Which party will support this effort?

[ravingdave]

Dave, dont you find it interesting that the republicans are criticizing the Dems and Obama for Use it or lose it, When Palin is actually suing 3 oil companies on the same principle.......

AS far as the \shutdown of the TAP, it was found to be leaking

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/20 ... _alas.html

No conspiracy there, they got caught deferring maintenance. Google is your friend.

I think the Democrats have a valid point. Oil Companies are sitting on leases instead of exploiting them. However, The Republicans have a point too. The offshore areas, and ANWR ought to be available to beat back the cost of oil. The commodities market is a funny thing. It moves on rumors and potential just as fast as it moves on reality.


The act of making these areas available will have an immediate impact on the commodities market. The pressure on the Oil Companies to ramp up production will be immense if these areas are made available.

Two things move companies. Profits and Fear of Losing Profits.

Make these areas available, and one Cut throat oil company will exploit it just to beat the others to the punch. That will bring the others a running to avoid missing out on a meal. On the downside (for the companies) if they are widely perceived as dragging their foot, the public will demand investigations etc.


But the Democrats do have a valid point.


David

[ravingdave]

ravingdave

Clinton had a 39% top tax rate, Obama wants to put it back to 39%. Obama has 3 different tax breaks for small business. McCAin wants to extend 10 billion in tax breaks to corporations.



From the depression to 1981 it was between 91% and 70%. IN WW2 which we won, it was 91%.

Obama wants to do what Clinton did, which did work.

I have seen plans on paper before. I have seen people execute plans on paper, and i've seen people get elected and then change the plains on paper.

I don't want to be disrespectful, but I believe if someone says they're gonna raise taxes, they are telling the truth. But if they say they're going to cut taxes, I don't believe them.

McCain had Phil Gramm as an advisor. I have always been impressed with Phil Gramm's grasp of economics. In my mind the man is a common sense genius.

McCain has always touted himself as a fiscal conservative, and my recollection of his record indicates that's more or less true.

On Taxing Corporations, I have always been told that Corporations don't pay taxes, they simply pass them on to the consumers in the form of inflated costs.


To put it simply, I don't trust either plan, but I trust more what I remeber about the history of the two men and their voting record.


David

[ravingdave]

From the depression to 1981 it was between 91% and 70%. IN WW2 which we won, it was 91%.

Obama wants to do what Clinton did, which did work.

Specious reasoning. One could just as easily argue that from the depression to 1981, people were on average much poorer than today, so the higher taxes must have been bad.

The tech boom of the 1990s was the result of a DARPA project from the 1980s, just as we hope the energy boom of the 2010s will.

If you listen to economists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, they explain the many and sundry reasons why taxes should be as low as possible, allowing the free market to make us all richer as fast as possible.

HongKong.


David

[djolds1]

To quote the Movie "War Games."


"The only winning move is not to play."



David

Were you old enough for that movie to "click" with you when it came out?

Duane

[MSimon]

Tom Ridge and Chris Shays extreme right wingers? Ha ha ha... that's pretty good. I've met right wingers that even scare ME !

Oh for the sweet love of...

Can we PLEASE take the politics on hiatus for a few days?

Duane

Duane,

Well there was about 24 hours of cool and the tone seems more moderate now so I'm going to let it go on. BTW I have strict instructions from Joe to delete nothing but spam. I've e-mailed him and he hasn't modified his law. In fact he hasn't replied.

So as a strict constructionist judge I have to follow the law.

I may add a word to overboard comments. Moderators privilege.

Keep it civil folks. Tell your stories with out rancor.

[MSimon]

Re taxes.

We have the second highest taxes on business in the world. Capital is mobile. Wouldn't it be better to have lower business taxes and attract more business? Doesn't anyone worry about driving jobs away?

Same for rich people. Wouldn't it be better to attract money to the USA rather than driving it away?

And make it up in volume and faster economic growth.

BTW economists seem to think that the optimum tax rate (the one that generates the most tax revenue) is around 20%. We have a ways to go to get down to that level.

[Roger]

BTW SOME economists seem to think

Strict Straussian, sure. Milton Friedman types, sure. Supply Siders, sure.

Revenues as a % of GDP, remain at a steady climb from 1946 to 2008. Regardless of the top rate being 91%, or 28%.

On the Left they say raise taxes, it generates more revenue. On the right they say cut the taxes it generates more revenue.

I dont believe either is true, at least if you measure as a % of GDP, which is overall at about 3.5% over 100 yrs.

As far as corporate taxes, I'm looking for the some good links, I dont care about corp taxes in some 3rd world country being compared to the US corp taxes. Thats just a silly comparison.

I wanna compare corp taxes in say the top 8-10 industrialized economies to the USA.

[ravingdave]

To quote the Movie "War Games."


"The only winning move is not to play."



David

Were you old enough for that movie to "click" with you when it came out?

Duane

When that movie came out, I was all too aware of the Soviet Nuclear arsenal. My town was a guaranteed target due to the Proximity of Ft. Sill.

I had read books "The curve of binding Energy", and "When War Comes " so I was thoroughly scared "Sh*tless about the prospects of war with Russia. It was my number one concern from about 75 to 90.

That concern is now coming back with the advent of the new chilly tensions between the U.S. and Russia.


brrrrr....


David

[MSimon]

BTW SOME economists seem to think

Strict Straussian, sure. Milton Friedman types, sure. Supply Siders, sure.

