Earlier in the day, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., renewed their call for passage of a windfall profits tax on oil companies. They hoped to put such a proposal - a 50 percent tax on the sale of oil over $40 a barrel - into a tax bill this month, they said. The revenue would be given to consumers in the form of an income tax rebate.

And the tax would be given directly to consumers in the form of a price hike. A tax is just a cost, like the steel for the barrels (which they don't use, but that's beside the point), shipping, overhead, the oil itself, et cetera. It's all just a cost. Raise the cost, in this case a 50 percent tax, and every single penny is paid by consumers.

Direct price controls would do the trick.
But I'm sure someone would squeal about that.

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Direct price controls would do the trick. But I'm sure someone would squeal about that.

Heh heh. No, they don't. Ask Nixon how that worked.

Ask him if it puts upward pressure on prices as supply dwindles because private companies refuse to produce the product...

Direct price controls would do the trick. But I'm sure someone would squeal about that.

Heh heh. No, they don't. Ask Nixon how that worked.

Ask him if it puts upward pressure on prices as supply dwindles because private companies refuse to produce the product...

OK, let's just nationalize all the oil company assets. Whoopee!

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Speaking of inept executives...how in the hell do you drive
one of the worlds largest corporations into the ground. It wasn't
employee wages and benefits, they pushed the biggest gas guzzlers for
the highest short term profits along with poorly thought out mergers.


That'll piss'em off!

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OK, let's just nationalize all the oil company assets. Whoopee!

And do you think that would drive prices up, or drive them down?

OK, let's just nationalize all the oil company assets. Whoopee!

And do you think that would drive prices up, or drive them down?

Taking in consideration that the oil companies are refining crude which they purchased 6-12 months ago, you do the maths.

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Taking in consideration that the oil companies are refining crude which they purchased 6-12 months ago, you do the maths.

What is this Cuba?

The math has been done, plenty of times, rest assured. You want to guarantee prices higher than you've ever seen, nationalize oil companies.

Besides, I'm not sure any of the big companies (Shell, Exxon, Mobil, BP) even refine their own products any more. And most of the stations are franchisees.

As a matter of fact, I did take Ecomonics 101 (just got a B), but thanks for the refresher, although I really don't need it.

That wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. It's a term of art within economics and I just wanted to be clear that I was using the technical definition.

If you really want to see steam come out of someone's ears, watch an accountant at a check-out counter when the cashier asks "credit or debit?" :-)

Genital crushing would be a good start followed by complete destitution would be nice. Barring that, 15-30 years in a Fereral Maximum Security Prison with a cellie named "Bubba" would be a good alternative.

The problem with current SOX legislation is that compliance costs are prohibitive and you need a magnifying glass and tweezers to find any benefit. When (not if) SOX gets scrapped as unworkable, the legislature will have a choice. They can scale back to something reasonable that can stay in place for the lifespan of an executive career, or they can do the wild pendulum swing thing and leave investors even less protected than before.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

Hearings to focus on oil industry profits vs. consumers' struggles

ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 2, 2005

WASHINGTON - Top executives of three major oil companies will be asked by senators next week why some of their industry's estimated $96 billion in record profits this year shouldn't be used to help people having trouble paying their energy bills.

--snip--

"You have a responsibility to help less fortunate Americans cope with the high cost of heating fuels," Grassley, whose committee deals with tax legislation, wrote in a letter to the chief of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry's lobbying arm. He also said companies should invest more of their profits in exploration and production and refining capacity to increase supplies.

Earlier in the day, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., renewed their call for passage of a windfall profits tax on oil companies. They hoped to put such a proposal – a 50 percent tax on the sale of oil over $40 a barrel – into a tax bill this month, they said. The revenue would be given to consumers in the form of an income tax rebate.

Windfall taxes are market-killers. This was demonstrated definitively in this exact industry in the early 1970's, and we are still feeling the effects today. A windfall tax effectively tells vendors that they will not be permitted to profit from their investment. The result is less investment. In this case, "investment" is refining capacity.

The second suggestion is far more reasonable. Although the profits aren't exactly windfalls (they are the result of dilligent pre-planning and mostly-effective crisis procedures), they should be invested in additional refining capacity. Preferably, refining capacity located away from the Gulf Coast.

