Sanders Urges Tax on Windfall Oil Profits as Companies Exploit Ukraine Crisis

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

A windfall tax would levy a tax on profits made by fossil fuel companies in response to the invasion, and possibly also tax profits made as inflation has risen. This could potentially discourage fossil fuel companies from artificially inflating prices in response to the crisis.

In 2020, Sanders introduced similar legislation, which sought to capture 60 percent of the skyrocketing wealth increases that billionaires have been raking in during the pandemic in order to fund universal health care. If such a tax had been implemented from then until now, it would have raised trillions of dollars with essentially no impact on billionaires’ lifestyles.

(snip)

A tax on Big Oil could be similarly fruitful for the government. Last year, a report found that top oil and gas companies made $174 billion in the first nine months of 2021, while raising dividends and paying CEOs tens of millions of dollars. Companies posted similarly high profits in the fourth quarter of 2021, with Exxon Mobil reporting profits of $8.9 billion, its highest earnings in seven years.

Lawmakers like Sanders have noted that prices are rising in part because companies are trying to rake in profits at consumers’ expense; in November, President Joe Biden asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil and gas companies are engaging in antitrust behaviors in order to pad profits under the guise of inflation. Before winter set in last year, reporters found gas companies were sending large amounts of gas abroad in order to limit supply and raise prices for heating bills.

(snip)

https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-urges-tax-on-windfall-oil-profits-as-companies-exploit-ukraine-crisis/

[WA-03 Democrat]

1. And also that the US is hypocritical about Russia's NATO security concerns

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-guardian-russia-ukraine-crisis-putin-war-nato-1677453

[Uncle Joe]

3. Here is the actual OPED

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/08/we-must-do-everything-possible-avoid-enormously-destructive-war-ukraine

[WA-03 Democrat]

11. I read it

The majority of the article is anti-NATO which is pro Putin. Sure he calls Putin some names but the vast majority is spent justifying the position of Putin's aggression. Bernie may be nervous of his future funding.

[Uncle Joe]

15. Bernie said Putin was most responsible, there is no ambiguity about that.

If there is something that you believe to be false in the article, present it.

[WA-03 Democrat]

16. ASKED AND ANSWERED

Senator Sanders spent the majority of his time blaming NATO in the OPED.
I can do a sentence or paragraph count but so can you.

This is mid-February thinking at it's finest.

What is your problem with NATO?

[Uncle Joe]

17. ASKED AND ANSWERED

so you have nothing.

I believe every nation on Earth should be democratic and part of NATO, I believe that would end war as we know it.

[Beastly Boy]

4. How quickly the article aged!

How does Bernie propose to find a diplomatic solution with a war mongering tyrant who repeatedly scoffs at a mere mention of a diplomatic solution?

Bernie should address his sympathies for a Russian perspective and concerns for economic consequences of sanctions to half a million Ukrainian refugees who lost their homes since the article was published. No matter how hopeless their situation may be, Bernie can count on the Ukrainians retaining their sense of humor.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Bernie's OPED was from February 8th, weeks before Putin invaded Ukraine, while

diplomatic solutions were the means of avoiding the ends in your last paragraph.

After Putin recognized the two breakaway republics in Ukraine, this was Bernie's statement.

NEWS: Sanders Statement on U.S. Response to Russia
February 22, 2022
BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 22 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Tuesday issued the following statement after President Biden announced the first tranche of economic sanctions against Russia in response to President Vladimir Putin’s formal recognition of two breakaway territories in Eastern Ukraine:

“Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers. There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it. The United States must now work with our allies and the international community to impose serious sanctions on Putin and his oligarchs, including denying them access to the billions of dollars that they have stashed in European and American banks. The U.S. and our partners must also prepare for a worse scenario by helping Ukraine’s neighbors care for refugees fleeing this conflict. Finally, in the longer term, we must invest in a global green energy transition away from fossil fuels, not only to combat climate change, but to deny authoritarian petrostates the revenues they require to survive.”

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-u-s-response-to-russia/

Bernie has never justified Putin's actions, he was urging us to look at the bigger picture, that being the Russian Peoples' perspective in order to increase the chances of all parties having diplomatic success.

Some people call that empathy but never confuse that with weakness.

