I sent this email to Jiffy Lube today, after wondering how many other people had been adversely impacted by this practice.  I decided to post it here as well, as many people seem to be unaware of how much difference temperature has on tire pressure.  The email (with personal info removed) follows.

I went to Jiffy Lube for an oil change on my wife’s (vehicle) on the afternoon of May 24th.  One of the guys working on it popped into the customer lounge and proudly announced that my tires were at “almost 40 PSI”, and the sticker on the door said “they should be 35″ so he had “adjusted the pressure” (let some air out) in order to put them all at 35 PSI.

It was a hot day, and I had been driving for quite some time around town before I went to Jiffy Lube.  I told the guy that yes, I know the sticker says 35 PSI, did he read the part that says “Cold”?  Did he know that tire pressure should always be set when tires were “cold”?  I got a blank stare after asking those questions.  It’s obvious that he thought I was driving around with my tires over-inflated when they were in fact correctly inflated.

I do not know about other Jiffy Lube locations, but this location had caused my tires to be under-inflated by almost 5 PSI when I later checked them “cold”.  The tires are 100% brand new Michelin’s, having just been purchased and installed the day before – May 23rd.  And I had verified that they had the correct pressure myself.

Please ensure that the people working on vehicles at your locations know what they are doing BEFORE THEY DO IT, as I do NOT want to run my tires at 30 PSI “cold” when they should be at 35 PSI “cold”.  Considering that it was about 90 degrees on the afternoon of the 24th, and that I had been driving, I would expect the tires to be at “almost 40 PSI”. Or even at 40 or 42PSI.

Have them read this: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=73
Or this: http://www.michelinman.com/tire-care/tire-saving-tips/air-pressure-tips/

I expect your service locations to check tire pressure and to add air if the pressure is low.  But unless they know absolutely, positively, with 100% certainty that the tires (not just a single tire) are dangerously over-inflated, they should NEVER “adjust” tire pressure by removing air from all the tires.  Even then, they should probably ask the owner first.

How many people are driving around today with under-inflated tires because of an uninformed person at Jiffy Lube?  What happens when a tire blows because of it?  How much needless tire wear and excessive gas usage is happening because this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing?

Please correct your tire pressure “adjusting” procedures before more damage is done.

gk

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Just wanted to point out a few facts that aren’t getting much coverage.  I saw these in a Yahoo news story earlier today that I had bookmarked, but when I went back to it, Yahoo had “updated” the story and removed the stuff I wanted to talk about.  But I found the stuff in a story from WGN.

A few quotes from the article:  Today, he stopped at a beach where absorbent booms and sandbags have been laid for miles to try to keep more oil from washing ashore. Hmmm….  Where did those “miles” of “absorbent booms and sandbags” to keep the oil off the shore come from?  You think the Federal government did it?  Or BP?  Be honest now…. 

“It’s a dog and pony show. What can he really do?” said Billy Ward, 53, who comes to his beach house here every weekend. It’s always a dog and pony show when any official visits any disaster area.  They can’t do anything, and they distract from the work that the people (who can do something) are doing.  But it makes for nice photo ops for the politician.

To be fair, the politician is in a no win situation.  He’s accused of being aloof and non-caring if he doesn’t show up, and people like me (and Billy Ward) point out the hypocrisy involved if he does show up.

No oil could be seen in the water during Obama’s helicopter ride from New Orleans, over Louisiana bayous, to Port Fourchon down the coast from Grand Isle. I think that bears repeating – Obama took a helicopter ride from New Orleans, down the coast in order to see the damage.  He found none.  Zero.  “No oil could be seen”.

Go ahead, look up Port Fourchon LA on a map.  Look up Grand Isle LA.  Look at the amount of coastline and water that Obama flew over attempting to see oil washed up and polluting the beaches.  Damn.  Couldn’t find any.  (Maybe, just maybe, this isn’t as big of a disaster as some media outlets are making it out to be.)

That changed when he arrived at Fourchon Beach, however. A shirt-sleeved Obama walked to the water’s edge, stooping as Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard explained what he was seeing.

The beach, sealed off with crime-scene-style yellow tape, is one of the few sandy stretches on Louisiana’s coast, where most is marshland. Obama called reporters traveling with him to the water’s edge and picked up a few pebble-sized tar balls. No other oil was visible. Again, I think it’s important to point this out -mainly because it seems to be hard to find oil on the LA coast.  I could be wrong about this, but assuming Obama was looking for a photo op and this was the best he could do, I think we’re in pretty damn good shape so far.

It’s also important to note that “tar balls” wash up on beaches all the time from oil that oozes naturally from the floor of the gulf.  When they found some on FL beaches last week, everybody freaked.  But when it turned out that the tar balls couldn’t be blamed on BP the frenzy quickly faded away and it stopped being news.  Morons.  A tar ball is a tar ball.  Why would one be ok but another be a disaster?

“These are the tarballs that they’re talking about,” he said. “You can actually send out teams to pick up as they wash on shore.” So send em out!  WTF are you doing?  If it’s that easy to clean up, station people on the beaches and clean it up.

More from the story: Early in the morning in advance of the president’s arrival, hundreds of workers clad in white jump suits and rubber gloves hit the beaches to dig oily debris from the sand and haul it off. Workers refused to say who hired them, telling a reporter only they were told to keep quiet or lose their jobs. Sounds like someone is cleaning up the oil.  Maybe BP?  It also sounds like where Obama was going to visit was a poorly kept secret, and that perhaps someone decided to clean it before he got there to keep from being embarrassed.  But if a beach can be cleaned in one morning, there obviously wasn’t much there to begin with.

