Excuse me? IN 1999, gas was about 80 cents a gallon (and over 25% of that was taxes)! After going to a dollar back in the mid 70s (we had deflation between 74 and 99? Gee, imagine that!). DO you think the oil companies were making record profits then? Did you hear a great hue and cry for "oil welfare" because the oil companies were sucking air? And that the largest capitalized companies no longer included ANY oil companies? I was filling up for about $8/tank, and my paycheck was a lot larger than $70!

Sure, 50 years ago, you may have been filling up a gas guzzler for $4 and taking home $35, but then your taxes were a lot lower since you were living in what at the time was poverty. If you applied, I bet you got assistance. Did the oil companies in 99? Want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn?

Go ahead, and "hurt" the oil companies. And then complain because they cant do anything to solve the energy crises. rely on congress! Sure! They have fixed so many things. Like......name one that has not fattened their coffers!

Selective memory may work when telling stories to grand kids. It does not work in the real world.

Go ahead, try to build one, see how far you get.

So you're saying that oil companies should pay when the price drops (via less money for the oil they sell), and pay when the price rises (via windfall taxes), because you don't like paying more for oil when the price of oil rises? You know the end result of that? You can end up paying more for the oil than before the tax! After all companies won't be as keen to invest in new oil production to increase supply (e.g. in areas where there is a low likelihood of finding oil, and also in other areas where you know there is oil, but it is so costly to obtain it that you need high prices to make it worthwhile), so supply will be lower, meaning higher prices. That's even assuming the companies don't respond to any tax by passing at least some of it onto the consumer (which they might well do) in the form of higher prices.

Also, you seem to think it's wrong for all these companies to make all this money, but who is actually getting the money? A lot of the time it can actually be poor people! The reason is those (post-tax) profits will either be given to shareholders, or reinvested back into the business. Some of those shareholders are likely to include pension funds (unless the US has restrictions on what they can+can't invest and oil companies are prohibited), which in turn will often hold the pensions of countless people on low incomes.

Typical trickle down "theory" which only works if the government does the trickling. Look I have nothing but respect for big oil as responsible suppliers of an essential commodity that makes this country work. But when they went the way of Arabian oil in the thirties and forties at the expense of domestic drilling, they had done the same thing that American companies do now by uncontrolled outsourcing at the expense of national security and a thriving middle class.
We're talking seventy years ago and $35 per week was not poverty nor eligible for welfare.

You know Steve, when things like iPhones, PS3's, xbox 360's, blackberrys, starbucks, ebay, amazon.com, etc are still showing profits and large numbers in sales in a country where the economy is suppose to be bad, where the poor are hurting and where jobs are being lost left and right, I think the ones that need to get real are the ones who keep thinking the poor people of this country are living like poor people in Africa, Venezuela, Cuba or even Mexico. People risk their lives crossing the border, making boats are of junk and stacking themselves inside containers to cross the Atlantic or Pacific just to be poor in this country, cause rest a sure they will not become rich 5 minutes after reaching land. But compared to their country, they will think they are.

I am one of those people considered poor by many. Yea, I am poor, I have TV's, laptops, game consoles, a new car, a nice apartment good food in my fridge and pantry, cable, Internet and I even get to eat out from time to time. Why? Because I work for it, because I strive to be more than I am and more than others think I can be and because in this country, anyone can be rich. Just ask Levan Hernandez, Chris Gardner an William Hung.

I look forward to being rich someday, being a Democrat or Liberal will not accomplish that for me.

70years ago, there was no welfare. And poverty was when you did not have any food to eat, not the lack of 2 cars and 3 TVs.

Do you really think you can extract oil from the ground now for $3/barrel?

Democrats are just like Verucca Salt. And in the end, they will get the same thing - by their own hand.

One's politics is irrelevant to making money. And don't patronise me with the crap about those willing to come to the country of opportunity--that's axiomatic. I'm not belttling this nation, but it has room to improve. How about health care for all as a start.

Not welfare as today's pejorative; but certainly existed for legitimate widows with young children and there was unemployment ins. Anyway I mispoke I meant 60 years ago and in my twenties.

What gave you that idea? Times change.

I have no problem with the idea of health care for all. What I have a problem with is government run health care. Every time I hear people talking about government run health care I just think about how well the government has done running our public education system. Similar problems with that system would crop up in a government run health care system.

Don't get me wrong I don't much care for the current health care system either, it needs some serious reforms, but the government running it isn't the answer.

Tell that to the Democrats who make rich people seem like monsters, kinda ironic considering some rich people are Democrats, hypocrisy at it's finest.



That's your problem, you seem to think no one wants to improve, everyone wants improvements, everyone knows todays politics are crap, the thing is you think it should be done your way and I think it should be done mine. I, at least am willing to compromise, that's a word not in the Democratic vocabulary.



Hows about we start with fixing what we currently have before we add more problems to the ones we already have. Adding a universal healthcare system to our current state is like a couple with 4 kids working at $10 each only to get pregnant and bring 2 more kids to this world. Hello?

So do prices. 70 Years ago, a loaf of bread, a Gallon of Milk and a chicken would cost you less than $1. So are we to now go after teh price gouging farmers for their gouging us for the price of food?

There's no such thing as government run health care unless you mean those in the armed services. All the government does is pay the bills, such as in Medicare.
A pail of milk would be more apropos to the time. As a kid I often went to the store and filled a pail from a large stainless steel container with a dipper chained to it.

And you lived??????

Not true. Any hospital or doctor's office that accepts Medicare has to adjust their services based on what Medicare will "approve" for the patient. It is much like other insurance programs where certain services are deemed necessary and others are not. What used to be classified as a heart attack 20 years ago is now classified as a "heart episode" so that Medicare (or other insurances companies) can get out of paying for a hospital room overnight and the patient is sent home. If Government took over the healthcare industry completely then everyone would have the same crappy coverage.

And if everyone has the same coverage it is like the government will be running the hospitals by proxy because that Medicare or Medicaid will only cover certain procedures. You remove all of the choice from insurances. Government run Health Care is NOT the answer. I don't know what the answer is, but it certainly isn't government run healthcare.