Windfalling for you

Did McCain switch positions on windfall profits tax?

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 2:42 PM on 18 Jun 2008

John McCain on a windfall profits tax, in his speech on energy policy delivered in Houston yesterday:

So what does Senator Obama support in energy policy? Well, for starters he supported the energy bill of 2005 -- a grab-bag of corporate favors that I opposed. And now he supports new taxes on energy producers. He wants a windfall profits tax on oil, to go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. If the plan sounds familiar, it's because that was President Jimmy Carter's big idea too -- and a lot of good it did us. Now as then, all a windfall profits tax will accomplish is to increase our dependence on foreign oil, and hinder exactly the kind of domestic exploration and production we need. I'm all for recycling -- but it's better applied to paper and plastic than to the failed policies of the 1970s.

John McCain on a windfall profits tax, speaking just over a month ago in Charlotte, N.C.:

I don't like obscene profits being made anywhere. I'd be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax, that's not what bothers me, but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people -- or industries or corporations -- that are distorting the markets.

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Enron loophole

Finally a name is put to insider hedge fund market manipulation. The special loophole for Enron also applies to every energy source.

It was engineered by Enron lobbyists and pushed through into law by by Phil Gramm, McBush's economic expert.

It allows compelety unregulated trading in energy futures. Would carbon emission permit trading (cap and trade) come under this rule? Yep.

It was recently expanded to allow unregulated trades through Dubai, pretty convenient for those who actually own these united states now.

This loophole allows the same people who run the market (like Enron did in the California energy "crisis") and control it to trade in it. Giving them the catbird seat. And making the market a fake "free" market.

Estimates are that gasloloine would now be in the 2 dollar price range without the loophole, so 2 dollars out of your pocket every time you buy gas is going solely to make hedge funds more profitable.

An economy in freeefall and that law can't be repealed? Yep. Does the same market reality exist for all ftures trading now? Yep. So half the cost of food is going to benefit hedge funds too.

Do we have a problem here? Will it be fixed? No, absolutely not. Almost every person in a position to change it has most of their assets in hedge funds.

What would happen if the hole were closed? Hedge funds would crash. Everyone who bet their money through those funds would lose their savings. Almost all our senators, congressmen, and government officials.

Time for another bonus army to march on DC. This time we want the "bonuses" that the hedge funds and their clients have stolen back.

Check out what happened to the first bonus army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 6:42 AM on 19 Jun 2008

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