[Beastly Boy]

6. Two weeks before the invasion,

Bernie was preoccupied with "drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must “show strength”, “get tough” and not engage in “appeasement” (his words), and being concerned with the consequences of economic sanctions on Russia. Not a thing about Putin's refusal to seek a diplomatic solution. It's as if the "familiar drumbeat" and "bellicose rhetoric" emanating from Putin is non-existent.

Bernie is not so stupid as trying to justify Putin's actions, but he put the brunt of responsibility for appeasing Putin squarely on Washington and Brussels.Not a single word about what Putin should be doing to diffuse the conflict. As if appeasement of a despot ever worked.

On edit: I alreadt suggested the appropriate audience for Bernie's empathy.

[Uncle Joe]

7. What you don't seem to understand is

empathy is universal, giving to one party doesn't take away from the other.

You have empathy or you don't, Trump has no empathy, he's a sociopath or psychopath, something along those lines.

[Beastly Boy]

8. I don't understand? What made you come to this conclusion?

I understand Jose Andres has empathy, and it's universal. He doesn't look for anyone to fault, and he doesn't talk much. He helps.

I don't see too many parallels between Bernie's approach and his.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Your suggestion of an "appropriate audience" for empathy.

Last edited Tue Mar 1, 2022, 11:31 PM - Edit history (1)

As if the Russian People or for that matter any peoples under the thumb of a dictator were/are undeserving of empathy and that reflecting it in an attempt to circumvent the propaganda power of said autocrat while speaking directly to the Russian People to be "inappropriate."

My own personal belief is that honest, candid dialogue such as that made it easier for thousands of Russians to protest the war in Russia after the invasion despite the risks to themselves.

[Beastly Boy]

10. Do you believe that the Ukrainian refugees are not an appropriate audience for Bernie's empathy?

Did I suggest that anyone else is undeserving of Bernie's empathy?

I merely suggested a pretty obvious subject for Bernie's empathy. I also suggested that they might find Bernie's rhetoric of "drumbeats in Washington" "bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war" and his concerns about the consequences of economic sanctions on Russia, to be bitterly ironic rather than empathetic.

[Uncle Joe]

13. Not at all, Bernie spoke to them as well, in the statement that I bolded on post #5

NEWS: Sanders Statement on U.S. Response to Russia
February 22, 2022
BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 22 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Tuesday issued the following statement after President Biden announced the first tranche of economic sanctions against Russia in response to President Vladimir Putin’s formal recognition of two breakaway territories in Eastern Ukraine:

“Vladimir Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers. There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it. The United States must now work with our allies and the international community to impose serious sanctions on Putin and his oligarchs, including denying them access to the billions of dollars that they have stashed in European and American banks. The U.S. and our partners must also prepare for a worse scenario by helping Ukraine’s neighbors care for refugees fleeing this conflict. Finally, in the longer term, we must invest in a global green energy transition away from fossil fuels, not only to combat climate change, but to deny authoritarian petrostates the revenues they require to survive.”

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-u-s-response-to-russia/

[Beastly Boy]

18. Ok, first you cite Bernie's Guardian op-ed and then you cite Bernie's press release in which

Bernie takes the position contrary to what he advocated for in the Guardian op-ed. In The Guardian, he laments the "drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must “show strength”, “get tough” and not engage in “appeasement”. In his press release, he quite literally implores the US to show strength, get tough and not engage in appeasement.

Since Bernie has decided to simultaneously take both positions that contradict one another, which should I address seriously, and which should I dismiss outright? Bernie is not a quantum particle, he cannot occupy two points in space at the same time.

[WA-03 Democrat]

12. It did not age like fine wine

more like a pathetic whine.

Fun Fact: The Sanders Campaign hacked Hilary's database before Putin...errr Trump did in 2015. Tad Devine - such the rascal!

[Uncle Joe]

14. Tell us more about whining.

[in2herbs]

2. I don't know where to post this and I don't want to do my own OP, but I was wondering ... the

past few days I've read that when the coal mines were closing in Manchin country (WV) some were bought by Russia and that some are reopening.

My query: Does Manchin have stock in any of these coal companies bought by Russia and if so wouldn't Manchin's assets be subject to a freeze?