I do not want to diminish the impact of this spill.  It’s obviously not a good thing, and I don’t think anyone is saying that.  On the other hand, I’ve seen blogs and comments on news stories where they basically say that BP could have stopped this a long time ago, but they didn’t want to have to seal the well because they wanted to be able to get that oil.  That’s simply BS.   If they could have shut down the well at once they would have done so.   Does anyone honestly think BP wants this publicity?  Maybe leftist conspiracy nuts would go there, but as a Libertarian nut, I won’t. 

gk

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I’ll get this out of the way first – I’m a skeptic whenever the people predicting/promoting something depend on the thing they predicted/promoted continuing so they can get another taxpayer funded grant so they can continue to predict/promote the subject.  Thus I am skeptical of man-made global warming.

Note that I am not denying climate change – the climate has changed MANY times in the past, and the earth has been both much hotter and much cooler than the current climate.  Man wasn’t even around during most of the previous changes – our recorded history only goes back about 6000 years, and the oldest agricultural based civilization discovered so far is about 12000 years old.  It’s interesting that that corresponds to the beginning of the current interglacial period….

Who caused the previous climate changes?  Isn’t it even a possibility that the small changes in climate we’ve measured over the past 100 years are entirely natural?  Where is the evidence that is man CAUSING climate change?  (Again, I’m not denying that climate change may be happening – I simply do not think it’s been proven that man is the cause of any climate change which may be happening.)

With that out of the way, I ran across this web site while reading through a small wind newsgroup email tonight.  In his email, the author dismisses a study contradicting his view by saying “Both articles referenced in this thread are deceptive attempts to create sensationalism where there is none. In both cases a single new observation has changed the results of climate predictions by a tiny amount. The magnitude of the changes are carefully not mentioned because they are trivial.”

I find that statement from him strange because on his website he talks about chaos theory and how it’s misunderstood.  On his website (linked above) he states “That is why we have the butterfly effect. Quite literally, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in South America could cause a storm in Europe a few years later.”

To which I say bullshit.  That’s the same as saying when I cough or fart, I could cause the moon to wobble on it’s axis or purple aliens to emerge on Mars.  There is ZERO basis for such a ridiculous claim, and the burden of proof is on the person making the outlandish claim.   It’s also interesting that Lorenz first used the term when quoting a meteorologist who was making fun of Lorenz’s own faulty weather modeling scenario.

Anyway, he can’t have it both ways.  He cannot (logically anyway) claim that “the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in South America could cause a storm in Europe” yet dismiss a factual  observation as “trivial”.

Note: Entering incorrect data – even a small error – into a calculation is not the same as a seagull flapping it’s wings.  Or me farting.  Just because a computer model exaggerates the error does not mean it actually happens in the real world.  For an ancient example of how something may be valid in math, yet be totally wrong in practice, you can read about Achilles and the Tortoise.

There’s so much more here, but I’m not going to get into a point by point rebuttal of it tonight.  But I do want to quote one more section.  Towards the bottom, he states: A big shake-up is required. In 2008 we received a warning shake in the form of the credit crunch. (Excuse me, but WTF does he think the unsustainable debt loads of companies and individuals has to do with global warming?  The answer is in his next few sentences…

Instead of governments spending incredible sums of money supporting the very organisations that caused the problem they should be injecting the funds into helping the victims of the deceipt [sic] and into reviving the economy by funding clean renewable energy. Until this happens I am reliant on this website to raise the cash I need to take real practical steps toward delivering clean energy solutions.

As he clearly states – he’s in this to raise cash.  And until the government (you and me via taxes) gives him the money he wants, he’s trying to scare people into giving him cash.  As “proof” of the dire nature of his predictions, he says “It could well get out of control to the extent where we would not be able to stop it at any price! As the planet gets hotter the methane would be released even faster until it could kill all life on earth! If you do not believe me read my essay about SETI.”

Ok, I “do not believe him” so let’s see WTF his essay on SETI has to do with global warming…..

Hmmm…. The only unbreakable laws we know of are the laws of nature. I propose that there is such a law and that it is called “Free Will”. Until enough of us ask for contact from friendly aliens they will stay strictly outside the realm of our senses.”

This sounds suspiciously like churches asking people to pray for rain, or world peace, or a sick friend…. If you’d truly believe in it, it would happen.  Even if there’s absolutely zero evidence for it.

He sort of sounded believable when sticking to basics about global warming, but saying that we can’t contact the “friendly aliens” because not enough of us are asking for contact is strictly wacko stuff.  No science, no theory, this isn’t even a fucking hypothesis!  It’s a mad man’s delusion….

Sorry, he has some webpages with assertions.  And he’s hoping his assertions will convince people to give him money – until he can get your money from the government without having to ask you for it directly.

Enough of this.  I’m not wasting anymore time on him.  The earth has gotten warmer since the 1980’s, and we don’t know why.  There are many theories, but I haven’t seen a single one of them that also explains why the earth got so hot from the 1920’s through the 1940’s.  A valid theory must take into account all known data – no exceptions.  When even one bit of reality contradicts it, it’s no longer a theory – it’s back to being a hypothesis.

gk

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I was reading through The Daily Capitalist blog tonight, and I read a post entitled “The Chinese Aren’t As Dumb As the Fed Thought” that reminded me of a news blurb I saw today.  It seems that there was much less interest in today’s Treasury auction of 5 year notes than was expected.

According to MarketWatch, The Treasury Department sold $34 billion in five-year notes to yield 1.849%, higher than traders had expected before the results were announced.

Bidders offered $2.02 for every dollar sold, compared to an average of $2.17 at the last four auctions.

Indirect bidders, a closely watched metric because it includes buying by foreign central banks, bought 30% of the monthly auction, the lowest since December.

I could have sworn that I saw that they were auctioning off $40 billion today, but I must have been wrong because I can’t find it anywhere.  The Treasury press release dated March 19th also says $34 billion.

