[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by david85

Oil gets subsidies but it is profitable and those investments more than pay back through taxes and royalties that we all benefit from.

Sorry, I just can't let this statement stand.

Oil is not subsidized - period. It is the most heavily taxed industry in the world (except perhaps alcohol) and is STILL profitable.

The politicians all like to twist the meaning of words, in this case the word "subsidy," so that they can present themselves in a certain light. In this case, the government "graciously gives back" a very small percentage of the profitability they drain at the pump in order to create the illusion that they are promoting certain activities that would happen anyway, and at a higher investment level, than the end result under government regulation.

Whether you call it Progressiveness, Communism, Socialism, or whatever - this is why I fundamentally oppose "big government" - because at it's core it always becomes fundamentally unethical and corrupt.

[infantry11b]

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Sorry, I just can't let this statement stand.

Oil is not subsidized - period. It is the most heavily taxed industry in the world (except perhaps alcohol) and is STILL profitable.

The politicians all like to twist the meaning of words, in this case the word "subsidy," so that they can present themselves in a certain light. In this case, the government "graciously gives back" a very small percentage of the profitability they drain at the pump in order to create the illusion that they are promoting certain activities that would happen anyway, and at a higher investment level, than the end result under government regulation.

Whether you call it Progressiveness, Communism, Socialism, or whatever - this is why I fundamentally oppose "big government" - because at it's core it always becomes fundamentally unethical and corrupt.

right on!
the oil companies take the risk and the government makes more on the sale of oil products, including gas, than the oil companies do for talking all the risk, hiring all the people, and building all the infrastructure to give us the oil we need.
if our roads look like crap its because the state and federal governments have been taking money put into the highway fund and spending is on crap social programs that all of a sudden become entitlements for the lazy, just like they did with the money that went into social security and the medicade.
some people think that if anyone has more than them - well they must have stolen it to get so far ahead.
well here is a news flash - SOONER RATHER THAN LATER YOU RUN OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY!
so i vote we leave the oil industry alone - let them do what they do best, getting oil for us to use.

[david85]

Originally Posted by PhantomPholly

Sorry, I just can't let this statement stand.

Oil is not subsidized - period. It is the most heavily taxed industry in the world (except perhaps alcohol) and is STILL profitable.

The politicians all like to twist the meaning of words, in this case the word "subsidy," so that they can present themselves in a certain light. In this case, the government "graciously gives back" a very small percentage of the profitability they drain at the pump in order to create the illusion that they are promoting certain activities that would happen anyway, and at a higher investment level, than the end result under government regulation.

Whether you call it Progressiveness, Communism, Socialism, or whatever - this is why I fundamentally oppose "big government" - because at it's core it always becomes fundamentally unethical and corrupt.

I believe that last statement should read more unethical and corrupt.

Point taken though. My statement was mainly aimed at people that claim the oil industry gets billions in subsidies while alternative energy gets next to nothing. I agree its not really a subsidy if you can't keep it in the end but thats the wording often used, so I used it. All "subsidies" the oil industry gets are more than clawed back through taxes and royalties the company and their customers (thats us) pay. Sound better?

Thats why the whole idea of a "carbon tax" is so rediculous. We've been paying that for decades already. Its just called something else.

[glaurung]

I see a lot of critics on how oil companies are treated. Yes they are taxed as all companies, if considered how much pollution oil is responsible and how much money is made on oil that seems right. But putting oil companies on same line as ordinary companies is ,in my opinion, just dum or at least very gullible. Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately, or how it might be in english.Just about all politics own shares of oil companies.Oil companies give monetary support in grand amount to politics. Humans tend to think their own agenda first and then think about their obligations to others, like boss, voters, wifes, you get the picture.
In small and crappy country of ours on cold north, energy companies are more or less monopolies. There are some laws made so matters look like in real free competition but most money goes to same pockets as always.Here all top politicians and business leaders know each others and have same interests. Guess who pays? Taxpayers.
You may think that your leaders are different but if you dig a little more you will notice that all are the same.
Taxes on CO emissions are good way to collect more money, guess who decides whet to do with them?
What i am trying to say, is that we can not trust our goverments to make things right, we have to do it ourselves. And i am sure that good people in this forum are doing our share and can help to turn the tide.
Like some allready have done, we can show that it is possible to use no emission energy TODAY! All exuses that general population has can be proved wrong, someone just have to pay for it and show neighbours and villagers how things really are.
Thanks for reading, Harri
Btw. should i tip US goverment that gallon of fuel could be taxed to cost 7.50 usd? Thats what we pay here.It would make a good rise for all officials

