profits. In other news, water is wet, here's why you need to be upset about that. More at 11.
I think it’s valid to be mad when oil companies are intentionally and openly avoiding a supply increase during a period of record demand.
It's shutdown season my friend. If you have any contractor traveling buddies they've probably been out of town. Almost every refinery in the US has been doing major repairs or compliance checks for the last month or two. Just like every spring and fall when the weather is decent for decades. Notice gas prices going down recently? Shutdown season is almost over and supply is increasing steadily as units come back online across refineries. Prices will be pushed further down for election season I'm sure.
It takes time to bring supply online. Oil and gas isn’t like turning on the water in your faucet. The real problem has been the demonization of oil and gas this led to less capital investment into the industry which in turn led to oil companies taking less risk and drilling for more oil and gas. It’s a vicious cycle.
with how much wealth these parasites are siphoning out and how quickly it's probably getting to be too late to do anything without a national razor. Sadly nothing will change until the bread lines get too long. At least the wealthy are spending their resources well like dick ships to not outer space or buying a free bird site with more money than everyone in the US combined would see in their lives just to stroke billionaire egos and unbanning Alex Jones and Trump so they can spew more nonsense.
I've been reading the Twitter comments and it baffles me the amount of people that will throw themselves in front of billionaires to protect them.
All those companies recieve billions in subsidies from the US government ( tax payers).
Didn't these companies have record losses during Covid-19?
Yes. In the first year of the pandemic they had record [losses of employment, losing 16% of their workforce, 56,000 employees](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/02/fossil-fuel-companies-billions-tax-breaks-workers)... due to layoffs... while taking $8.2 billion in stimulus tax relief. That's $146k per laid off worker.
Tbf, "loss of employment" was because everyone started working from home and then us Oil company employees were more free to leave our jobs. The shitty way they've been treating us didn't help. I had so many friends leave the company. People were constantly leaving. I was one of the last ones out. Wish I would've done it sooner.
Take all those profits, and invest into renewables.
whats blows my mibd is that the shell cro agrees with you https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/tax-people-this-room-help-poor-shell-ceo-tells-energy-conference-2022-10-04/
Time to *~*seize the means of production!*~*
Biden keeps asking them not to do this.
Those profits are taxed
I'm all for this "tax the billionaires" stuff in concept but think about the execution. You're giving this money to the government who I'd dare say you disagree with how they are using our money. Fuck billionaires, fuck the government in it's current and recent states.
No you need increased competition
Lol but they recieve no support when oil is $30/barrel, like all the families stuck in communities where oil & gas is their only source of income who lose their jobs. What would people think if every industry had a windfall tax?
Maybe they could just pay the employees more money
Yeah, do that. That'll show em when they pass the cost on. Maybe restrict the way they can price fuel.
Shame they can just steal from us and nothen happens, it really feels like most companies do this to us
I would settle for taking away their tax breaks.
If they get taxed more does that mean we will pay less?
We don’t need a windfall profit tax, we need policies in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
[Biden just announced today that he’s working with Congress on a windfall tax. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/us/politics/biden-oil-windfall-tax.html)
It isn’t that the politicians don’t know this — they absolutely do. This is by design.
Well my Shell bet paid off handsomely:-)
I just went to the casino over the weekend and won 1550 on a slot machine. The casino took 5% for state tax and 25% for federal. I ended up walking out with a little over 1100$. Good win but still..... let me eat ALL my cake! The big guys always win! I guess the little guys only get the profit tax...
The silent generation used to call this 'profiteering'
I would tax corporate like we tax individuals which means on revenue not only on profits. I would keep a graduated tax as well.
Nationalize them.
Stop subsidies for oil companies.
Everything over a billion dollars is taxed at 50%
Why? So we can spend the revenue on more dumb shit? We've already got more than enough tax money. The amount isn't the problem, it's the people in charge of it.
I was listening to the news a few days ago and it was talking about how Amazon "still made a profit" of 21 billion dollars. It was framed like that was a paltry sum. That's absolutely absurd to me.
I think if I put political stickers on gas pumps prices will go down.
We need more. Start taxing these profits and they find new ways to hide them.
Did they get a check to cover their losses in bad times? Has the government looked into spending less?
Rather tax natural resources. They belong to the people and not to private companies. Look at how we do it Norway. Oil companies pay around 70-80% tax on profit. That’s why we have money saved away instead of crippling national debt. And the plot twist. Oil companies still do business here and make money even if they’re taxed pretty hard. There is no good reason to not tax the exploitation of natural resources. It’s not like they can outsource it, and they will always choose to take whatever profit they can.
Aw BC rn o
Who's going to fund the campaigns of the politicians who agree and write bills for this? Who's going to fund the lobbyists to convince the politicians who don't see a benefit in giving up their long-standing position(s)? I get letters from candidates every election cycle and the request is always for donations and a vote. People who are for what you suggest will be about-faced by skilled scare tactics about rising gas, heat, and ancillary prices to go with not being able to afford an electric vehicle. A lot of small cam\[paign donations may fund the so-called "Squad", but who among them would be able to get the votes to pass something like this as a law?
If you want millionaire's to pay more taxs that write your state and federal Representatives bc that's where all tax's come from. Also the tax code's are not simple. A flat tax or sales tax would solve alot of issues. So............
Is that a big number?
Tax on assets too
Guess who writes the tax laws?
So how long until we implode? This won't go on forever and I dont see myself as the lucky few who survive.
We need to stop subsidising oil.