The View From Here

As soon as the name Sarah Palin was off the lips of John McCain (probably before) the media and other groups immediately went to work.  At first it was just to announce the news of a running mate for John McCain but that only lasted a couple of hours.  She got some initial good press but then things started taking a turn for the worse.  I honestly don’t know if I could run for public office for this reason.  It is not that I have anything particularly horrible in my past. It is that things will be taken out of context or just plain made up to be sensational or intentionally degrading.  Anything that can be found that has a negative connotation or can be slanted that way will come out.  There must be files kept on anyone and everyone so that when they need to be trashed they can be.  At least this is what it seems like.

I keep track of news through the internet.  I don’t watch news on TV.  One of the avenues I look at is Digg, a social bookmarking site.  When I started watching this site it was mainly a tech news site but now it has grown to encompass all kinds of news.  This kind of website does not produce news on its own, it brings news from around the web to one place.  Within a couple hours of the announcement of Sarah Palin being the VP nominee there were already stories flying on Digg about rumors of this and that and many other negative things. It is especially disconcerting when aim is taken at a candidates family and not their politics.

I am sure everyone has their baggage but when that is all you hear about then you aren’t getting an accurate picture of the person in question.  But unfortunately we don’t have too many options to get our news from.  We get a version that is filtered through a certain viewpoint and we have to make sense of it from there.

I think this is as good a reason as any to put up a poll.  If you vote leave me a comment and let me know why you think what you think.

Brian

I think that this is a very important question to ask going into election season.  What would American look like if Barack Obama was president?  What would it look like if John McCain was president?  To be completely honest I can’t say that I am really excited about either option.  Our choices are limited to two politicians who will say whatever their audience wants to hear.  Why can’t we get someone who will say what they think no matter what the media reaction is?  But I digress.

Not being excited about either option aside, I have to make a decision come November.  So do you.  I am not going to sit here and tell you what I think.  You need to think for yourself.  What will this country of ours look like in four years?

Another important question that I don’t think has been answered by either candidate is, “as president, how will you go about protecting and preserving the Constitution?”  This is, after all one of the primary calls on the president but I don’t think I have heard either candidate answer this question.  What this really boils down to is, “how do you view the Constitution?  Is it a living document that changes according to who is interpreting it or is it the firm foundation from which we build our future?”  I think that this is a more relevant question in terms of where we will be, not just in four years, but in fifty, which is where our sights should be set.  There are important questions regarding the now, to be sure, but most of how we get there depends on how we view the Constitution.

So, tell me, what do you think the country will look like in four years with either Obama or McCain elected president?

Brian

Big news today!  Exxon has reported a huge profit numbers for the reporting period.  It is somewhere around 11 billion.  That is a lot of money.  So bring out all of the people who don’t like the big oil companies.  The questions are flying.  “Is this too much?”  Here is another number for you.  That 11 billion is only an 8.47% profit margin.  That is correct.  For every dollar the company brings in 91.53% is spent to bring in the product they sell.  They make a little over 8 cents on every dollar.  Just so you know, 8.47% is on the low side of profit margins made by corporations in the United States or anywhere in the world.

On a side note, I do support finding more efficient alternative fuels and even ways of making oil more efficient.  I just don’t like the way we are going about it.  We don’t need a shove from the government.  When there is a need in the market it will be filled.  I am confident of that.  Government needs to keep their fingers out of economics and let it work.  They tend only to mess it up anyway.  Ethanol is a great example.  Prices of corn are sky high and they are now finding that this alternative fuel is less efficient and more polluting than gas.  But our government got behind it because it was “alternative”.  Sorry, back to the show.

Now 11 billion is a huge sum of money but their revenue of over 138 billion is an astronomical number.  Consider with me where that other 127 billion goes.  It is paid to contracting companies, to employees, to manufactures, and spent all kinds of ways to produce their product.  In other words it goes into the economy.  This is not a bad thing.  Consider also with me why their revenues are so high.  Maybe it is because the produce a product that everyone uses multiple times a day.  From the gas in your car to the plastic bags you use to put your sandwich in and everywhere else in between, we use petroleum products all the time.  Since their product is so widely used it would make sense that they have large numbers to show for it.

People all across the globe use petroleum products so it makes sense that they have large revenue and profit numbers.  What else factors into this?  Sure the high price of oil factors into it but we will get to that in a second.  The business side also plays a large role.  The way they run their business is key.  How efficient a business are they?  Do they make efforts to cut out the fat?  Even with oil prices high if they ran their business inefficiently they could easily lose that 8.47% profit margin.

Now to the high oil prices which there is someone new to blame everyday for.  Is it the oil company’s fault?  Is it the speculators?  Is it the Saudi’s?  The list goes on.  If oil companies are controlling the level of production then it could be their fault.  But who put the restrictions on building new refineries?  Congress.  From the numbers I have seen our domestic refineries are running at capacity.  Who is keeping the oil companies from drilling in places that would produce more supply?  Congress maybe?

