Oil company and Taxes

Exxon profited by $16 billion this last quarter, bringing its earnings for 2012 to $25 billion. Exxon and Shell made a combined $160,000 per minute last quarter, even though the top five oil companies benefit from $2.4 billion federal tax breaks every year. Exxon paid just 13 percent in federal taxes last year, lower than the average American family. Mitt Romney is the top recipient of Exxon federal contributions, he is also the one proposing a new tax plan that could lower the top five oil companies’ annual tax bill by another $2.3 billion, virtually doubling what they already receive in tax breaks. Moral of the story: If you earn $160,000 you pay around 30-40% tax. If you earn $160,000 per minute you pay 13%. The full details and the numbers are on this article: Top Two Oil Companies Earn $160,000 Per Minute, Paid Low Tax Rate.

Does gold set the price for oil?

The article "Does gold set the price for oil?" by Michael Jaeger in the Washington Times has compared the oil price and the gold price for the last 26 years, from January 2, 1986 to March 3, 2012 (6,457 matching intervals). Using basic statistics, a 2-sample t test was performed and the results are eye-opening. The comparison showed that .0602 ounces of gold times the price of gold produces the price of a barrel of oil, with an standard error of just .421%, between the calculated price and the actual price since 1986. For the last 26 years, the price of gold dictated the price of oil with 99.579 percent accuracy. That seems to be quite convincing. Read the full article for all the details. This TV news broadcast "Fiat Dollar Is The Real Reason For High Gas Prices" also talks about the same article by Michael Jaeger.

Reforestation

I don't know what exactly it is, but planting trees or just reading or thinking about reforestation makes me cheerful for a moment. Today I ran across a 1-hour documentary entitled "The man who stopped the desert". A trailer is available for free.

From this movie I followed two links to related material: "Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR): A good news story for a deforested and degraded" is a brief summary of permaculture ideas applied in Africa to help reforestation. The other reference is from China: "Lessons of the Loess Plateau" is a 52-min documentary highlighting the challenges and results from this regeneration project.