[PhantomPholly]

Originally Posted by glaurung

I see a lot of critics on how oil companies are treated. Yes they are taxed as all companies, if considered how much pollution oil is responsible and how much money is made on oil that seems right. But putting oil companies on same line as ordinary companies is ,in my opinion, just dum or at least very gullible. Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately, or how it might be in english.Just about all politics own shares of oil companies.Oil companies give monetary support in grand amount to politics. Humans tend to think their own agenda first and then think about their obligations to others, like boss, voters, wifes, you get the picture.
In small and crappy country of ours on cold north, energy companies are more or less monopolies. There are some laws made so matters look like in real free competition but most money goes to same pockets as always.Here all top politicians and business leaders know each others and have same interests. Guess who pays? Taxpayers.
You may think that your leaders are different but if you dig a little more you will notice that all are the same.

No, I don't think ours are any different - that's why the founders of our country tried to limit government. You cannot kill greed, but you can starve it by preventing them from stealing any more than is necessary to actually serve the country's defense. Every other program is pretty much a scam, and now the world is run by organized crime.

Taxes on CO emissions are good way to collect more money, guess who decides whet to do with them?
What i am trying to say, is that we can not trust our goverments to make things right, we have to do it ourselves. And i am sure that good people in this forum are doing our share and can help to turn the tide.
Like some allready have done, we can show that it is possible to use no emission energy TODAY! All exuses that general population has can be proved wrong, someone just have to pay for it and show neighbours and villagers how things really are.
Thanks for reading, Harri
Btw. should i tip US goverment that gallon of fuel could be taxed to cost 7.50 usd? Thats what we pay here.It would make a good rise for all officials

Yep - gas doesn't really "cost" any more over there than here - it's just the taxes. Don't you people get tired of being slaves? Well, I'm thinking it's too late for humanity. With the last beacon of freedom surrendering to slavery with barely a whimper, there will be no more examples of how things MIGHT be to compare your own particular sewer to...

Think maybe I'm a bit cynical?

[Jeff from KY]

UK 'Climategate' inquiry largely clears scientists

The House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee said Wednesday that they'd seen no evidence to support charges that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit or its director, Phil Jones, had tampered with data or perverted the peer review process to exaggerate the threat of global warming - two of the most serious criticisms levied against the climatologist and his colleagues.

In their report, the committee said that, as far as it was able to ascertain, "the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact," adding that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mails, or the controversy kicked up by their publication, challenged scientific consensus that "global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity."

[infantry11b]

wow a government agency wants to defend an agency that gets millions of foreign dollars! i am amazed.
sort of like giving algore the nobel peace price for a fake movie and then the global warming snake oil salesmen pretend it was for science.
no government agencies allowed here - just real facts not their conclusions if you please.
oh i have a bridge in brooklyn to sell. please email your offer.

[david85]

I'm not surprised by the result either. It was obvious looking at the video of Jones' testimony that the panel members were very sympathetic to his cause. Only one member was even close to being objective on the subject. To his credit, Graham Stringer had reservations about the report but was over ruled by the other biased MPs when he tried to make a more objective conclusion. Stringer was the only member of the panel that was actually a scientist and was also the panelist that took Jones to task with his data suppression antics.

If you were to actually read the complete report, you will find they make reference several times to being rushed by the upcoming dissolution of of the british parliament and were unable to make a more thorough report. How convenient.