Now to the speculators.  Very simply, speculators are like gamblers in a casino with slightly better odds because they have information to base the gambles they make on.  Speculators look at the conditions around them and guess if a commodity will go up or down based on market conditions, supply, demand, laws.  Right now, the congresses general treatment of oil companies has been hostile (one of the reasons we are even discussing this.  Windfall profit tax anyone?)  If the government is being hostile towards any industry I would say that it would be harder to produce this commodity so supply shrinks and prices go up.  Basic economics.  The speculators are not to blame.

Are other countries holding back on us to keep the prices high.  Probably so which points to the fact that we need to be as energy independent as we can be (and not just in petroleum products by the way)  In a free market  prices will fluctuate based on  market conditions.  If the oil companies were controlling the price of oil don’t you think their profit margin would be a little better than 8.47%?  I do.

Next topic: the windfall profits tax that is being discussed.  This is ridiculous, plain and simple.  Have we really swung that far toward socialism that we need to take from one (who earned the profit) and give to another (who did not)?  I hope not.  This scares me a bit.  Why are we not talking like this when it comes to our entertainment industry?  The Dark Knight (one of my favorite movies by the way) has pulled in close to 400 million while it only cost around 180 million to make.  How high a profit margin is that?  What about the millions we pay our professional athletes?  Oh, and another news topic of the day.  Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have pictures of their new born to be featured in People magazine, that they sold for 14 million dollars. Why are we not talking about these items as well?  Why do these people make so much money?  Because that is what the market says that they be paid no matter what I think of it (I don’t like it, if you were wondering.  I think good teachers should be paid more.).

If people are willing to pay 14 million for baby pictures that is their business.  All of the profit margins mentioned above are all much higher than 8.47%.  If Exxon cheated to make their meager profit percentage then take it away.  That just means that they are bad cheaters and don’t deserve it anyway.   But at least the oil companies are providing us with a product other than being distracted from real life long enough that we start criticizing blindly those who provide a large part of said life it to us.  And they are making a much lower profit margin than the rest so maybe, just to be fair, we should give them some of The Dark Knights profits. (Please read the sarcasm in that last statement)  I know that energy is a large topic these days and it needs to be talked about, so why can’t we talk about something that will actually make a difference?  Finding new and inventive ways to sink the oil companies will not solve our problem.

In closing, I don’t think the government has a problem with people making money.  I just think government has a problem if they aren’t in some kind of control of that money.  So they do their best to be in control.  Just a thought, and a scary one to boot. (Oh, and I don’t apologize for ranting.  It felt good.)

Brian

The Earth is warming, isn’t it? Our carbon emissions are causing this warming, right?  As much as some would want us to think that there is a consensus on this topic there is not.  More and more we see dissenters rise up only to be labeled and dismissed.  There is no room for debate when that is exactly what should be happening.  I am no scientist so I do not claim to have any definitive answers on this topic but what I would like to see is some actual debate.  If you don’t agree with human caused global warming then you are labeled a world-hater.  How about instead of labels we let people debate what is actually going on here.  I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think or say, ” You know, I really don’t like this planet I live on.  I want to destroy it.”  No.  I think everyone can agree with responsible conservation.  The question then is what does that look like?  Well, let the two sides talk about it, give us research and then we will go from there.  Instead, people act like there is only one side despite growing opposition and research that doesn’t agree with the status quo.

If you are interested, here is an article that gives a view of the other side of the debate.  I find news items like this one that would seem important to knowing the truth on this topic but it is largely ignored. Why?

Why is this important?  It is important because world leaders are using information (that has never been verified and is now being taken apart) to base policies on.  The two sides won’t even talk mostly because one side simply ignores the others existence.  Let the debate begin!  Take down the smoke and mirrors and give us a bit of truth.

Brian

The Supreme Court voted yesterday on whether or not Americans had the right to legally own guns.  Washington DC had a gun ban in effect that heavily restricts people from (legally) obtaining guns in the city (I guarantee you that there were still many ways to get them illegally).  This was challenged by a man named Dick Heller who was denied a gun permit in DC.  I won’t give you all the background on it as there are numerous source of information in the media on this.  Suffice to say that it ended up with the Supreme Court hearing the case.  I am very happy with the outcome of the vote.  The Constitution wins on this one for sure.

Justice Scalia wrote in the majority ruling that, “There seems to us no doubt on the basis of both text and history that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

As happy as I am about the outcome of the vote, I am less than happy about the votes cast.  The decision was a 5-4 vote meaning that we were one vote away from having the second amendment slaughtered and our right to bear arms taken away by the very government that the founding fathers meant for those guns to protect us against. Despite the outcome that is pretty scary.

Brian