It is not unusual for Congress to wrestle such promises from industries that are in the doghouse for socially questionable behavior. For example, video games makers decided to rate their products' content to avoid a regulatory sledgehammer from Washington. Although it is unfortunate that Washington feels the need to hold expensive public hearings when it acts in this role of mediator between society and industry, this is not an over-reach of their Constitutional authority (unlike a lot of Congressional meddling, this does fall squarely within the Interstate Commerce Clause).

Price controls would be a huge mistake. A pledge to invest in increased refining capacity (and, might it be hoped, new areas for drilling) would be a silver lining to some very dark clouds.

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

OK, let's just nationalize all the oil company assets. Whoopee!

And do you think that would drive prices up, or drive them down?

Taking in consideration that the oil companies are refining crude which they purchased 6-12 months ago, you do the maths.

You still haven't addressed the obviuos, yet, i.e. price gouging.

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OK, let's just nationalize all the oil company assets. Whoopee!

And do you think that would drive prices up, or drive them down?

Taking in consideration that the oil companies are refining crude which they purchased 6-12 months ago, you do the maths.

You still haven't addressed the obviuos, yet, i.e. price gouging.

Don't forget to add this:

Geebus! I'm not sure what your point is! and Pfffft!

BIRD FLU

Top Italian spy says he knows source of fake WMD papers

By Elaine Sciolino and Elisabetta Povoledo
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

November 4, 2005

ROME - Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy named Rocco Martino yesterday as the disseminator of forged documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy hundreds of tons of uranium ore from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, three Italian lawmakers said yesterday.

The spymaster, Gen. Nicolo Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as Sismi, disclosed that Martino was the source of the forged documents in closed-door testimony to a parliamentary committee that oversees secret services, the lawmakers said.

Sen. Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters that Pollari had identified Martino as a former intelligence agency informer who had been "kicked out of the agency." He did not say Martino had been the forger.

The revelation came on a day when the FBI confirmed it had shut down its two-year investigation into the origin of the forged documents from Italy.

The information about Iraq's desire to acquire the uranium ore, known as yellowcake, was used by the Bush administration to help justify the invasion of Iraq, notably by President Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2003. But the information was later revealed to have been based on forgeries.

The documents were the basis for sending a former U.S. diplomat, Joseph Wilson, on a fact-finding mission to Niger that eventually exploded into a CIA leak inquiry that led to the indictment and resignation last week of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Martino has long been suspected of being the person responsible for peddling the false documents on the Iraq-Niger connection. News reports have quoted him as saying he obtained the documents through a contact at the Niger Embassy in Rome. But this was the first time his role was formally disclosed by the Italian intelligence agency.

Neither Martino nor his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, was available for comment.

Brutti told reporters after the closed-door session that the commission was told the Italian secret services warned the United States in January 2003 that the dossier was fake.

But later, the senator called The Associated Press to retract that statement. He said the commission was not told that the Italians had warned the Americans.

Sen. Luigi Malabarba, who also attended yesterday's hearing, said Pollari had told the committee that Martino was "offering the documents not on behalf of Sismi but on behalf of the French" and that Martino had told prosecutors in Rome that he was in the service of French intelligence.

A senior French intelligence official interviewed Wednesday in Paris declined to say whether Martino had been a paid agent of France but called Pollari's assertions about France's responsibility in the matter "scandalous."

Yesterday's hearing followed a three-part series in the newspaper La Repubblica, which said Pollari had knowingly provided the United States and Britain with forged documents.

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Why so silent? Politicians' reaction to Frist report is telling.

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

November 5, 2005

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist saved himself at least $700,000 by ordering the sale of all of his shares in HCA, a hospital chain founded by his father and his brother, just two weeks before a disappointing earnings report drove the stock price drown. This has rightly prompted a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into possible insider trading. All the elements for a juicy scandal are in place, given that the Tennessee Republican told CNBC last year that his holdings were in a blind trust and that "as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." In fact, Frist received 15 letters since 2001 outlining his holdings.

But while pundits have hammered Frist, there has been little sniping from his fellow lawmakers. What's going on here?

A New Yorker writer suggests the reason may be that many of his colleagues enjoy similar inside information. A Georgia State professor who investigated 6,000 stock trades by senators found their investments beat the market by a stunning 12 percent a year, a rate worthy of Warren Buffett.

A similarly cynical theory would be that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid - whose four sons have made millions working for businesses hoping to curry Reid's favor - doesn't want anyone to get worked up about ethics.