Anyway, it appears that there’s just not as much interest in loaning the US money as there was a few months ago.  This can be taken in one of two ways:

1. The economy is recovering and people think they’ll get better returns in the stock market.
2. The US dollar is toast and everyone knows it, so fewer people want to invest in US government debt.

I don’t think #1 is the reason.  #2 is much more likely because the Federal Reserve is now directly printing money (buying treasuries with funny money) and what’s the use of buying US debt if it’s soon going to be worth less?  Or worthless?

As I’ve mentioned before, the Chinese aren’t stupid (that’s what The Daily Capitalist post above reminded me of) and they appear to be loaning us less money as well.

Speaking of The Daily Capitalist, the post I linked to above makes some good points regarding the Chinese hinting at a new reserve currency:

I see this as a crack in the dyke so to speak. When a power like China says these things, it’s serious. Things aren’t going to change overnight because of the complications of international trade and the role of currencies. But I see a trend. Last week’s announcement by the Treasury and the Fed that they were going to print a trillion dollars helped the discussion along. The whole world knows that eventually we’ll see inflation and the further devaluation of the dollar.

The consequences to us as a result of being replaced as the world’s reserve currency will be a further depreciated dollar. It will also make our taxes go up to pay the increased interest costs on our national debt as the Treasury finds it needs to make the rates on Treasuries more attractive to foreign investors.

What could replace the dollar? The Chinese and others suggest the IMF issue bonds backed by a basket of currencies—special drawing rights (SDRs). This would in essence, try to replace the dollar as a reserve currency and sort of create a supranational central bank. This is the worst thing that could happen to us. We’d have a group of Keynesian econometricians who are worse than our Keynesian econometricians controlling the world’s currencies and international trade. Trust me when I say we would get the short end of that stick.

What about gold? It worked pretty well for the last 6,000 years of human history. It is valued by everyone, it is seen as a monetary metal, it would create a stable medium of exchange, there is plenty to go around, and it takes away the power of the central banks to inflate. I believe, as do most free market economists, that it would serve us well. We’ve heard all the arguments against it and have some pretty good answers. This is not the time for me to expound on gold; I will do that at another time.

Another government engaged in the “quantitative easing” strategy is Britain.  Quantitative easing is the euphemism Keynesian economists like to use instead of “cranking up the printing presses” or “printing money” or “making funny money” or “lets send the whole country to hell in a hand basket – fast!”  I guess they think people won’t understand what they really mean, so they can get away with it.

According to MarketWatch, the British had a failed auction today.  A failed auction is where there aren’t enough buyers for the amount of debt you’re selling.  In the British case, they were trying to borrow a measly 1.75 billion pounds (about $2.6 billion) and they only received 1.63 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) of bids.

The failure significantly limits the scope for further stimulus borrowing, said Nick Stamenkovic, an economist at RIA Capital in Edinburgh. “It’s a warning shot about the fiscal position … It would suggest that the government’s scope for further fiscal easing is extremely limited,” Stamenkovic said. (Fiscal easing is just Stamenkovic’s euphemism for printing money out of thin air and expecting it to actually be worth something.)

Printing money comes eventually dooms every government that’s ever tried it.  History is full of examples like Rome, France, Germany, Argentina, and Zimbabwe.  I wish it were not that way, but we seem to be racing towards that same end as fast as possible.

But a review of expansive monetary practices and the effect on the governments who tried it will have to wait for a later date.  I also need to write about how the Keynesian policies have never worked (that I’ve found), and about how the debt of 1929 compares to day – and the results of a debt bubble.  And about 5000 other things….

gk

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It’s easy to find dumb articles on the economy these days, but this one by Robert H. Frank in the NY Times is quite possibly the dumbest collection of nonsense that I’ve read in quite some time.

Mr. Frank is an economist at Cornell – evidently Cornell has loose requirements on who can claim that title – and he has his facts wrong.

For example, Mr. Frank states:  In 1929, President Herbert Hoover thought that the best response to a collapsing economy was to balance the federal budget. With incomes and tax receipts falling sharply, that meant cutting federal spending. But as almost all economists now recognize, President Hoover was profoundly mistaken.

Everyone has heard some variation of that basic statement over the years. The problem is that it’s simply not true.  That’s a polite way of saying that Mr. Frank is lying.

Hoover did not cut federal spending – Hoover increased federal spending.  Here is a chart of federal spending from 1928 -1940.   (Source data is the GPO here – link opens Excel spreadsheet.)

As anyone can plainly see, federal spending actually increased every single year from 1929 through 1932 – the four years of the Hoover presidency.  Yet Mr. Frank states that Hoover cut spending. The fact is that federal spending increased from $2.9 billion in 1928 (the year before Hoover took office) to $4.6 billion in 1932.

That’s a 63% increase in federal spending in just 4 years!  How can Mr. Frank be that ignorant of history and still write authoritatively about economic history?

And this data also lets a little air out of the myth that FDR’s spending brought us out of the depression.  It’s true that FDR increased spending, but when you actually look at the numbers, he increased spending in his first term from $4.6 billion in 1932 to $8.2 billion in 1936 – a 76% increase.  That’s not dramatically larger than Hoover’s 63% increase.  And during his next 4 years, FDR increased spending from $8.2 billion in 1936 to $9.4 billion in 1940 – a meager 15% increase in 4 years.

I have no doubt that “almost all” Keynesian economists will continue to propagate the lies about the Great Depression, Hoover, and FDR, but you and I know that they’re lying.

With that common fallacy exposed, we now turn back to Mr. Frank.

Mr. Frank states When a downturn throws people out of work, they spend less, causing still others to be thrown out of work, and so on, in a downward spiral. Failure to use short-run deficits to stimulate spending amplifies that spiral, causing further declines in tax receipts and even bigger deficits. That this path makes no sense is a settled issue.

