The Price Gouging Paul Harvey (aka, the Rest of the Story)
Price Gouging? Non-American? How do you like these apples? In response to my article MAKE SURE TO GET THE PAUL HARVEY....
The specific conditions that have helped Oil Company growth in revenues & profits over recent years are too numerous to get into here. However, the current public & political claims of opportunistic "PRICE GOUGING" and "the need for government intervention to "save consumers," are flat-out wrong & telling us only one sentence out of a 500 page novel. If WE THE PEOPLE allow our politicians, media & other pundits to read the book to us as they continue to lull us to sleep, how many sentences, pages and full chapters do you think have & will continue to skip??
My view of the Oil Companies based on a just little research (& no, I don't own ANY oil stocks)....
According to Yahoo! Finance, Exxon-Mobil, BP & Total SA are the current top 3 oil companies in terms of Market Capitalization. At the end of 2004, continuing their recent annual revenue & profit growth, these three companies had combined income statements of:
Total Revenue of $750.5 billion
Total Earnings BEFORE Interest & Taxes of $90.1 billion (or $0.12 of every
Revenue dollar)
Total Net Income of $52.2 billion ($0.07 of every Revenue dollar)
And here's the Paul Harvey....
Of the $750.5 billion of Total Revenue...the government's take,
Corporate Income Tax of $36.1 billion
Shareholder Dividend Tax (if single & in the 30% tax bracket)
of $15.7 billion (based on the net income available for distribution to shareholders)
The Total Government cut...$51.8 billion vs. $36.5 billion for the Actual Shareholders. As a result the government truly OWNS 58% of the companies, while the private shareholders, who risk their own personal capital (& future) by investing in the companies only have 42%.
Conversely, China (communist by name) is believed to own 70% stakes in most of their country's businesses. If you take the 58% current share (from the oil company example above), add in the additional taxes that our American government collects from the economy, but are hidden within a company's income statement under Labor Expense, Freight Expense, etc. Some of these taxes would include Payroll Taxes--Income/Social Security/Medicare/Etc.; Excise (Fuel Taxes); Property Taxes; Etc. I would hazard a guess that our government's share of, not only oil companies, but EVERY single business in the U.S. SIGNIFICANTLY EXCEEDS 70%.
No wonder we don't publicly call China "communist" anymore...they are MORE American than WE THE PEOPLE are, or perhaps I should say, than we've allowed our elected representatives to make us.
How you them apples?
The specific conditions that have helped Oil Company growth in revenues & profits over recent years are too numerous to get into here. However, the current public & political claims of opportunistic "PRICE GOUGING" and "the need for government intervention to "save consumers," are flat-out wrong & telling us only one sentence out of a 500 page novel. If WE THE PEOPLE allow our politicians, media & other pundits to read the book to us as they continue to lull us to sleep, how many sentences, pages and full chapters do you think have & will continue to skip??
My view of the Oil Companies based on a just little research (& no, I don't own ANY oil stocks)....
According to Yahoo! Finance, Exxon-Mobil, BP & Total SA are the current top 3 oil companies in terms of Market Capitalization. At the end of 2004, continuing their recent annual revenue & profit growth, these three companies had combined income statements of:
Total Revenue of $750.5 billion
Total Earnings BEFORE Interest & Taxes of $90.1 billion (or $0.12 of every
Revenue dollar)
Total Net Income of $52.2 billion ($0.07 of every Revenue dollar)
And here's the Paul Harvey....
Of the $750.5 billion of Total Revenue...the government's take,
Corporate Income Tax of $36.1 billion
Shareholder Dividend Tax (if single & in the 30% tax bracket)
of $15.7 billion (based on the net income available for distribution to shareholders)
The Total Government cut...$51.8 billion vs. $36.5 billion for the Actual Shareholders. As a result the government truly OWNS 58% of the companies, while the private shareholders, who risk their own personal capital (& future) by investing in the companies only have 42%.
Conversely, China (communist by name) is believed to own 70% stakes in most of their country's businesses. If you take the 58% current share (from the oil company example above), add in the additional taxes that our American government collects from the economy, but are hidden within a company's income statement under Labor Expense, Freight Expense, etc. Some of these taxes would include Payroll Taxes--Income/Social Security/Medicare/Etc.; Excise (Fuel Taxes); Property Taxes; Etc. I would hazard a guess that our government's share of, not only oil companies, but EVERY single business in the U.S. SIGNIFICANTLY EXCEEDS 70%.
No wonder we don't publicly call China "communist" anymore...they are MORE American than WE THE PEOPLE are, or perhaps I should say, than we've allowed our elected representatives to make us.
How you them apples?
posted by Joey Constitution | 9/12/2005
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