Why Abundant Oil Hasn't Cut Gasoline Prices

Why Abundant Oil Hasn't Cut Gasoline Prices - Businessweek
With competition fierce for limited pipeline capacity, producers have begun moving crude on barges and trains, adding as much as $17 a barrel to the price of domestic oil. 

That extra cost eventually makes its way to the price at the pump. 

Ethanol requirements have backfired. 

The idea was to stretch a limited oil supply, cut reliance on imported crude, and make use of abundant corn harvests. 

But today the ethanol program is raising costs for refiners even as the price of oil has fallen 10 percent over the last year.

Complicating the equation is a 1920 law called the Jones Act, which requires any cargo shipped between U.S. ports to be carried by vessels that are based in the U.S., made in the U.S., and crewed mostly by U.S. citizens. The law was intended to protect U.S. shipping interests but has made it more costly to move fuel between U.S. ports. This in particular hurts the Northeast, which is struggling to meet its fuel needs after several refineries closed in the last two years. According to Ed Morse, chief commodity analyst at Citigroup (C), those constraints add between $6 and $8 a barrel to transport costs. As a result, it’s often cheaper for a Gulf Coast refiner to send gasoline to Brazil than to New York.

In late 2011 the U.S. quietly surpassed Russia as the largest exporter of such refined products as gasoline and diesel. Canada’s fuel imports from the U.S. jumped 15 percent in 2012. Brazil’s demand for U.S.-made fuel rose 6 percent. China’s leapt 17 percent. Exports to Venezuela and India more than doubled. Without realizing it, U.S. drivers are competing for American-made gasoline with consumers in Latin America and Asia, where demand is rising. “Americans don’t think about their prices being impacted by a global market,” says Morse. “The American public just thinks about the rising price at the pump.”

The Senate Trouble-Maker in Waiting

The Senate Trouble-Maker in Waiting - NationalJournal.com:
"Not long ago, the idea of someone like Amash clearing the primary field in a Senate race would have been unthinkable. 
An outspoken libertarian with views that often run counter to recent GOP orthodoxy (he led a failed coup against Speaker John Boehner earlier this year), Amash has minimal support among the Republican political class.
He’s also only 32 years old, serving his second term in Congress, and has little name recognition—even across Michigan.
But in modern GOP politics, as shown by the examples of Sens. Paul, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ted Cruz of Texas—all of whom were opposed by the establishment in their primary races—conservative outsiders have an inside track to the upper chamber."

Gun Grabbers’ Latest Gambit

PJ Media » Gun Grabbers’ Latest Gambit:
“A contingent of liberal Democrats in Congress is proposing a new federal gun control idea: mandatory liability insurance for gun owners.”
Gun purchasers without such insurance would face a fine of “as much as $10,000″ if the “Firearm Risk Protection Act” introduced in March by New York’s Carolyn Maloney and seven other Democratic congressmen were ever to become law."

Social Programs Face Cutback in Obama Budget

Social Programs Face Cutback in Obama Budget - NYTimes.com:
"Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits"

Question of the Day: Should Michigan change its high school graduation requirements to eliminate Algrebra II and foreign languages?

Question of the Day: Should Michigan change its high school graduation requirements to eliminate Algrebra II and foreign languages? | MLive.com:
"Supporters of the requirements say that changes already allow students to customize their curriculum and that the changes aren't needed.
What do you think?
Should students be required to take Algebra II and foreign languages to get their high school degree?
Does it better prepare them for a career?"

Outrageous!… Dem Rep. Degette Mocks Senior Citizen – Says “You’d Probably Be Dead Anyway” if Confronted by Armed Criminals (Video)

Outrageous!… Dem Rep. Degette Mocks Senior Citizen – Says “You’d Probably Be Dead Anyway” if Confronted by Armed Criminals (Video) | The Gateway Pundit:
"During the question and answer period a concerned Denver citizen asked Democratic Representative DeGette how he was supposed to defend himself under the new Colorado gun laws.
DeGette smirked and mocked the senior citizen saying,
“The good news for you, you live in Denver. The Denver PD would be there within minutes. (laughing) You’d probably be dead anyway.”
Really?
That’s the Democratic response to concerned homeowners?
To mothers?
To seniors protecting their homes?
“You’d probably be dead anyway.”"

First Amendment Victory! | Ottawa County Patriots

First Amendment Victory! | Ottawa County Patriots:
 "Update:  April 4th. 12:00PM
To the applause of a standing room only crowd in court, Judge Servass, dismissed the case against the owner of Verium Farms in Gaines township as unconstitutional."

Obama: Newtown Shooter Gunned Down 20 Children With 'Fully Automatic Weapon'

Obama: Newtown Shooter Gunned Down 20 Children With 'Fully Automatic Weapon' | The Weekly Standard:
"-- by a fully automatic weapon in that case, sadly."
According to the prosecutor, Stephen J. Sedensky III, the killer, Adam Lanza, "killed all 26 victims inside Sandy Hook Elementary School with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle before taking his own life with a Glock 10 mm handgun.
He says Lanza had another loaded handgun with him inside the school as well as three, 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster," ABC previously reported.
Each of the guns used is a semi-automatic weapon, and not one is an automatic weapon."

The Coming Global Warming Voter Backlash

Articles: The Coming Global Warming Voter Backlash:
"The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinotubo in the Pacific belched as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in a few weeks as 1,000 years of humans driving automobiles. 
Similarly, the production of methane gas -- a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2) -- from herds of wildebeest in Africa far exceeds the greenhouse gas emissions of the largest U.S. cities.
The only scientific data we ever had is this: over the geological history of the Earth, when temperature increased, 800 years later we see a rise in atmospheric CO2. 
Higher temperatures are not caused by carbon dioxide in the air. 
CO2 cannot cause a warmer climate, because warming occurs 800 years on average before any increase in CO2 levels. 
(It is suspected that CO2 dissolved in the oceans escapes as the oceans grow warmer.) "

33 things you should never say to a TSA agent

No humor zone: 33 things you should never say to a TSA agent:
"During a bag search, a Flint (FNT) traveler stated: "Be careful, there's a bomb in my bag."