It sounds good, but his statement that this is “a settled issue” is false.  It’s false because of his implicit premise that government deficit spending creates productive employment.  I have no doubt that government spending can employ otherwise idle people, but this is not a net gain for the economy.  The government simply transfers wealth from one segment of society to another – it doesn’t create wealth.  Mr. Frank’s major flaw is in his unstated assumption that the government can allocate resources better than individuals.

Take the current auto bailout as an example.  What would have happened if the government didn’t bail out GM?  GM would have declared bankruptcy.  People who had invested in GM stocks and bonds would be SOL – and that’s the way it should be.  When you invest your money, you (whether you realize it or not) are incorporating risk in choosing where to invest.  You may choose to invest in something risky like a dot com or alternative energy start-up, because you balance the risk of them going bankrupt against the possibility of huge returns.

It’s your money – invest it however you want.  But don’t bitch and moan and beg for a bailout when the money you invested disappears because the company goes broke and leaves you with a sock puppet.

In the case of a GM bankruptcy, valuable assets such as factories and parts would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  Assets with no value are wiped out and those who invested in them would lose money.  Some would be unable to survive and would themselves go broke.

In other words, the “bad” (non-profitable) assets of GM would disappear.  But the “good” (profitable) assets would be sold to private investors (or companies) who would put them to productive use.  Good companies survive and thrive off of the mistakes of their competitors.  Just imagine how many productive  jobs Honda, Toyota, or Nissan could provide using GM facilities and patents.

Mr. Frank also shows his ignorance when he states Once the downturn ends, there should be no need to incur additional debt. Indeed, there are many ways to pay down debt without requiring painful sacrifices. A $2 tax on each gallon of gasoline, for example, would generate more than $100 billion in additional revenue a year.

Politicians and economists have been saying that they’ll balance the budget and start paying down the debt for as long as I can remember – and I’m 47.  It has not happened in my lifetime.  Not once.

The last time the US reduced the national debt was 1957.  (Source is the US Treasury.) When do you suggest we start making payments on the principal Mr. Frank?

And a $2 per gallon tax on gasoline would be an additional $283 billion in taxes at the current rate of consumption of 141.9 billion gallons per year. (Source is US Energy Information Administration.)

Mr. Frank also says It’s also useful to put the nation’s debt burden into perspective. Over the last eight years, Bush administration deficits raised the national debt by almost $5 trillion. Given the current crisis, it’s easy to imagine a similar increase during the next four years. At recent interest rates, servicing $10 trillion of extra debt costs about $400 billion annually — a big amount, to be sure, but less than 3 percent of the economy’s full-employment output. We’ll still be the richest country on the planet even after paying all that interest.

Bullshit.  That’s like saying you got the highest score of those who failed.  I’m not a fan of Bush – since I consider Bush the worst President in my lifetime, that’s the understatement of the year – so I don’t like it when Obama imitates Bush.  Liberal or Conservative – big government is big government.

The 3% figure Mr. Frank gives is technically accurate – when you take the $400 billion figure he uses – but why does he use that number?  The bottom line is the one that matters.

The national debt is currently over $11 trillion (source US Treasury).  The US GDP for 2008 was $14.2 trillion (source BEA).

Our current national debt is 77% of GDP.  If Obama adds $5 trillion more in the next 4 years (as seems likely) our debt will be over 100% of GDP.  And if Mr. Frank thinks that’s sustainable, I’ve got some great beach-front property to sell him.

I could go on and on about the errors in Mr. Frank’s article – such as his mistaken assumptions about the wealthy – but you can read it yourself.  I’m amazed that the NY Times editors allowed an article this full of errors to be published.

gk

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Just wanted to put this on here because it looks interesting.  I have not read this yet, but I intend to because it presents a different view of the New Deal than what we’ve all been taught. It’s available on sale at Buy.com, so there’s no excuse to put it off.

FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring the American economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929–33. Truth to tell-as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt-the New Deal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added to unemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costly government. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying on an impressive variety of popular and academic literature both contemporary and historical.”
-Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution

gk

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It’s hard to believe that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke is actually as dumb as his statements make him sound.  In his testimony to the Senate today, he said that if the government purchases common shares in banks, that it “may or may not” have an impact on shareholders.

Has he never heard of supply and demand?  Whenever the supply of something is increased, each individual part of the “something” is worth less.  This holds true for everything from apples to zebras – and I’ve never seen an exception to that rule.  But Ben doesn’t seem to understand that simple concept.

According to MarketWatch.com, Bernanke spoke in response to questions raised by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who expressed concern about how conversion of government capital infusions into common shares could have a negative impact on existing common shareholders of financial institutions. However, Bernanke argued that once converted, the government common stakes “may or may not” dilute common shareholders depending on expectations of the equity shareholders, Bernanke said.

At least Corker and Grassley are now saying the right things.  Hopefully they’ll keep their recently grown backbones and continue to hold these appointed officials accountable.  They didn’t have the backbone to stand up and say this when Bush was president, and I don’t care if political differences cause them to do the right thing or if they figure it out on their own.  Doing the right thing is what matters in the end.

Bernanke simply can’t be that dumb, but he sure plays the role of a dumbass well.

gk

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Let me say this up front – I think racism and other “hate speech” is disgusting.  It’s rarely helpful to the cause of the person saying it, and it paints them as being ignorant.

But they have every right to say it.  And I support their right to say it.  Calling for a political cartoonist to be fired because of a political cartoon goes against the very core of the First Amendment.

CNN has a story about the NAACP calling for the the cartoonist, Sean Delonas, to be fired.  I am unfamiliar with the cartoons of Mr. Delonas, and he may be an incompetent boob who deserves to be fired, but this is one of those cases where he should have job security for the foreseeable future.

