Something else that Joe Biden got wrong in the vice presidential debate

A good friend of mine, Robert Hansen, sent me this.

That's' not all Biden got grossly wrong. I don't understand why no one has ever mentioned this. Biden said twice in the debate, emphatically, that Exxon made $600B since 2000. Here's a summary, from MSN Investing, on Exxon's 10 year income statement.

Year . . . . . . .Sales . . . . EBIT . . . Depreciation . . Net Income . . . EPS . . . . Tax rate
12/07 . . 390,328.0 . . 70,474.0 . . 12,250.0 . . . . 40,610.0 . . . . 7.28 . . . . 42.38
12/06 . . 365,467.0 . . 67,402.0 . . 11,416.0 . . . . 39,500.0 . . . . 6.62 . . . . 41.4
12/05 . . 358,955.0 . . 59,432.0 . . 10,253.0 . . . . 36,130.0 . . . . 5.71 . . . . 39.21
12/04 . . 291,252.0 . . 41,241.0 . . 9,767.0 . . . . . 25,330.0 . . . . 3.89 . . . . 38.58
12/03 . . 237,054.0 . . 31,966.0 . . 9,047.0 . . . . . 20,960.0 . . . . 3.15 . . . . 34.43
12/02 . . 200,949.0 . . 17,510.0 . . 8,310.0 . . . . . 11,011.0 . . . . 1.62 . . . . 37.12
12/01 . . 208,715.0 . . 23,970.0 . . 7,848.0 . . . . . 15,003.0 . . . . 2.16 . . . . 37.41
12/00 . . 227,596.0 . . 26,881.0 . . 8,001.0 . . . . . 15,806.0 . . . . 2.25 . . . . 41.2
12/99 . . 182,529.0 . . 11,150.0 . . 8,304.0 . . . . . 7,910.0 . . . . . 1.12 . . . . 29.06
12/98 . . 165,627.0 . . 12,083.0 . . 8,355.0 . . . . . 8,144.0 . . . . .1.15 . . . . 32.6

The key totals are EBIT at $362B and Net Income at $220B. If you factor in around $40B for 2008 and pull out 98 and 99, You get less than $400B and $240B, an amount vastly less than $600B.

So even if you give Biden the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he was quoting the most generous income value of EBIT, he's off by a not so insignificant $200B or 33%. However you can't talk income without taking into account depreciation, interest paid out, and income taxes paid out since that's the income that higher taxes would target. So in reality, Biden was off by over 60%!!!!! Isn't that significant? He has no clue how much these guys make nor what their contribution is to the economy.

Exxon's net profit margin is only about 9%, a very modest amount. Exxon also paid out over 40% in income taxes. That's also a valuable window into what he feel is "not enough" tax paid. Add to that the fact that Exxon paid out 20% of that income in dividends which were also subsequently taxed and taxes paid by the investor on the gains on the stock value. Both are 15% tax rates today if held in an after-tax account but they are taxed at higher rates if held in 401K's and then withdrawn because 401K's are taxed as normal income and thus at your personal marginal tax rate. Fat cat oil execs own less than 1% of the company, the majority is owned by pension funds, mutual funds, and ETF's and insurance companies investing our life insurance premiums and the like. That would be people like you, me, my former Teamster buddy, and Joe Biden. They also have 81,000 employees and employ many, many, highly paid union workers.