Oklahoma spends 1/3 of its budget on corporate tax incentives!

[poopgiggle]

My take: Without the human effect, economics is just accounting principles.

Well since we're using economics to model human behavior I'd say that the human effect is pretty important.

 

[uncle money bags]

I am not going to write out a treatise on why Austrian School economics is dumb.

I dont blame you.

 

[poopgiggle]

You could always look it up for yourself!

 

[Vamoose]

....if you will.

I need to add that phrase to the "Phrases You Hate" thread.

 

[mugsy]

The corporate masters wish to announce that RickN's re-education is complete, and they are pleased.

Very good IndVet (BTW you can call me SWOKVet if you wish) - you completely avoided the substance of his very specific post and launched an ad-hominem attack - certainly elevated the discussion.

 

[LightningCrash]

Very good IndVet (BTW you can call me SWOKVet if you wish) - you completely avoided the substance of his very specific post and launched an ad-hominem attack - certainly elevated the discussion.

The best thing to do there is just to ignore them. If they are persistent in shatting up the thread then it's often fruitful to use Socratic questioning to lead them in a discussion about their viewpoint. They get bored and move on.

 

[WTJ]

Well since we're using economics to model human behavior I'd say that the human effect is pretty important.

While you may be, WE aren't.

 

[poopgiggle]

While you may be, WE aren't.

I don't know who you mean by "WE," but since the purpose of the field of economics is to model aggregate human behavior I'd say WE're not doing a very good job.

 

[WTJ]

I don't know who you mean by "WE," but since the purpose of the field of economics is to model aggregate human behavior I'd say WE're not doing a very good job.

I didn't know who you meant by WE either, so I excused myself lest I be blamed.

 

[Shadowrider]

I've been meaning to get back to this, So lets get back to the propaganda at hand, more specifically pointing it out. Here are some tidbits from one of the better articles I've seen. It's actually pretty objective unlike the drivel from Obama and his minions. I've bolded some of the points that point out the hypocrisy.

ExxonMobil in 2011 made $27.3 billion in cash payments for income taxes. Chevron paid $17 billion and ConocoPhillips $10.6 billion. And not only were these the highest amounts in absolute terms, when compared with the rest of the 25 most profitable U.S. companies (see our slideshow for the full rundown of who paid what), the trio also had the highest effective tax rates. Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3% and Conoco’s was 41.5%. That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.

How bad are those oil “tax breaks,” really? The deduction for oil drilling costs isn’t much different from the deductions that pharmaceutical companies are allowed to take for research and development costs (no one has proposed taking those away). And as for the domestic manufacturing deduction, every other company that manufactures anything in the U.S. can deduct up to 9% of the income they generate on those goods. Right now, oil companies only get a 6% deduction on the oil and gas they produce. Why single them out?

(The lowest taxpayers among the most profitable companies? Automakers Ford and GM, despite $20 billion and $9 billion in net income, respectively, paid a scant $270 million and $570 million in taxes - simply because they have billions in previous-year losses to balance against recent profits.)

And income taxes isn’t even the half of it–literally. Exxon also recorded more than $70 billion last year in sales taxes ($33.5 billion) and other taxes and duties ($43.5 billion). But none of that will matter to the president if gasoline prices keep climbing. Having been blocked on his Big Oil tax hike, don’t be surprised if in the heat of the summer driving season he calls for a windfall profits tax on oil companies. The very concept implies that the companies are earning an unfairly high return. Sure Exxon’s and Chevron’s net incomes are high. But so are their revenues! Exxon’s revenues were $486 billion and Chevron’s were $254 billion. That implies an average net margin of just 10%.

Compare that with the $33 billion that Apple made in 2011 on $128 billion in revenues and Microsoft‘s $23 billion income on $72 billion in sales. Those margins are 26% and 32%. And yet Apple enjoyed a low effective tax rate of 25% and paid a relatively meager $4 billion in income taxes, putting it in ninth place on our list of the biggest U.S. corporate taxpayers, while Microsoft had an effective rate of just 16% and paid $5.3 billion, placing it sixth. So why doesn’t President Obama propose a windfall tax on Apple and go after its $100 billion cash hoard?

Synopsis is:
Out of the top 25 companies that paid the most taxes in 2011:

#1) ExxonMobil - Net income: 41 billion - Tax Paid: 27.3 billion - Tax rate: 42%
#2) Chevron - Net income: 26.9 billion - Tax Paid: 17.4 billion - Tax rate: 43.3%
#3) ConocoPhillips - Net income: 12.4 billion - Tax Paid: 10.6 billion - Tax rate: 45.6%

You get the idea...

Full article. It's worth a read.