Just in case the NY Post gives in and violates those principles which allow it to exist as an independent newspaper without prior government approval for it’s stories, I’ve copied the cartoon here so I’ll have it if the NY Post deletes it.  Click on the image to see it full size.

NY Post Cartoon from Feb 18, 2009

Check out the home page of this site at effor.com if you have any questions as to why I would do this.  There isn’t much there, just a few quotes.  But those quotes should explain why I put this post on my blog.  Any questions?

gk

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According to the Christian Science Monitor, At least six governors have said they may refuse money. CNN also has some a decent story on it.

“We’re concerned that we’re just going to be doling out million dollar hugs,” says Jon Hanian, Governor Otter’s press secretary. “It really comes down to the proper role of government, and that is a soul-searching question we’re engaged in here in Idaho right now.”

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have joined Otter’s revolt.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has also raised concerns about future state obligations especially for education, welfare, and healthcare spending, which make up the bulk of the $787 billion package.

“Some school systems will see a gusher of money the like of which no one has seen before,” said Governor Daniels at a press conference last week. “When federal funds stop coming, there will not be any way to replace all of that.”

And a bit further down the story says But Jindal, who called the stimulus debate “a great opportunity” to offer conservative-based solutions, countered, “We should be unafraid to stand up on principles and point out alternative solutions.”

This could be the first step in removing federal government interference in what should constitutionally be a state issue.  Just imagine if we could get more states to “stand up on principles” and refuse federal money – and the strings that are always attached to that money.

Mississippi’s Governor Barbour objects to a provision that extends unemployment benefits to people who have turned down full-time employment. Similarly, South Carolina’s Governor Sanford thinks extending unemployment benefits to part-time workers will bankrupt the state’s unemployment trust.

“The only strings attached to this money is if you have a community that for the last 30 years has had persistent poverty rates … then you must direct 10 percent of this money to those communities,” says Rep. Clyburn. “If you don’t want this pot of money because that string is attached, what am I to conclude from that?”

Representative Clyburn – you may safely conclude that they don’t want money with strings attached.  Ideally, they wouldn’t want your money, because they know it’s really their money anyway, but that’s probably too much to hope for at this point.  I’m taking it one step at a time, trying to undo this mess the same way it was created, one step at a time.

The underlying cause for the resistance has to do with state sovereignty, says Byron Schlomach at the conservative Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Will a short-term federal government intervention weaken states’ rights by making them more financially beholden to Washington?

That’s an issue that is particularly relevant as the revolt is largely coming from states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alaska, whose residents currently receive some of the highest shares of federal subsidies in the country. These states, argues Mr. Schlomach, know the price that comes with federal largess. “We’re giving up our sovereignty and putting the federal government even more in the driver’s seat,” he says.

Highway funding, HUD funding, etc. all come with caveats, and maybe this will be the straw that broke the camels’ back.  I’m not optimistic that this will be the case, but at least it’s cause for hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.

What’s my alternative plan?  Do nothing.  Let the bad companies go broke.  Let the people who bought more house than they could afford go broke.  Let them live with relatives or at a church run charity.

gk

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Now this is new….  According to Forbes, a plastic surgeon specialing in liposuction has a use for the fat he sucks out of overweight people – he runs his SUV on it!  Here’s a quote from the story: “Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner turned the fat he removed from patients into biodiesel that fueled his Ford SUV and his girlfriend’s Lincoln Navigator.”

A bit further down in the story we find out why it’s suddenly news….  Using fat to fuel cars might be environmentally friendly, but it’s definitely illegal in California to use human medical waste to power vehicles, and Bittner is being investigated by the state’s public health department.

Damn – I was just thinking that this was a good way to get rid of America’s obesity problem and solve our dependence on foreign oil at the same time!  Oh well, maybe they’ll change the law….

(Note – I know there’s not enough fat to free us from foreign oil – it was a joke, get over it!)

gk

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Here’s a brilliant use of money – at least it’s not tax dollars….   The city of Knoxville has received a $200,000 grant aimed at developing a realistic strategy to substantially increase residential recycling rates.

I’ve never understood the recycling program here.  You can pay extra to have your recycling picked up, or you can drop off plastic, aluminum, and cardboard at a few select spots around the city.   Bear in mind that this is the end of 2008 – why is Knoxville so backward?

In 1988 I was living in Lafayette, LA.  I think the city had a population of about 100,000.  They had FREE recycling (of paper, glass, and aluminum) via a private contractor for all residents.   From what I understand, the money they received from the aluminum was more than enough to offset the cost of hauling the glass and paper away – the contractor evidently just broke even on them.

I don’t know if they still have that same program or not, but I do not understand why this wouldn’t work in every city.   If you make recycling easy, a lot more people (even me!) would do it.   It you make it hard or expensive people won’t recycle.

There, I just gave you just as much info as the $200,000 study will produce – free.  This ain’t rocket surgery…

gk

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I read this article on FoxNews.com today from “Junk Science” publisher Steven Milloy.  The article is titled “Is T. Boone Pickens ‘Swiftboating’ America?” and basically says that Pickens is lying and that he has his facts wrong.

After I did a bit of research it appears that Junk Science really IS junk science – at least this article – because Milloy just plain has his facts wrong.

For example, in response to Pickens’ claim that we import nearly 70% of our oil, Milloy states Aside from the fact that the Department of Energy (DOE) puts the import figure at a more moderate 58 percent, Pickens gives the impression that imported oil is scary because it all comes from the unstable Mideast.

What are the facts?  Although both numbers are too high for my comfort, there’s a big difference between “nearly 70%” and 58%.  Here are the actual numbers from the DOE site.  In April (the latest month for which numbers are available, the US imported 397.556 million barrels of oil, and produced 154.867 million barrels of oil.

