Tag: oil

RANT! How dumb are the oil companies?

RANT! How dumb are the oil companies?

I am sure that you have heard of the current oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.  If you haven’t, here is a link – please come back after you have caught up with current events.

I am just aghast at how stupid these companies are. Current reports are that they didn’t install an “acoustic switch” on the well. From NewsInferno:

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded last week was not outfitted with a safety device that might have prevented the massive oil spill now nearing the U.S. Gulf Coast. The device, known as an acoustic switch, is a last-resort protection against underwater spills, and is required by regulators in Norway and Brazil. Unfortunately, the U.S. has no such regulation for oil wells operating off of its shores.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, an acoustic switch is a remote control device that a crew can use in an attempt to trigger an underwater valve that shuts down a well that’s damaged. The switch is meant as a last resort, as the primary shut-off systems almost always work on wells when they are out of control. It can be triggered from a lifeboat if an oil platform has to be evacuated.

According to the Journal, U.S regulators did consider requiring the acoustic switch on offshore wells, but drilling companies resisted because of its cost, and questions about its effectiveness. To be fair, the switches have never been tested in real-world situations, only simulations. U.S. regulators also maintain they are prone to causing unnecessary shutdowns.

Are these guys just plain stupid.  Didn’t they see Jurasic Park where the pessimistic mathematician, Ian Malcolm, talks about if something can go wrong then it will go wrong?

BP AND ITS KIN SHOULD HAVE BACKUP SYSTEMS FOR THE BACKUP SYSTEMS THAT ARE BACKING UP THE BACKUP SYSTEMS.  IF THEY DON’T HAVE 6 FOOLPROOF WAYS OF TURNING OFF A BROKEN WELL THEN THEY SHOULDN’T DRILL!

Don’t drink from hotel glasses or coffee cups

Don’t drink from hotel glasses or coffee cups

With the current scare regarding Swine Flu (more appropriately called H1N1 flu), I want to remind my readers to not drink from hotel glasses unless you are VERY confident that they use appropriate cleaning measures to clean their cups and glasses.  It does no good to ask at the front desk when you check in, of course they are going to say that they are following laws. If you aren’t sure, ask the front desk for paper cups to take your morning vitamins.

My rule of thumb is simple.  I look for a maid cart.  If I see a cart and it has DIRTY glasses that the maid has been collecting to take downstairs to be cleaned, I assume proper techniques are being used.  If I can’t find a cart or if that cart has not collected dirty glasses, then I assume the maid is cleaning the glasses in the toilet.

Of course, if you are really concerned.  Stick with bottled water.

Check out this disgusting and scary video.

Hotel Glasses

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

My comments on New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

Bill Maher is a relatively famous television personality. Of course, he got this position by correctly realizing that he wasn’t a very good standup comedian and his real talent was getting famous people on TV and then making fun of them or using them as foils to make a political point.  He has bounced around a couple of different venues and has currently landed at HBO.  His show is called “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  He has used this notoriety and fame to also publish some of his remarks and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post.  His latest article is the subject of this post.

Originally, I only wanted to reply to Bill Maher in his comments section.  However, Huffington Post limits comments to a small number of words so I am forced to make further comments here.  You can read my original thoughts at this link as there are currently over 2500 comments on this article and it would be difficult to find mine.  You may also want to read Bill’s original article before you read my comments.

Bill’s opening comment starts out all wrong.  He says “Not everything in America has to make a profit” and while this is true, I am not aware of any time in America’s history when it was discussed that something could NOT make a profit.  Doesn’t it seem very un-American to decree that a certain portion of our economy is not eligible to make a profit?

When the very unfunny Bill Maher mentions the war profiteering problem, he forgets that at the time we were a very agrarian society and not even close to the world power that we are today – in fact we were probably not even ranked in the top 10 most powerful nations. Can we have one without the other? Do we want to live in that world again? Really, do you? Think about it Maher.

Yes, I understand that there is a concern over Haliburton and other companies that were awarded contracts in the MidEast without open bids. But he includes this discussion in an article that talks about not making a profit, which implies he thinks that government contractors and service providers should not make a profit.

