Commie
Hillary Clinton on all those profits big, evil oil is pulling down:
I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative, smart energy; alternatives and technology that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence.
Now, I’m all for energy independence. But I love me some capitalism more. And if you take those profits, they’ll just shut down.
February 8th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Are you sure she’s not talking about the estimated $5 to $10 billion in “profits” that are actually unpaid royalties due to both private landowners and governments, royalties whose collection has been blocked by corrupt Dept. of Interior appointees?
February 8th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
She said profits. Not sure how much excess profit came from non-payment of royalties.
February 8th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
She said “those” profits, with those meaning “the highest profits in the history of the world”. I think she means to tax at least some of the difference between what oil companies made yesteryear and what they make today.
I have some doubts that oil company profits are the product of pure capitalism and free markets. The oligopoly effects and the high barriers to entry make the oil business a strange one.
February 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Why is it that all the establishment politicians think it’s such a good idea to make us dependent on foreign manufactured goods through handign over our trade decisions to internationalist tribunals, NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, etc? And if you object to that, then you’re an evil “protectionist” or “isolationist”. So why isn’t it protectionist or isolationist when they SAY they want to end our dependence on foreign oil??
February 8th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Not sure how much excess profit came from non-payment of royalties.
It seems like non-payment of royalties is pure profit, so wouldn’t that be the same $5-10 billion?
Hugger, I read the previous sentence too. I’m just curious about the rest of the context in which she made that remark. If it was in the middle of an eat-the-rich tirade, Uncle’s characterization is fair, but if it was in the middle of a pledge to end subsidies, corruption and market distortions that benefit oil companies, it could be a sensible remark.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
There’s video. No time to watch, now.
profit = revenue less expenses. I doubt said non-payment is profit, particularly since it seems to be that payment, though expected eventually, has been delayed.
only taking the difference between recent and past profits is still, err, taking profits.
February 8th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
it seems to be that payment, though expected eventually, has been delayed
You have no idea what I’m talking about, nor do you care. Am I right?
February 9th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I’m mildly familiar with the royalties thing. Feds charge a flat fee per acre for land use or some such. And I recall reading that those royalty fees are due eventually but the .gov has passed cushy deals with oil companies where the payment isn’t being, err, paid. Could be wrong, of course.
February 9th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
There are two aspects to it, one of which might be of interest to you professionally. Part of it is that Interior officials “inadvertantly” left standard language out of off-shore leases in the late 1990s linking royalty payments to the market price of oil. The companies have no intention of paying, and Interior made no effort to amend the leases. Congress got around to looking into it just last month.
The other part involves some sort of hinky accounting scheme the oil companies use to cheat landowners out of royalties. I don’t know how it works, but a former ARCO employee has made a fortune working as an expert witness who explains the scheme to courts. Several Interior employees have become whistleblowers in similar suits.
In any case, the point is that there are all sorts of cheats, legal or not, oil companies use to inflate profits, and if Clinton made the quoted remark in the context of talking about all that crap, it wouldn’t mean what you think it means.
February 9th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Thanks for the info. I’m not that familiar with it. Accounting for oil and gas, is literally an industry of it’s own and one i am not familiar with.
I don’t see how there’d be an accounting gimmick to avoid payment. perhaps some legal wrangling. unless amounts owed are tied to production and they manipulate that.
that tends to happen in industries with a lot of governmental oversight.
February 9th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
unless amounts owed are tied to production and they manipulate that.
I believe that’s the gist of it. They underreport production. One of the Interior whistleblowers described how his superiors wouldn’t approve a visit to a coal mine in Montana because it was too small to bother with. He finally went and discovered it was a major mine. The company ended up settling for something like $10 million.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Ah. Well, that sounds criminal.