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The "Windfall Profits" Smear

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America's oil companies have earned every penny of their profits. By Alex Epstein Politicians and pundits claim that oil companies' recent quarter of higher profits is mostly a "windfall"--which should be "given back" to society via a proposed $20 billion tax. As Representative Dennis Kucinich and others say, they seek "to tax only excess profits, leaving . . . reasonable profits unaffected." Such taxation is justified because the recent low supply and high demand that led to higher profits, explains economist Dean Baker, "is kind of [the oil companies'] good luck. They didn't do anything to earn it." But America's oil companies have earned every penny of their profits. To characterize any portion of them as an unearned "windfall"--like manna dropped from heaven--is a vicious smear. It is to evade what is truly responsible for their profits this and every quarter: the great value they create and the tremendous thought,...

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/000514.html

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