These numbers are straight from the DOE, you can verify them by clicking the links above.  Mr. Milloy doesn’t give his source, other than to say “the Department of Energy”.

I’ll do the math for Mr. Milloy.  397.556 plus 154.867 equals 552.423 million barrels of oil total.  That’s the total amount the US produced and imported in April 2008.

To find the percentage that imports make of the total, you divide the imports (397.556) by the total (552.423).  In my calculator it equals .7196, which I’ll round of to .72, which equals 72%.

So, who is telling the truth about the percentage of oil we import, Mr. Pickens – who said “nearly 70%” – or Junk Science publisher Mr. Milloy – who said 58%?

Round one goes to Mr. Pickens.

Mr. Milloy goes on to say Only 16 percent of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf — barely up from 13.6 percent in 1973, according to the DOE. Once again he gives his source as the DOE, but doesn’t provide the data to back up his statement.  But again this is easy to check.

Using the same DOE chart for total imports as above,  we find that the US imported 69.679 million barrels of oil from the Persion Gulf in April.   Divide that number by the total amount imported to get the percentage.  It’s 17.5%, which is actually down from the percentage in March, which was over 20%.

Once again Milloy is just plain wrong.  He either has outdated information, or he can’t do basic math, or both.  It really doesn’t matter because he’s still wrong.

Mr. Milloy’s next statement Imports from OPEC countries are actually down — from 47.8 percent in 1973 to 44.5 percent in 2007. is also easily checked using the same DOE source data, but using the annual view.  In 2007 the US imported 4,905.234 million barrels, of which 2,183.964 million came from OPEC countries.  Do the math and you get 44.5%.

Hey, he got this one right!  (Mr. Pickens never said anything about this – I included it simply to be fair to Mr. Milloy.)

So what’s the final score?  Of the independently verifiable numbers on oil imports that Mr. Milloy uses, he’s just flat wrong on two of the three.

Mr. Milloy gives lots of other oil numbers in his article, numbers like the “hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in the form of oil tar sands and oil shale in North America, not to mention the more than one hundred billion barrels of oil in the outer continental shelf of the U.S. and on public lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR)” but these are estimates and not verifiable.

Besides, Mr. Pickens never claimed that we are running out of oil – he simply said “The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.”  And I don’t know of anyone who has claimed that producing oil from tar sands, oil shale, the outer continental shelf, or places like ANWR is either cheap or easy.

Mr. Pickens has said that we are at or approaching “peak oil” which is a totally different subject – but I happen to agree with him.  I wrote about it a few months ago.

Anyway, it appears the Junk Science publisher Steven Milloy needs to do some fact checking of his own before he starts saying that other people have their facts wrong.  It appears that he really is an expert on junk science, because he’s publishing plenty of it.  Besides, did he really think that Mr. Pickens would get his facts wrong about oil?

gk

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Why is it so hard to find information about the reliability of heat pumps?  I want to replace a 30 year old GE system, but it seems that no one has reliability ratings on heat pumps/central AC systems….

I can find ratings on cars, cell phones, vacuum cleaners, carpeting, computers, irrigation systems, etc.   Nothing on heat pumps.  Zip.

Consumer Reports (a site I use often) pops up on almost every search I do on the subject, but they don’t have ratings on heat pumps.  They rate window AC units and gas furnaces, but not heat pumps.  It’s absurd that no one (that I can find) seems to have reviews/reliability ratings on various manufacturer’s heat pump products.  If you can rate furnaces, why not heat pumps?

I read that newer high efficiency units have thinner tubing in the coils – which supposedly cracks easier and faster – but nowhere that gives any data to show the difference.  Just stories….

I can read hundreds of sites that talk about what a heat pump is; I can read hundreds of sites that talk about the differences between air source and ground source heat pumps; I can read hundreds of sites that opine on which type of system is better for a particular climate – but NOTHING on which brand/model is the most reliable; which brand/model historically needs the most (or fewest) repairs; which brand/model has the most features, etc.

It’s like there’s a black hole for heat pump rating/reliability information.  I live in Knoxville, TN, and there are dozens of companies selling, installing, and repairing heat pumps here, but evidently I’d need to start a site to create some independent reliability ratings for their products – because so far no one else seems to be doing it….  This area seems to be begging for the equivalent of an Edmunds.com or KBB.com. 

I’m looking for a high efficiency, reliable, air to air (or ground source, depends on if I can afford the ground source right now or not) heat pump.  It should be simple, but then I read stories where someone thinks their xxx brand system is super reliable because it’s only needed 2 motors, 3 switches, and 1 compressor replaced in 10 years (”But it was covered under warranty!”) and I want to scream at the monitor….

Reliable means not having to replace major components for at least 10 years.  Reliable means that the system (with normal maintenance) will still be running 30 years from now – just like the original GE gas furnace and AC is still running in my house – and it’s 32 years old. 

I can’t believe that the HVAC campanies haven’t made progress in reliability over 30 years – but there are ZERO sites that I can find to indicate otherwise.

I asked about reliability ratings on a HVAC forum, and I can’t believe the way some of these people treat their potential customers.   Most everyone who replied to my questions said something similar to “it’s the installer that makes the difference” as if every single manufacturer sold identical units, assembled from the same parts, on the same assembly line. 

I know that some manufacturers have different lines that are pretty much the same with only the names changed to protect the innocent, and that many use off the shelf components which are the same as another manufacturer – but assuming the installer does his job right, I want to know which manufacturer has the most reliable product – regardless of cost.  It appears that that information is a highly guarded government secret, because there ain’t no one talking.  It’s the Area 51 of consumer information.

I tried asking the question about 5 different ways, but evidently HVAC people don’t like answering a direct question, because (contrary to what some on the thread claimed) I never received an answer, and I obviously pissed them off by asking again in different ways. 

