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Windfall tax for oil companies at last
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4502470.stm
Sadly only on North Sea producers by the sounds of it.
Still, a long overdue move.
Anyone objects? Wouldn't be surprised if someone did...
Sadly only on North Sea producers by the sounds of it.
Still, a long overdue move.
Anyone objects? Wouldn't be surprised if someone did...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
0
Comments
"Man steals from others to kill Iraqi's and control his fellows."
This bit completely baffles me -
Why take it in the first place then?
Lying parasite.
so we're no longer people, but consumers - scary
Especially when the oil companies are raking up profits that can only be described as obscene, even as the price at the pumps goes up and up.
Look what happened about 2 months ago when petrol prices reached all-time high prices across much of the world. While the likes of BP and Shell in Britain were claiming they weren't making much profit at all (utter rubbish of course) and refused to bring down prices, the governments of one or two European nations (probably Finland or Sweden) told the oil companies there to either lower their prices or suffer an immediate windfall tax.
Guess what happened? The companies reduced their prices, they still made nice profits, not a single worker had to be sacked, and prices at the pump were reduced when they needed to be reduced the most.
Regrettable as it is, we are absolutely dependant on fossil fuel today. Oil is far too important to be let run by private companies with greed and unlimited profits for their shareholders in mind. It doesn't help anyone at all- expect the shareholders of course.
If the money was directly related to a reduction in the level of fuel duty then fiar enough. As it's going to be spent on Blair's plane or bombing kids or whatever godawful scheme the criminals in government come up with next it's bollocks, even on it's own merits.
That is all.
Far more accurate I'd say.
Yup. So we have two sets of thieves. How does that make stealing right?
But supposing I did, then I could argue that at least taxes are put to far better use than profits, which go almost entirely to shareholders.
Shareholders are without doubt the most useless, irrelevant, reproachable and parasitical set of people there can be. They serve no purpose at all yet entire economies revolve around rewarding these vultures and speculators at the expense of workers and consumers alike.
Come the revolution...
the government have also raked in billions in tax with the rise in oil prices but do we see any benefit?
one thing we can be certain of is ...the oil companies will just pass the cost on to us.
not often i hear people in this place celebrating more taxes.
Ok, cool. Please list the factual differences between taxation and extortion.
Yes, killing children and flattening cities is a much better use of resources than profits, isn't it?
Taxation is the profit of the government for it's herding of men.
You mean the people who only own shares for their money? I agree. In their defence, they do no actual harm, being so inactive. Unlike governments, the biggest single killer ever on the planet.
Taxation helps others. Extortion helps nobody.
Taxation is morally right. Extortion is morally wrong.
That's all you need to know, really.
Building cities, hospitals, schools, roads and infrastructure and ensuring they are available to all, including the disadvantaged certainly is.
Unfortunately sometimes govenments use a small proportion of taxes for the wrong causes. That doesn't mean the other 95% of good things achieved through taxation should be discarded of course.
They do actual harm by their very existence. By the perpetuation of a system that is wrong in every concievable way and that seeks to benefit the only people who actually contribute nothing.
The likelyhood is that if you pay your taxes, you'll see the benefits of that in public services and the like.
Extortion benefits noone except for the person who extorts.
are we now going to condm gambling?
So if the mafia bought a hospital with the money they rob it wouldn't be theft and extortion?
You are arguing over what your money has been spent on after it's been stolen. That's like moaning that your mugger bought pepsi and not coca cola, rather than being outraged that you were robbed in the first place.
Anyway, you didn't include any factual differences between taxation and extortion, only opinions of it.
Only governments don't do those things. They pay others to do them once they have stolen. Why have a series of middlemen?
Seems to me that they just buy you things to make taxation look good and keep you quiet, while retaining power themselves.
Which invalidates this point totally.
Inactive things don't cause harm. It's not possible.
But the money hasn't been stolen. Let's try to keep real eh?
Look factual and real enough to me and most others I suspect. But then you have always seemed to have a perception problem with certain things.
Because otherwise the government would be made of some 60 million people.
Yes they do but never mind eh?
I have always held stocks and shares with the utmost contempt because it's a system that only exists to reward people who make no positive contribution towards the company. And by doing that it neglects assets where they are most needed: in the company to ensure proper investment and service and to pay workers decent wages.
It is because "commitment to shareholders" for instance that train companies seek to reduce service and maintenance to passengers as much as they can get away with, so they can return fatter dividends to the gamblers.
That is deeply wrong at every level.
P.S. Klintock please note the above before you try to explain how "inactive things" cannot cause harm.
massively contributing to the company and creating two more jobs.
wether the guy gets anything back will depend on an awful lot of things mostly beyond his control.
how can he have not made a positive contribution?
That isn't particularly beneficial for a company.
he's done it in the hope of getting a return ...eventualy.
he can fuck off to south america and never be seen again ...the company have his money.
it's the company who can desert him.
With north sea oil in decline these companies will find reserves else where and the exchequer will lose out. Oil companies pay 50% coporation tax while all others pay 30% including gambling stocks brewers and tobaco.
This windfall tax has nothing to do with fairness or obcene profits and everthing to do with Brown being a fool who cant read a balance sheet. If his forecasts were acurate this would not be needed.
You clearly do not pay tax.
Ok. So if I march into your house, take your TV but then use the cash I get from selling it to buy you something else, it's not theft?
Bollocks.
You've still not given any factual differences between the act of taxation and the act of extortion.
Facts go like this -
Tony Blair took my wallet and walked out of the room.
Opinions go like this -
Tony Blair took my wallet, which is a good thing.
See the difference?
Oh, the joy of facts. :rolleyes:
Explain how they can.
If you do nothing, then nothing is done, harmful or otherwise.
Companies that rack $9bn a year profits (that is £411,000 every single minute of every single day) while energy costs go sky high for everyone can afford to put some more back into the community.
Congratulations
I've given you plenty. It's not my fault if your understanding of the word factual is different from everyone else's.
Are you denying that taxes are overly used for good things?
Christ...
Well seeing as shareholders are harmful, that little theory of yours cannot be true, can it?
Unless of course shareholders are not inactive after all- which happens to be the truth. But hey, at least that way your theory might still be valid.
Don't be daft. I am saying that it's theft for a good or bad (depending on your opinion) cause. It's still theft. What the proceeds of theft get spent on isn't a factor in whether it's theft or not.
Where you draw the line at justifiable stealing is up to you of course. If my gran as sick, would I steal to get her medicine? yeah, probably, if there was no other way. It would still be theft.
i didn't say that shareholders did nothing for there money - you did.
Yep. Read a bit of Marx, he talks about this in Capital.