I expect a similar result from the UN report into the IPCC. The good news here is that average people aren't quite as dumb, and the portion of the population that considers themselves skeptical continues to rise. Whitewash reports like this will only cost what little credit these people have left. The latest results from "earth hour" show a steady decline as well. Even in a primarily liberal country like canada, people are loosing interest in this nonsense.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from within the report itself:

We recognise that some of the e-mails suggest a blunt refusal to share data, even unrestricted data, with others. We acknowledge that Professor Jones must have found it frustrating to handle requests for data that he knew—or perceived—were motivated by a desire simply to seek to undermine his work. But Professor Jones’s failure to handle helpfully requests for data in a field as important and controversial as climate science was bound to be viewed with suspicion. He was obviously frustrated by other workers in the field trying to "undermine" his work, but his actions were inevitably counterproductive. Professor Jones told us that the published e-mails represented only "one tenth of 1%" of his output, which amounts to one million e-mails, and that we were only seeing the end of a protracted series of e-mail exchanges. We consider that further suspicion could have been allayed by releasing all the e-mails. In addition, we consider that had the available raw data been available online from an early stage, these kinds of unfortunate e-mail exchanges would not have occurred. In our view, CRU should have been more open with its raw data and followed the more open approach of NASA to making data available. (Paragraph 38)

One tenth of one percent? One million Emails? do the math on that guys, because thats an awful lot of emails for just one guy to be me doing all by himself. However since most people can't be bothered to actually read the complete report, I doubt this will really matter (much like the issue of raw data).

Maybe some one should file an FOI request for this one million Email archive.

[Duncan]

Hi
Those that are interested in the data here is an interesting site

http://www.climatedata.info/index.htm

This has data, models, and algorithms - lots of interesting data!

Comment about taxes/subsidies and oil companies

If Oil companies produced the oil all would be hunky dory,

They don't
Oil companies take oil that is under the ground and bring it up

In most countries (USA is an exception) the mineral rights (ownership) under land is vested in the country itself (the "crown")

Oil companies are "subsidized" to the extent that they are permitted to take something that belongs to the "country" (On federal land in the USA) and then sell it!

Fishermen do the same but there is at least an expectation that the fish will "grow back"

Oil unfortunately doesn't grow back!

So we are letting companies take "our oil" , pay us a pittance for it and and then sell it back to us

[infantry11b]

just for your information we dont have a "crown" we are not in europe.
water under your property belongs to you, not the crown.
i knew a woman who lived in baldwin hills and she had mineral rights that went with the land - she got a check from the oil company pumping oil under property, every 3 months!
and people who mine diamonds, or gold, dont make it either.
while land does not depreciate - there is a depreciation allowance for using it up - which the oil companies do. so if you buy a desk you get depreciation, and so do oil companies for oil that is used up.
the same goes for just about all mining operations.
WE ARE NOT EUROPE!
and how is that man made global warming working for you? worst flooding in the east in decades. so are you going to stick to the story that too hot, global warming, too cold, global warming. too dry, global warming, too wet global warming.

the oil companies are not the enemy. you have a car, bike, use roads, sidewalks, get fresh foods out of season when it is too cold to grow them where you are? buy clothes made someplace else? have a computer, have an electric motor, have any plastic in your home, have a tv, dvd, walkman, diskman, tennis shoes, WELL HUG AN OIL TANKER AND THANK THEM FOR IT.

and if you think you can get along without it - go live in the forest for a year, oh, and dont cut down the trees for firewood, dont kill animals for meat, dont plant food that are not from there, what you do plant dont prevent the wildlife from eating it too, and dont protect yourself from natures killers with a weapon that was made with any oil product - including coal. oh - forgot to remind you that all those fish in the rivers - leave them alone too. that will leave you naked, cold, and dead within 20 days.
GET THE POINT!

and the epa just decided it can regulate carbon dioxide. looks like your new 'CROWN" may decide you have used up your allotment and your personal carbon dioxide mfg will get terminated - if you get the point.

people are superior to all wildlife and to the earth. we get to use it as we wish. people like you want to tell others how to use what they own, why not limit yourself to deciding how you use what you own and let others use their as they want. its not yours, get over it.