Here’s one response I received: “hey why don’t you look4nac up your a$$, whatta douche bag. if the coil cracks in a year it sould be covered under warranty, same for the compressor.”

That type of attitude (along with a couple of “don’t let the door hit you on the way out”) responses shows me that the “pro’s” in the HVAC field need to work on their customer relationship skills.  Either that or they need to stop drinking a minimum of 2 hours before posting.  I had to stop posting to the thread before I blew a gasket last night.

 I just checked the forum thread again tonight and it doesn’t get any better.  The last post as of 9:16pm ET has another potential customer asking the same question in yet another way.  He says:

Ok, he’s eliminated the installer as a variable – this answer should be easy.  Something like “I work on/install several brands, and in my experience xxx needs fewer repairs overall than xxx brand” or xxx brand is good overall, but I’ve replaced dozens of compressors on xxx model” or whatever.  

But here’s the response he got:   If you have a great installer. Then the brand he installs/prefers is the best brand for you to get from him. 

Thanks for nothing.  That’s the exact same thing as saying “if you happen to be at a Chevy dealer, buy a Chevy.  If you’re at a Mercedes dealer, buy a Mercedes.  If you’re at a Honda dealer, buy a Honda.  Are you a dumbass?”  As the Guinness commercials say “Brilliant!”

These HVAC “pros” seem to think that because it’s covered under warranty, it doesn’t matter if it breaks.   That’s not what I mean when I say “reliability”.  Reliable means that it doesn’t break in the first place. 

Reliable means the compressor is a proven unit that’s been on the market for a few years and has a repair history, the coils have been stress tested and they don’t crack, the blower and fan motors have worked for years – without needing to be replaced – even if it’s under warranty.  If most of them are made by the same people, there should be a wealth of info available.  But there isn’t.

I did find a site named RemodelHomeGuide.com that had the most popular brands – but that tells me squat about reliability. 

Just had to vent – but if you know of a site with heat pump reliability ratings, PLEASE pass it on.   I promise to share any good info I receive.  One post at the HVAC link above did point me to a generic JD Power HVAC subcontractor rating from 2 years ago – but according to the press release, the actual product only accounted for 14% of the rating.  Sales and marketing support to the subcontractors counted for 18% of the rating – and they don’t even list reliability as a factor on the report….  Pretty much worthless.

I’ll post a follow up after I have a few local companies check out my house and provide price quotes. 

I had a Trane dealer here today.  Seemed honest, he didn’t recommend the higher SEER systems (recommended an XL15i dual fuel system) for my house, and he seemed upfront about the higher cost and (what he said was) lower reliability of the XL16i and XL19i systems.  Something that any installer/repair person could’ve – but didn’t – say on the HVAC forum I mentioned.

I’ll keep you posted as to what the others say – and I promise to follow up with the results.  Maybe I’ll go ahead and start a HVAC rating site since no one else seems to do it.

gk

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I received some rather heated emails in response to a post I made on a wind energy forum.   In the post, I gave my response to a (rather lengthy) post calling for government mandated alternative energy goals, subsidies for alternative energy, mandatory replacement projects, and in general complaining that their pet project/business wasn’t being paid for with tax money – or government mandated private spending.

Most were of the “we’re subsidizing Big Oil, why not (insert pet project here) too?” variety, along with a couple of ”Big Oil/utility companies/automotive industry/government are suppressing alternative energy development” type conspiracy types mixed in.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about “big oil subsidies”, so I decided to do a bit of research to see just how much tax money is spent on “big oil subsidies.”

To summarize about 8 hours or research - I can’t find any.  Zip, nadda, zilch.  If anyone can point me to an example of a direct subsidy to the oil industry, I would appreciate it.

Note: I’ve read arguments where the federal and state gas taxes are a subsidy to big oil – because without state and federal highways, the oil industry couldn’t sell as much oil.  In a word, bullshit.  If all cars were running on hydrogen fuel cells (with the hydrogen being generated by solar power) we’d still need highways – where would the money come from without gas taxes?  I won’t belabor the point – think about it.

Some claim that “big oil gets special tax breaks” so I also looked at Exxon’s (the biggest of “big oil”) 2007 annual earnings statement.  Go to page 38 to see these numbers.

While it’s true that Exxon made over $70 billion in 2007, what’s often not reported is that they paid almost $30 billion ($29.864 billion to be precise) in taxes on that $70 billion of income.   That’s a 42% tax rate! 

Chevron made $32 billion in 2007, and they paid $18.6 billion in taxes.  That’s a 58% tax rate!

For comparison, GE made $26.6 billion in 2007, and paid $4.1 billion in taxes. That’s a 15% tax rate. 

IBM made $14.4 billion in 2007, and paid $4 billion in taxes.  That’s a 27% tax rate.

Google made $5.6 billion in 2007, and they paid $1.4 billion in taxes.  That’s a 25% tax rate.

Would someone please explain how “big oil” is getting a tax break in comparison with other “big” companies/industries?  Anyone? 

As to the argument that the oil companies are making too much money while we’re suffering at the pump and at home with huge heating bills – you need to remember that the oil companies have purchased rights to the oil they’re selling at market prices.  It’s the same as a farmer making triple the profit of the previous year because corn or soybeans have tripled in value.  Crap, now I’m gonna rant….

You want to talk about subsidies, look out your window the next time you’re flying across the country.  See those amber waves of grain?  Did you know that those farmers received over $5 billion in DIRECT payments in 2007?

I emphasised DIRECT because that’s tax dollars straight to the pockets of farmers as subsidies.  That’s not counting the $1.8 billion that we (via the federal government) are paying farmers NOT to farm almost 37 million acres under the CRP program in 2008 – despite record corn, soybean, and wheat prices. 

