RE:When capitalism is questioned...
prested wrote: ... can totalitarianism be far behind?
The idea that capitalism is fine in moderation, and that governments or some other body should determine the parameters is a dangerous concept IMO. The acceptance of windfall profit taxes, while appearing reasonable at first sight, negates the principle of market equality whereby excessive profits are seen by competitors as an opportunity to enter a market and undercut, thus lowering prices. To frustrate this incentive by taxing means there will be no competition and therefore no reduction. How will governments induce companies to increase production when doing so leaves them liable for taxes which delaying production could avoid? They could attemp to force them, but such compulsory moves destroy democracy. Thus totalitarianism. No?
This is the stupidest theory I have seen on this board! I am totally against your ideas. The problem here is that, all the western governments were literally trying to kill the oil industry with fake projections of green energy targets and now they caught up with troubles. Why should oil companies listen to these governments, if they were screwed up big time during the oil downturn and now asking them to increase production for their political gains? The right thing to do is to return the cash to investors who suffered a lot for last one decade while governments will again try to slowly phase out oil and gas.
In fact high oil prices will make people not to misuse it and there will be more discipline while firing expensive sports cars on local roads.