There’s a lot of talk these days about excessive corporate profits. Usually, “windfall profits” are referenced concerning oil companies. Most of the complaints about oil companies are based on “tribal knowledge.” One example is the myth that oil companies don’t pay enough taxes. The oil and natural gas industry currently enjoys no unique tax credits or deductions. This fact is never reported and the myth continues.
For some reason it’s easy to hate corporations. I blame it on too many shallowly-written cartoons. Almost every evil character is some rich corporate overlord trying to exploit the average man. It’s kind of like Scrooge McDuck vs. Flintheart Glomgold. In Disney’s Duck Tales there are two rich Duck rivals with the names Scrooge and Flintheart. That doesn’t sound very charitable, does it? How did Scrooge McDuck make his money? He made it being “smarter than the smarties, and tougher than the toughies.” No, seriously! Is it any wonder why so many people distrust corporations? For whatever reason government bureaucrats don’t make good cartoons. One of my favorite Stuff White People Like entries is #82 Hating Corporations. Yuppies love Target, but they hate Walmart.
When engaging in a conversation about corporate evils it is important to NEVER, EVER mention Apple Computers, Target or Ikea in the same breath as the companies mentioned earlier. White people prefer to hate corporations that don’t make stuff that they like.
You can add Google to that list as well. Google’s smug motto “don’t be evil” would be an excellent piece of satire except that’s actually their motto. So I guess we’re supposed to take it seriously? Apple, on the other hand, is the king of all branding. Where is the outrage about their products being assembled in China? Also, what about Apple’s profits? Mark J. Perry at Carpe Diem compares Apple’s profits to ExxonMobil.
| Q1 2011 | ExxonMobil | Apple |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $114.0B | $24.7B |
| Earnings Before Tax | $18.94B | $7.96B |
| Income Taxes | $8.0B | $1.9B |
| Net Profit | $10.65B | $5.98B |
| Effective Tax Rate | 42.20% | 24.22% |
| Profit Margin | 9.30% | 24.27% |
| Profit/Employee | $127,392 | $128,470 |
Apple is getting taxed less and making a higher profit margin. How can this be? Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for a windfall profit taxes? President Obama floated the idea of a windfall profit tax on oil companies during the 2008 election. Would companies like Apple be a better target? By any measure these type of farcical taxes are dangerous and counterproductive, but there are those on the left who think it’s a good idea.
Americans should be more concerned with windfall debt. Profits from ExxonMobil and Apple aren’t damaging the nation. Windfall profits are a fake problem.
Here at the The Daily Plunge we’re celebrating Earth Hour on Saturday 26 March at 8:30 p.m. (local time). However, we’ll be doing something a lot different than the poor schmucks who are turning off their lights for no other reason that phantom guilt.
There already is an Earth Day, but there isn’t an Electricity Day. Shouldn’t we celebrate the amazing progress we’ve made since the dawn of the electrical age? Mark J Perry has more over at Carpe Diem…
Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water. Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.
When 8:30 rolls around Saturday night I’m going to turn all the lights on in my house, turn up the air conditioning, start my car, watch a movie on Netflix, and play Angry Birds on my phone. I’ll go to my desktop computer and pull up Kanye West’s video for “All of the Lights” on YouTube. I’ll play it continuously for the entire hour.
This is progress and I’m not going to feel a twinge of guilt for being alive in 2011. Everyone should join in and celebrate electricity. If you feel guilty for no apparent reason, it has nothing to do with the Earth.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when city planners discuss Smart Growth. Time and time again politicians and concerned citizens clamor for land regulations, regulations which ultimately lead to expensive real estate. I’ve written about this subject a few times, but Mark J. Perry has an awesome graph that displays the problem very well. His article has some other interesting statistics as well.
Are zoning laws and city regulation the only contributors to unaffordable housing? No, but they are a major part of the problem and unfortunately no one seems to understand.
Here’s a hat tip to Mark J. Perry who has one of my favorite economics blogs. He’s been beating the “economic boom” drum for a few month and I believe he’s correct. Here’s a video from Larry Kudlow’s The Kudlow Report.
The short term looks good, but the long run is very very bleak unless we change our fiscal problems. It’s good news for President Obama and bad news for whoever replaces him in the future.
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