The term “war profiteering” was really a big concern back in the two world wars when rationed goods were required. With any rationed good there are, inevitably, ways to make lots of profit if you can find a supply of the rationed goods and sell them outside of the system. It was also a time when over-charging for military goods was easy to do.  In fact, then Senator Harry S. Truman made his big mark by chairing a committee that was designed to go after profiteers. But even Mr. Truman didn’t want to eliminate profit from the process, he just wanted to eliminate the corruption of charging for goods and services in unfair manners.

Does Mr. Maher really want to eliminate the profit potential of companies that do work for the United States?  Will he be able to delineate those that offer services to the military versus those that offer services to other branches of the government?

While it is important to make sure that we are getting value out of our government spending, I doubt that most people (aside from Mr. Maher) would want no profit to be made in the process. At the time of the big worry on war profiteering, approximately 20% of the workforce was in agrarian efforts but by 1970 it was about 4%.  To make matters worse, a decade or two before the world wars (but definitely in the memory of most alive at the time) over 40% of the workforce as agricultural based and we were not considered to be a world power at all.  In fact, prior to WW1, the real powers of the world resided in Europe.  This change from an agrarian society that was not a force in the world to a world power in 40 years was fraught with danger of profiteering and therefore a real concern to everyone.

He then goes into prisons that make a profit. Does he really think that the reason that we have a lot of people in prison is because of the profit making of CCA?  Come on, Bill.  That simply doesn’t make sense.  There are approximately 2M people in prison in this country and according to CCA’s website only 75,000 of them are in their care.  If CCA has such a huge influence do you think that they would have a larger market share than under 4%? Are the other 96% of the convicted criminals incarcerated the real felons and CCA is only getting the CCA influenced laws?  This is a perfect example of Bill Maher simply not thinking before he talks/writes.

Bill then goes after journalism and he dreams of the good old days. He dreams of when real journalists were like Walter Cronkite, may he rest in peace. That was an era with little competition for TV. There were 3 stations, no Internet, only AM radio, 2 newspapers in every town, only 2-3 movies came out a month AND LIFE magazine was a thriving concern.

The reason that News didn’t make money was because it didn’t have to make money. Bill is correct, it was a loss leader because people watched it and it drug people to watch the Entertainment divisions products which did make money. Now it needs the Entertainment division to pull the viewers to the 11 o’clock news. A regular complaint of station owners is when the Entertainment division of their network has fallen behind in market share it affects the 11 o’clock news profitability.

The profitability of News v. Entertainment was never a philanthropic effort on the part of the big networks. Quite the opposite, it was a concerted effort to drag in viewers and achieve the highest gains that they could.

And then Bill, the lover and worshipper of Michael Moore, gets to his real agenda (because the above junk is not really a problem anyway) – healthcare.  Bill is one of those that doesn’t think that it is fair to make a profit from running a service in the health sector because if you are sick then you have to go to a doctor and get better. You don’t have a choice so it is morally wrong to charge more than your costs.

But that is precisely where Maher blew it in his utopian dream rant. He specifically discussed healthcare and made the reference to going to a Catholic hospital. Yes, there was little motive for profit BUT there was little interference from the government, as well. How do you get from the times were great in the past without interference from government and now the only way to get better is to make government bigger?

If you read some of the comments in Mr. Maher’s columns you will see them chastise insurance companies.  Mr. Maher only makes one reference to an insurance company in his column but instead spends time lambasting HCA, an operator of hospitals.

Of course, he doesn’t take it to the next step and look at food. If you don’t eat then you will die so this is a requirement of life as well.  Therefore, if we follow Bill’s thought pattern then Kroger and WalMart should operate as non-profits as well. To continue this logic, then surely the power utility provider should operate as a non-profit since you need electricity to heat/cool your home and we wouldn’t want them to take advantage of you. And since the majority of people in the US need clothing to survive the elements at least during part of the year, no one should make money on winter coats, scarves, hats, boots, etc.

And even if you buy the absurd argument that all of that should be free from profit then where do you stop.  Does the thread provider that provides the thread for your coat need to operate as non-profit?  And the trucking company that hauls vegetables from the farm to your local grocery store, should he succumb to non-profit status as well?

