The Oil Company Gusher

Exxon-Mobil's first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That's the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.

This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the US government, at a time when we're cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.

It’s specially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.

Exxon-Mobil's Vice President asks that we look past the "inevitable headlines" and remember the company's investments in renewable energy.

Exxon-Mobil's first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That's the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.

This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the US government, at a time when we're cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.

It’s specially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.

Exxon-Mobil's Vice President asks that we look past the "inevitable headlines" and remember the company's investments in renewable energy.

Exxon-Mobil’s first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That’s the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.
This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the U.S. government, at a time when we’re cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.
It’s specially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.
Exxon-Mobil’s Vice President asks that we look past the “inevitable headlines” and remember the company’s investments in renewable energy.
What investments, exactly? Last time I looked Exxon-Mobil was devoting a smaller percentage of its earnings to renewables than most other oil companies, including the errant BP.
In point of fact, no oil company is investing much in renewables — precisely because they’ve got such money gusher going from oil. Those other oil companies also had a banner first quarter, compounding the industry’s embarrassment about its $4 billion a year welfare check.

Exxon-Mobil's first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That's the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.

This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the US government, at a time when we're cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.

It’s specially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.

Exxon-Mobil's Vice President asks that we look past the "inevitable headlines" and remember the company's investments in renewable energy.

What investments, exactly? Last time I looked Exxon-Mobil was devoting a smaller percentage of its earnings to renewables than most other oil companies, including the errant BP.

In point of fact, no oil company is investing much in renewables — precisely because they've got such money gusher going from oil. Those other oil companies also had a banner first quarter, compounding the industry's embarrassment about its $4 billion a year welfare check.

Exxon-Mobil's first quarter earnings of $10.7 billion are up 69 percent from last year. That's the most profit the company has earned since the third quarter of 2008 — perhaps not coincidentally, around the time when gas prices last reached the lofty $4 a gallon.

This gusher is an embarrassment for an industry seeking to keep its $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the US government, at a time when we're cutting social programs to reduce the budget deficit.

It’s specially embarrassing when Americans are paying through their noses at the pump.

Exxon-Mobil's Vice President asks that we look past the "inevitable headlines" and remember the company's investments in renewable energy.

What investments, exactly? Last time I looked Exxon-Mobil was devoting a smaller percentage of its earnings to renewables than most other oil companies, including the errant BP.

In point of fact, no oil company is investing much in renewables — precisely because they've got such money gusher going from oil. Those other oil companies also had a banner first quarter, compounding the industry's embarrassment about its $4 billion a year welfare check.

Politicians Are Married To Big Oil

The Profits In Human Trafficking

But in the United States we see girls all the time who have been trafficked — and our hearts harden. The problem is that these girls aren’t locked in cages. Rather, they’re often runaways out on the street wearing short skirts or busting out of low-cut tops, and many Americans perceive them not as trafficking victims but as miscreants who have chosen their way of life. So even when they’re 14 years old, we often arrest and prosecute them — even as the trafficker goes free. 

The Tragedy Of Human Trafficking

The Price The Middle Class Pay Into Social Security

As a tax professional I have been concerned about the taxability of SS benefits for years. The base amount for calculating the taxable amount of benefits has not changed since SS benefits first became taxable in 1984.
As a comparison here is how some other income tax items changed since 1984:
Personal Exemption - up 265%
Standard Deduction, single - up 148%
Standard Deduction, married - up 235%
Taxable Income where highest tax bracket kicks in, single - up 370%
Taxable Income where highest tax bracket kicks in, married - up 135%
YET THE BASE INCOME AMOUNT TO INCUR INCOME TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS HAS NOT CHANGED AT ALL!


The Middle Class Are Paying Too Much Into Security Security

Extended Unemployment Benefits Expire In These States Next

This is the Republican Plan for us. They want to eliminate the safety net that holds our economy together. They want to inflict pain on the poor, workers, seniors, disabled, small businesses­, and labor unions; they want to break us. They want to fill our prisons, they want to take away our freedom, and they want to enslave us.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Tea Party Is Disappearing

The attack on Labor Unions continues; 22 states are trying to bust the labor unions. They want to privatize social services to give more money to corporations.

Sarah Palin And Her Tea Party Followers Are Fading

Thanks to many loopholes in our tax code–the carried interest loophole being the most important–the richest people in American are likely paying a lower tax rate than you are. From Businessweek:

For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just under 17 percent in 2007, according to the IRS. And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so.
That’s not just good luck. It’s often the result of hard work, as suggested by some of the strategies in the following pages. Much of the top 400′s income is from dividends and capital gains, generated by everything from appreciated real estate—yes, there is some left—to stocks and the sale of family businesses. As Warren Buffett likes to point out, since most of his income is from dividends, his tax rate is less than that of the people who clean his office.

Tax Day Reminder: Richest Americans Probably Pay at a Lower Rate than You Do

U.S. Budget Analysis Shows Smaller Savings

The CBO found that when emergency spending is factored in, such as funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the budget deal actually would spend $3 billion more than initial estimates for 2011 spending.


The New Budget For 2011 Would Save 3 Million.

Koch Brothers' Conservative Propaganda Machine - Front Groups

With the Koch brothers money and Ruppert Murdoch's propaganda machine ( fox news and the religious right ) liberals and the constitution don't stand a chance.
Get ready for a theocratic USA.

The Real Tea Party Knows Nothing

Lectures in History: The Roots of Progressivism

Professor Mitch Lerner with Ohio State University at Newark teaches various American History courses, including political and diplomatic history. Today’s class focuses on the 19th century roots of the progressive movement and Theodore Roosevelt.

It's time to take over the political system

Lectures in History: The Roots of Progressivism

Professor Mitch Lerner with Ohio State University at Newark teaches various American History courses, including political and diplomatic history. Today’s class focuses on the 19th century roots of the progressive movement and Theodore Roosevelt.

It's time to take over the political system

Paul Ryan’s Plan, the Coming Shutdown, and What’s Really at Stake

I was there in 1995 when the government closed because of a budget stalemate. I had to tell most of the Labor Department’s 15,600 employees to go home and not return the next day. I also had to tell them I didn’t know when they’d next get a paycheck.

There were two shutdowns, actually, rolling across the government in close succession, like thunder storms.
It’s not the way to do the public’s business.

Newt Gingrich got blamed largely because his ego was (and is) so big he couldn’t stop blabbing that Clinton should be blamed. (Gingrich’s complaint of a bad seat on Air Force One didn’t help.)
But the larger loss was to the dignity and credibility of the United States government. When average Americans saw the Speaker of the House and the President of the United States behaving like nursery school children unable to get along, it only added to the prevailing cynicism.


The GOP wants to shutdown the government a message to John Boehner we'll shutdown the GOP

Wall St.'s crooks and liars, and the politicians who protect them

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 hereafter referred to as the CRA is blamed by Republicans as the source of the crisis and it was disingenuous of Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick to place blame there citing Jimmy Carter. The CRA of 1977 ended the practice of redlining by lenders that was defined as drawing a red line around a neighborhood and refusing to lend money to anyone within. The banks took the money from depositors in those neighborhoods and used it for other borrowers and investments but not for the community where it came from.


The Big Banks redlining poor and middle class communities. They were killing property values, jobs, and small business.