Revenues as a % of GDP, remain at a steady climb from 1946 to 2008. Regardless of the top rate being 91%, or 28%.

On the Left they say raise taxes, it generates more revenue. On the right they say cut the taxes it generates more revenue.

I dont believe either is true, at least if you measure as a % of GDP, which is overall at about 3.5% over 100 yrs.

As far as corporate taxes, I'm looking for the some good links, I dont care about corp taxes in some 3rd world country being compared to the US corp taxes. Thats just a silly comparison.

I wanna compare corp taxes in say the top 8-10 industrialized economies to the USA.

I think you make my point. It seems that above a certain tax rate revenues flatten. Then you get the effect of people chasing shelters instead of productive investment. Shelters are not economically efficient.

So what you want to find is the highest rate that will generate max revenue and no higher in order to maximize growth. In any case high taxes on income tend to retard the number of people entering the wealthy class and gives old money extraordinary power. i.e. it lowers social mobility. That is a bad idea. IMO.

[MSimon]

You might want to look at the recent lowering of corporate rates in Socialist Spain.

[ravingdave]

Re taxes.

We have the second highest taxes on business in the world. Capital is mobile. Wouldn't it be better to have lower business taxes and attract more business? Doesn't anyone worry about driving jobs away?

Same for rich people. Wouldn't it be better to attract money to the USA rather than driving it away?

And make it up in volume and faster economic growth.

BTW economists seem to think that the optimum tax rate (the one that generates the most tax revenue) is around 20%. We have a ways to go to get down to that level.

Mmm... it's been years since I looked into this stuff, but are you refering to the Laffer curve ?


I personally feel that all taxes put together (Federal, State and Local) should never exceed 10% . It is my understanding that the rates in Hong Kong are somewhere around here, and the economy has been going like gangbusters over there for decades.


David

[MSimon]

Re taxes.

We have the second highest taxes on business in the world. Capital is mobile. Wouldn't it be better to have lower business taxes and attract more business? Doesn't anyone worry about driving jobs away?

Same for rich people. Wouldn't it be better to attract money to the USA rather than driving it away?

And make it up in volume and faster economic growth.

BTW economists seem to think that the optimum tax rate (the one that generates the most tax revenue) is around 20%. We have a ways to go to get down to that level.

Mmm... it's been years since I looked into this stuff, but are you refering to the Laffer curve ?


I personally feel that all taxes put together (Federal, State and Local) should never exceed 10% . It is my understanding that the rates in Hong Kong are somewhere around here, and the economy has been going like gangbusters over there for decades.


David

It depends on what you want to optimize for. For growth as close to zero as possible. For government revenue 20% tops. Above that rate % income doesn't increase and growth rate declines due to the shelter effect.

[TallDave]

Just FYI I don't think the board room decision that "We should keep these land leases for future exploration" is a 'conspiracy.' It's natural to keep holdings for future prospects

Sigh. No, it isn't. There's a very important concept in business called TVM, time value of money, which essentially means a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

Trust me, what you're proposing makes absolutely no sense. At today's prices, if a field is exploitable now, they're going to exploit it now, not save it for a rainy day or as part of some secret conspiracy to inflate future oil prices.

The Mineral Lease Act arguably doesn't let anyone continue holding what is not "sufficiently operated" under its own terms. Check out the "noncompetitive" sections of the act. It just arguably requires a tough Secretary of the Interior to drop the leases rather than letting them exist without enforcement. From what I understand it wouldn't even require new law.

Great, let them do that then. But let's not pretend shuffling the deck is going to give us more aces. With some rare exceptions, a field that can't be profitably developed is probably not viable for the others either, and isn't any more likely to be developed if we take it away and re-lease it.

You may have noticed a lot of oil projects are collaborations anyway. Let's say I have a lease on a hi-pressure deposit and oil shale tech, while you have oil shale leases and hi-pressure extraction tech. Guess how we maximize profit for our shareholders?

[djolds1]

Re taxes.

We have the second highest taxes on business in the world. Capital is mobile. Wouldn't it be better to have lower business taxes and attract more business? Doesn't anyone worry about driving jobs away?

CONUS is one of the biggest economic playgrounds in the world. It will attract significant investment almost no matter what.

There is no reason that the world's economic big boys (call it G12, not including Russia) need to continue to see excessive capital mobility as a good thing. The Asian Flu of 1997 was caused by ideologically correct capital mobility (see Washington Consensus), and the few regional states to weather the flu did so because they slammed that mobility shut FAST.

BTW economists seem to think that the optimum tax rate (the one that generates the most tax revenue) is around 20%. We have a ways to go to get down to that level.

Economics is good, but it's far from a precise science. Many data sets haven't been trustworthy in decades, and there is still more then a little reading the tea leaves and entrails in the process. A society has more interests then simply optimal economic function.

Duane

[djolds1]

Trust me, what you're proposing makes absolutely no sense. At today's prices, if a field is exploitable now, they're going to exploit it now, not save it for a rainy day or as part of some secret conspiracy to inflate future oil prices.

True.

The "difficult" fields and methods are uneconomic below $40/bbl, IIRC. Tar sands, oil shales, deep reservoirs, etc. We are way beyond that, and it does not look like the Saudis are going to be able to kick the price back down this time. Ergo the "difficult" methods will have the space to be developed, instead of being strangled in the cradle by a short run of $20/bbl Saudi crude.