But whatever the reason for the silence, it's a bad thing. Blind trusts really should be blind trusts. The families of lawmakers shouldn't rake in money from lobbyists. If the rules Congress makes to police itself don't make this clear, they must be fixed.

This is obvious - except to those for whom ethical standards are an annoying inconvenience.

FBI says money behind forged uranium reports

ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 5, 2005

WASHINGTON - The FBI has determined that financial gain, not an effort to influence U.S. policy, was behind the forged documents the Bush administration used to bolster its prewar claim that Iraq sought uranium ore in Niger.

The FBI's investigation began after questions were raised about a brief portion of President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union speech when he said Iraq was pursuing the uranium ore, part of his argument to justify the coming invasion of Iraq.

Some U.S. and foreign officials disputed the authenticity of documents that indicated Saddam Hussein was seeking the uranium ore for a nuclear weapons program.

The FBI had refused comment on the matter until Italian news sources reported this week that FBI Director Robert Mueller sent the Italian government a letter in July with the results of the bureau's two-year investigation.

The investigation "confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for financial gain," FBI spokesman John Miller said yesterday, describing the contents of the letter.

Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or identify the perpetrators of the hoax.

Italian officials this week identified Rocco Martino, described as a one-time informant for the Italian secret service, as the source of the forged documents, according to Italian Sen. Massimo Brutti.

Martino had previously given media interviews acknowledging his role.

But Italy's spy chief, Nicolo Pollari, denied that Italian intelligence had any hand in distributing the phony dossier, Brutti and other lawmakers who attended a closed-door briefing said.

The session occurred following a newspaper report alleging Italy had passed the documents to Britain and the United States knowing they were fake.

The Niger claim also is at the center of the CIA leak investigation that led to the indictment last week of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Libby pleaded innocent to charges he obstructed the investigation and lied to investigators and the grand jury that has been looking into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Why so silent? Politicians' reaction to Frist report is telling.

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

November 5, 2005

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist saved himself at least $700,000 by ordering the sale of all of his shares in HCA, a hospital chain founded by his father and his brother, just two weeks before a disappointing earnings report drove the stock price drown. This has rightly prompted a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into possible insider trading. All the elements for a juicy scandal are in place, given that the Tennessee Republican told CNBC last year that his holdings were in a blind trust and that "as far as I know, I own no HCA stock." In fact, Frist received 15 letters since 2001 outlining his holdings.

But while pundits have hammered Frist, there has been little sniping from his fellow lawmakers. What's going on here?

A New Yorker writer suggests the reason may be that many of his colleagues enjoy similar inside information. A Georgia State professor who investigated 6,000 stock trades by senators found their investments beat the market by a stunning 12 percent a year, a rate worthy of Warren Buffett.

A similarly cynical theory would be that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid - whose four sons have made millions working for businesses hoping to curry Reid's favor - doesn't want anyone to get worked up about ethics.

But whatever the reason for the silence, it's a bad thing. Blind trusts really should be blind trusts. The families of lawmakers shouldn't rake in money from lobbyists. If the rules Congress makes to police itself don't make this clear, they must be fixed.

This is obvious - except to those for whom ethical standards are an annoying inconvenience.

Probably because he started to sell about 1 year before.
His wish was to sell them all when he became majority leader.

Frist was notified of holdings in ‘blind’ trusts

Taken from the link above.
Frist was notified in November 2002 that 14,781 HCA shares had been sold from one of his trusts. But he was not told that all of his HCA shares had been disposed of until this summer — after he had directed his trustees to sell them all, the documents show.

‘Apply the highest ethical standards’
Frist said last week he was not required to set up a blind trust after he went to the Senate, but he wanted to "apply the highest ethical standards I possibly could. I thought, why not raise the bar, why not do a good deed . . . and avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest."

Senate rules prohibit any lawmaker with a blind trust from contacting his trustees unless the ownership of an asset poses a potential conflict of interest "due to the subsequent assumption of duties" by the lawmaker. The lawmaker can then ask the trustees to dispose of the asset.

Frist did not take on any new duties this year. But a Frist adviser said the senator had been thinking about selling his HCA stake from the time he was elected majority leader in 2002. Frist had not known that he could sell his shares until this spring, the adviser asserted, and so went ahead with the sale based on his nearly three-year-old wish.

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Red Bull Air Racing

Gas price by zip at Seti

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