And what about the nurse that works hard and cares for the child with the broken leg at the hospital? Should she work for only enough to fulfill her basic needs? If so, doesn’t that make her a ward of the state?  Is that the goal of Mr. Maher?

So when we get down to following the logic of Bill Maher (and the more confused Michael Moore), who is allowed to make money these days?  Why of course, Bill Maher and Michael Moore are!

Least qualified President in decades/century?/ever?

Least qualified President in decades/century?/ever?

The current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has had a very troubled start to his Presidency.  Not only did he inherit a mess in the economy, but he has had multiple mis-steps in his selection of his cabinet and advisors.  While the tax problems with Daschle and others have plagued the first few nominations, now there is even some concern about his most important advisor, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  There has also been some criticism for his first international discussions, the first phone call he made to a foreign power was to President Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.

There is also a great deal of controversy about the replacement to BHO’s Senate seat although it is likely that none of this is his fault (even if it makes one wonder how he could have thrived in such a corrupt political environment as Illinois / Chicago politics).

Why is there such turmoil in the first 100 days of the BHO presidency?
It is quite likely because he is so inexperienced at being in such a large stage.  He has had little experience in this area.  In fact, he is easily the least experienced President in decades and he is probably the least experienced President in over 100 years.  The table below lists all the Presidents since 1900.  It shows their previous national office as well as other significant positions that they held.  Most Americans allow a Governorship to be qualification for office and so I am lumping this in with Senate and Congress service.

A quick look takes us to Hoover before we get to someone that didn’t get elected to a major office and hold that office for a term or two.  Hoover did run a major cabinet before the election and was very prominent in world and national politics and had been a moderately successful businessman so it is arguable that he was less experienced in a national office.  He is also not a President that most people regard as being very successful!  In addition, while the election of the President was a populist effort at that time (dirty politics aside), the selection of candidate by the party was very much decided by power brokers in the parties of the day.

A little farther down the list, we see that Harding and Taft didn’t have a great resume for national office but they did have a bit of experience in running a territory or State and, like Hoover, were major players in the political machines of the day. Harding is often referenced as being among the worst President’s ever and takes specific criticism for his cabinet and appointees.

So the conclusion that we must draw is that BHO has less experience for national office than, at a minimum, the previous 12 men who held that office.  It is also reasonable to conclude that he has less experience than any President since Teddy and the leadership of the United States within the world has definitely evolved since Teddy was talking about big sticks!

The final conclusion is simple, with such an inexperienced man as POTUS, we will continue to see mistakes until he figures out how to do the job.  Let’s all hope that this is a quick learning curve since we need to dig ourselves out of the mess that Mr. Obama inherited.

List of 20th and 21st Century Presidents
(data collected and confirmed from Presidential library sites and Wikipedia)

President Previous national office Other significant position
Barack Hussein Obama US Senator (didn’t finish first term) Illinois State Congressman (1 term)
George Walker Bush Texas Governor (didn’t finish 2nd term) Part – owner of a professional baseball team
William Jefferson Clinton 12 years – Governor of Arkansas Attorney General Arkansas
George Herbert Walker Bush Vice President of the United States – 2 terms US Congressman, CIA Director, Ambassador
Ronald Wilson Reagan California Governor – 2 terms President of union
James Earl Carter, Jr. Governor Georgia – 1 term Georgia Senator (2 terms)
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. Vice President of the United States (2 yrs) US Congressman (25 yrs)
Richard Milhous Nixon Vice President of the United States (2 terms) US Congressman (2 terms), US Senate (didn’t finish term)
Lyndon Baines Johnson Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) US Senator (2 terms), US Congressman (6 terms)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy US Senator (2 terms – didn’t finish the second) US Congressman (3 terms)
Dwight David Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe 5 star General in the US Army
Harry S. Truman Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) US Senator (2 terms)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt New York Governor State Senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Herbert Clark Hoover United States Secretary of Commerce Head of the American Relief Administration
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) Massachusetts Governor
Warren Gamaliel Harding US Senator (1 term) Ohio Lt. Governor
Thomas Woodrow Wilson New Jersey Governor President Princeton University
William Howard Taft United States Secretary of War Governor of Phillipines
Theodore Roosevelt Vice President of the United States Governor New York