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All posts for the month April, 2012

Gas Prices

Posted by wcrowlandksr on April 26, 2012
Posted in: Corporations. 1 Comment

I know, you probably are thinking this is another rant but I don’t plan on it being one.  This is more of a “think about” thing.
What I am about to post here is based solely on freely available information that can be found on the web.  You must decide if it’s true or not.

The world is seeing the highest gasoline prices ever and it just doesn’t seem that there will be any relief anytime soon and what I’m finding is for you to look at in one place and consider a few things.

From a general knowledge site:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/02/08/421061/big-oil-higher-prices-record-profits-less-oil/?mobile=nc

  the five largest oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—yielded lower oil production than in 2010. But these five oil companies combined made a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011—up 75 percent from 2010

BP’s own website shows that they are closely tied to the middle east:
BP has a 100 year association with the Middle East that goes back to the foundation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909.
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9018421&contentId=7034199

ConocoPhillips website has posted:
http://www.conocophillips.com/EN/about/worldwide_ops/country/middle_east/Pages/index.aspx
ConocoPhillips has assets and operations in the following parts of the Middle East. Select the below to learn about the company’s activities.

ExxonMobile Website:
http://www.exxonmobil.com/MENA-English/PA/about_who_history.aspx
For more than 100 years, ExxonMobil has proudly worked with countries in the Middle East and North Africa to unlock new energy sources, develop new technologies, and add value along the entire energy chain.

Shell Website:
http://www.shell.com/home/content/are/aboutshell/who_we_are/history/corporate_history/
Becoming Royal Dutch Shell
Shell Transport’s activities in the East, combined with a search for new sources of oil to reduce dependence on Russia, brought it into contact with Royal Dutch Petrolem. The two companies  joined forces in 1903 to protect themselves against the dominance of Standard Oil. They fully merged into the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1907.

Shell changed its logo to the scallop shell, or pecten, which is used today. By the end of the 1920s Shell was the world’s leading oil company, producing 11% of the world’s crude and owning 10% of its tanker tonnage. The 1930s were difficult: the group’s assets in Mexico were seized and it was forced to concede generous terms to the Venezuelan government when it nationalised its oil fields.

Thoughts on the above information:
The five big oil companies are posting record profits and in some cases have produced less oil during these high profit years.  Of the 5 companies, I didn’t see anything that showed deep ties to the Middle East with Shell.  The rest of them do show close ties with in the Oil Rich Middle East.  Curiously, the Shell company website indicates something to the effect of the Venezuelan government nationalizing it’s oil fields and causing shell to need to expand into other countries for oil.  I also have found that Venezuela has the world’s cheapest gasoline.  A Google search should give you similar results.

This simple bit of information tells me a some things.

1.  A country that has its own oil fields nationalized, can enjoy low cost gasoline.  They can also export it like any other product.

2.  We the U.S. are a food producing nation,  we can farm in high volumes for export.

3.  We have oil but I don’t know to what degree.

4.  Any business is successful at the foundational level because there is a demand for its product.

5.  We can eat our product of food but I don’t think oil producing countries can eat oil.

6.  The right to food is viewed as a human right and getting food to hungry nations is a humanitarian effort.

7.  The oil producing nations see oil as a controlling tool used to extract money from it’s customers because of our dependency on Oil.  We have created our own monster of dependency.

8.  Everyone must have food in order to survive….even the oil tycoons.

9.  Oil is a commodity, Food is not.

10.  We have the bigger stick in this fight of oil for our mechanical needs vs food to stay alive.

11.  How long until we consider starving out oil producing nations that allow oil companies to drill in their country and destroy our economy and way of life when all we have to do is shut down the food supply?

What’s that?  A cruel solution?  Is anything else working?  Is it any better that oil companies are controlling oil prices and “Starving” our way of life?

Couch Surfing in “Time Out” and the Poision Pill

Posted by wcrowlandksr on April 20, 2012
Posted in: General Ramblings, Life In The Sandbox. Leave a comment

Ok, I had a busy week.  A couple days in Dubai for some work related stuff and I am back home resting on the couch whilst surfing the net for home flavored Internet info and reminders that this is temporary and that I haven’t lost my friends but I have just taken a long term business trip away.  Been on nights and I am waaay outta whack.  Can you actually be “In Whack”?  Anyway, I was kinda feeling a bit displaced this week and it caught up with me a few days ago.  I’m good now as I have beaten the feelings of what am I doing here down with a quick look at my bottom line.  There’s more to my makeup than that but I see a goal of being able to couch surf or do cool stuff when I get free of my bills.

Today is a day in limbo.  Kind of like a time out for being “bad”.  What’s that you ask?  What did I do…well….I bought things.  Mostly things I don’t need but really wanted and some stuff I did need.  I was a victim of my own desires and the costs of living.  I watched the TV ads for the cars and other cool gadgets and thought I could use a cool car and a new fridge….actually I love cool cars and that hasn’t changed but the fridge…it was dying anyway.  So here I am paying for the cost of the purchases of those things and a few more and a chance to regain my handle on the American dream.  I know the economy is rough right now and the thought of the “American dream” sounds a bit hokey to most but I do think that while we have a lot to learn and repair in our collective thinking, I might be able to manage with no bills and a fair paying job.  I will just have to shift my house payment money to buying gasoline and compensating for the additional cost of products because the oil industry is out of control.  I mean come on, we are not stupid and when oil companies post record profits and people are out of jobs in record numbers because of the cost of commuting, it’s kinda obvious.  We are getting screwed by the free oil market and have no real choice but to drive to the fuel station and buy more of the liquid gold so we can keep working to pay for our house and other needed items like….food and heat.  Collectively as a nation we are too stupid to actually find a true common ground and unite and take a stand against much of anything because we just fight each other.  We are truly a disorganized Army that is still a cash rich resource to the oil industry and until they distill every dollar from us that they can it will not stop because to them, we are a Folgers nation…good to the last drop.  The fighting has caused the demise of so much of what we once were as a great nation.  We don’t produce much of anything of any value that doesn’t get regulated to death by our own peers.  They would rather stop successful product production. We are buying so much of what we have by countries that actually realize that you must do certain things that may not be in harmony with the green movement in order to get things done.

That being said, I have confirmed for myself in my time out on the couch (and then some) that since I cannot convince the right people to do things that would actually bring back jobs to this country and put a lid on oil costs, I must adapt.  So I am here working in a place where I can earn enough to pay my bills off and become free of the banking industry that is master to so many.  Did you ever wonder why that little plastic card is labeled “Master Card”?    Once that part of my plan is complete, I can then use the money I save to pay for the fuel related expenses that are part of the cost of living.  It’s not going to change and we can cry about it forever but it is not going to change.  There is no magic bean or oil reserve in existence that will save us all.  The Strategic Oil reserve is for the Military in time of war anyway.  It’s not to be the “Poison pill” to the oil companies.  “Poison Pill”?  We could have one but we are too earth friendly/human-unkind and the Oil nations to rich to feel the much of the effects anyway.   If we did it might not be too hard to do.  We stock up on our own oil by working against the market.  When it gets to expensive, we release our own oil into the U.S. Market ONLY.  None of this giving it to other countries crap…no!  we dug it up it’s ours.  Period.  But alas…I am but just a working class peasant, what do I know?