Meanwhile, despite the high cost of fossil fuel, alternative sources of energy still aren’t competitive without tax dollars.  There are thousands of websites dedicated to showing you how to collect subsidies for solar power, and over 80% of the wind energy generated is MANDATED to be purchased.  In addition, the federal government alone (not counting state and local subsidies) spent $745 million in DIRECT subsidies for wind power.

I want someone, anyone, to show me how we do the same with “big oil”.  Please. 

Is the government directly paying oil companies NOT to produce oil – like they do with farmers?  Is the government directly making  payments to oil companies to support the price of their product – despite record commodity prices – like they do with farmers?  Is the government directly paying oil companies for every barrel of oil they produce – like they do with wind and solar power?

If so, I’m sorry, I can’t find it.   Show me.

All that being said, I don’t think we should pay subsidies to anyone, for anything.  To those who have emailed me saying “nuclear/hydro/solar/hydrogen is subsidized, why shouldn’t (insert pet project) be subsided too?” I say tough shit sherlock.

I don’t want tax dollars to be spent on ANY pet projects.  No tax breaks for anyone, in any industry.  Everyone should pay the same tax rate – you make more, you pay more.   Any questions?

If no subsidies means that wind and solar (or biomass or hydrogen or whatever your pet project is) isn’t competitive with traditional energy sources at the current price levels, so be it.  Maybe it will be competitive when oil is $200/barrel, or $400/barrel. 

I don’t have time left to get into the whole ethanol issue tonight, but suffice it to say that I don’t think ethanol subsidies (or special tax breaks!) are a good idea either.

Here’s the really weird part – I fully support alternative energy sources.  Until about a year ago, I lived in a marginal wind resource area in MO, and I REALLY tried to make the numbers work so I could install a wind turbine on my property.  I even seriously looked into buying some land in Northwest MO where I could lease it to utility scale operations.  Because of my job,  I now live in Knoxville TN, and the wind resource here isn’t even close to making the numbers work.

If I had a chunk of change socked away, I’d be buying land in good wind resource areas like Texas and western Oklahoma and North Dakota right now, because I think wind will eventually be competitive with traditional energy sources, and I’d like a piece of that economy.  But I’m still paying off my house in Knoxville, and I won’t speculate with my money until I’m personally secure financially.

One email response I received to the post (remember the post above that started all of this?) suggested that this discussion didn’t belong on the message board, because “this is a small wind discussion list, not a forum on government policies.” 

If that’s the case, why are messages supporting wind subsidies (even urging members to write their congressmen about particular bills) deemed perfectly fine, but any message opposing that socialist point of view deemed unfit?

I’m been a member of the AWEA Wind Home forum on Yahoo for a couple of years, and I’ve learned a lot.  I guess I’ll go back to lurking quietly since my preferred methods differ from those expressed by some alternative energy nazis.

gk

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Anyone seen this news today?  Here’s a few choice quotes from an AP story: 

Global warming isn’t to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject.

Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday.

Huh?  Say again?  Even Al Gore blamed Katrina on global warming, and we all know how smart he is right?  Here’s a story from the Boston Globe (there are hundreds of others, Google it) blaming global warming for Katrina.  The overall theme is that we (because we are causing global warming) are killing ourselves.  Here’s a snip of the story:

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.

When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.

When a severe drought in the Midwest dropped water levels in the Missouri River to their lowest on record earlier this summer, the reason was global warming.

How could the global warming crowd have had this so wrong?  You want the simple answer?  Money.

You see, everyone of the scientists who are predicting catastrophe are paid by tax dollars.  They need a crisis to investigate so they can get more tax dollars for funding next year.  If the crisis goes away, so does their funding….

That’s the real debate about global warming.  I don’t know if the planet is getting warmer because of us or not, but I know a bunch of research scientists – along with many socialist politicians – are making hay while the sun shines.  With our money.

gk

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I’ve been reading about peak oil for a few years, and I know that in the US, we reached peak oil production in the early 1970’s, but I was curious about global peak oil production so I looked at some hard numbers.  Here’s an Excel spreadsheet with the latest numbers I could find:

oil-prod-by-year

The information in the spreadsheet is from the US Department of Energy, and I imported it into Excel so I could create some line charts to make the trend easier to view. 

There are two tabs in the sheet, one is the total world production of crude oil, the other includes other petroleum products such as natural gas.  But both show the same trend – global petroleum production has at least plateaued in the past 3 years, and it may actually be declining.

In other words, if we haven’t seen ”peak oil” in the past year, we’re most likely at peak oil right now.

Here’s another way to look at it – we will (most likely) produce less oil worldwide in 2008 than we did in 2007.  Since worldwide demand is still rising fast (mainly due to growth in China and India) what do you think is going to happen to the price?

Hint – no one has managed to repeal the law of supply and demand.  Demand is still rising (even at these rediculous prices) while the supply is falling.  If more people want the same thing, the price is bid up. 

Assuming the data from the Department of Energy is correct, those who are looking for the price of oil to fall long term might as well be looking for a free lunch.  It aint gonna happen.

The price of oil will still fluctuate, but overall the trend will be up.  It might even drop 50% from today, but I don’t think there’s anyway oil will be cheaper 10 years from now than it is today.

Anyone disagree?

gk

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Saw this in the NY Times today talking about the abnormally cool winter this year.  Now I don’t know if we’re having an impact on temperatures or not, or even if it would be a bad thing if we were, but I want to point something out that’s always bugged me about global climate studies.

It’s hard as hell to find real temperature numbers in any climate change story.  They ALWAYS use things like anomaly, and temperature deviation from some average – and arbitrary – time-frame.  Here’s a chart from the above article to illustrate.

Notice how there are no hard numbers anywhere?  No where in this fairly detailed story does it give the actual temperature, and that bothers me.

gk

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