J. Christoph Amberger

Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon

The question at this point seems to be not if 4 more years of a Republican Administration is "good for this country". It is "whose program will prevent the United States from becoming a complete economic basket-case."

Based on Obama's platform, the question if -- at the beginning of what could be a protracted global recession -- a heavy-handed tax and confiscation policy (let's call the "windfall redistribution" by its proper name) is commendable seems easy to answer: History, for those who usually profess to be eager to "learn" from it, argues that it is not.

If a candidate campaigning on a platform of unilateral appeasement is the man to see America through an ongoing war on terror, a potential confrontation w/ Iran, an increasingly militant rivalry with China, and a Russian prime minister who just advocated that Russia needs to be "back in Cuba" is quite another matter. Obama has posed not just as anti-War but anti-military.

(Ironically, military spending has historically been the ultimate stimulus package. Just asks Messrs. Roosevelt and Reagan. Then why gripe about the $10 billion a month going into the Iraq/Afghanistan war and only piddle around with a $1,000 a year redistribution check?)

Global competition has increased not just from China and India, but from Europe: Even retro-socialist Germany and France have revamped their tax systems and lowered business taxes to BELOW the U.S. rate. (That under the Bush administration.) How attractive do you think this makes the United States as a magnet for new business. Or, vice versa, how many years can U.S. corporations afford to be headquartered (and taxable) in the U.S. -- if Dubai, Hong Kong, maybe soon Mumbai offer a better deal that pays for itself in tax savings in a quarter?

Think Halliburton is the only company that can move its taxable revenues from the U.S. jurisdiction?

I am no big fan of McCain, but clearly a market-based economy (as much as this is possible in this country) is preferable to top-down meddling from someone who apparently has no clue regarding his own finances.

And of course, in a media-created atmosphere of complete irrational, uncritical adulation of one particular candidate -- as inexperienced and isolated from real-world experience as this one -- , the ironic use of "Anointed One" is not only permissable. But right on the money.

If I say so myself.

Obama Wants to 'Robin Hood' Exxon

I'd like to point out that the accumulated sales, excise and income taxes paid by XOM already amount to roughly 300% of what the company will book as net income -- part of which already will be "redistributed" to pensioners, retirees, middle-class investors in the form of dividend (of which yet another 15% will flow back into the state's coffers.) That, dear Jonathan, is how Capitalist redistribution works. The ticket to partake costs you a bit more than 70 bucks right now -- slightly less than a bar tab after happy hour has run into the early hours.

The idea of government randomly targeting a business or industry to extort money is the opposite of that: Autocratic, totalitarian... socialist.