Tell youngsters the truth: the UK needs you to work not go to university

Tell youngsters the truth: the UK needs you to work not go to university - Telegraph:
"The horrible truth is that central planning never works: just as the authorities cannot possibly know how many widgets an economy ought to produce, or what the “right” price for goods will turn out to be, they cannot possibly know many decades in advance what skills will be required, or what percentage of school-leavers should go to university. 
It is hard to fathom what Tony Blair was thinking when he promised that half of 18-year-olds would go to university.
The result has been betrayal, broken dreams, graduates working in coffee shops, a business community that still cannot find the right people with the right soft and hard skills, and a generation of young people crumbling under ever larger student debts.
It’s a social catastrophe for which nobody has yet paid the price; even worse, it remains politically unacceptable for those in a position of power to point any of this out."

What could go wrong? Obama asks banks to offer risky loans

Harsanyi: What could go wrong? Obama asks banks to offer risky loans:
"Think about this statement.
The administration is asking banks – banks that Washington bails out; banks that Washington crafts regulations for — to embrace risky policies that put the institution and its investors (not to mention, all of us) in a  precarious position.
So precarious, in fact, that banks have to ask government if they can be freed of any legal or financial consequences."

Obama administration recruiting 'navigators' for health law plans

Obama administration recruiting 'navigators' for health law plans - Washington Times:
"The Obama administration proposed guidelines on Wednesday for “navigators” who will assist people who buy health insurance on virtualmarketplaces under President’s Obama’s health care law.
The marketplaces, or “exchanges,” established by the Affordable Care Act are state-based portals where persons without employer-based insurance can shop among competing private health plans.
Participation in the exchanges is set to begin on Oct. 1.
Insurance coverage from the exchanges will take effect on Jan. 1."

$423,500 Stimulus Program on 'Correct Condom Use' Yields Zero Jobs

$423,500 Stimulus Program on 'Correct Condom Use' Yields Zero Jobs | The Weekly Standard:
"The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website.
The study, titled "Barriers to Correct Condom Use," is now completed, according to the website, and the university received $423,500 of stimulus funds to perform the study."

Muskegon's Michigan Steel Inc. closes, lays off workers, prepares to liquidate

Muskegon's Michigan Steel Inc. closes, lays off workers, prepares to liquidate | MLive.com:
"That was at the dedication of an expansion at Rothbury Steel, when state assistance provided the company and that led to an increase employment at the plant to 300.
As of the end of last year, Rothbury Steel was operating with about 70 employees, according to Oceana County economic development officials."

The effects of Wal-Mart on local labor markets ✩

http://www.mbconservation.org/pdf/LMMYVWMSC(Tab07).let.pdf

[Video] Fifteen Year Old Young Lady Leaves Maryland Anti Gun Politicians Speechless

[Video] Fifteen Year Old Young Lady Leaves Maryland Anti Gun Politicians Speechless

Gun control: ignorance in search of power |

Gun control: ignorance in search of power |
RealClearPolitics brings us a new intellectual high-water mark in the gun control debate, as Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat, makes it clear that she doesn’t really know what a “magazine” is, or how they work – she just knows she wants power over them: ”I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”
Golly, whatever will we do if those cunning criminals – er, excuse me, “persons who choose to operate outside the law,” in accordance with the new Associated Press stylebook – figure out that magazines can be reloaded?
This degree of nitwittery is not uncommon in the gun control debate.
 The anti-gun crowd is having a good day if they can avoid referring to ammunition magazine as “clips.” Barack Obama’s phony statistic about “40 percent of all gun purchases taking place without a background check” – which has been debunked by conservatives many times, but is finally getting a fact-check workover from the mainstream press – could most charitably be described as ignorance of how gun sales work.
I suspect Obama himself knows it isn’t true – his advisers certainly do – and he’s just flogging the lie because it sounds useful.
But a lot of his supporters don’t know it’s untrue, because they have minimal personal experience with the purchase and transfer of firearms.
The hysteria around “assault weapons” is an example of using loaded language to exploit a general lack of knowledge about rifles.
Most of the characteristics that land rifles on the “assault weapons” ban list are cosmetic, with little bearing on the weapon’s effectiveness.
Sometimes gun control zealots like to slip in terms like “military weapons,” to conjure images of rocket launchers and squad automatic weapons tucked into gun racks in the pickup trucks of NRA life members, who are one fender-bender away from pumping entire neighborhoods full of lead.
For that matter, the concept of “semi-automatic” guns is deliberately conflated with fully automatic fire.

Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit

Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit - The Washington Post:
"Officials are also encouraging lenders to use more subjective judgment in determining whether to offer a loan and are seeking to make it easier for people who owe more than their properties are worth to refinance at today’s low interest rates, among other steps.
“If that were to come to pass, that would open the floodgates to highly excessive risk and would send us right back on the same path we were just trying to recover from,” said Ed Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former top executive at mortgage giant Fannie Mae."

Legendary Air Canada ‘Gimli Glider’ 767 jet up for bids at Toronto auction event

Legendary Air Canada ‘Gimli Glider’ 767 jet up for bids at Toronto auction event:
"It is not often that aircraft and automobiles share the same strip of concrete but on July 23, 1983, this brand new, state-of-the-art 767 passenger jet appeared out of the sky after running out of fuel at 41,000 feet over the western prairies."
Incredible story!

Poet Maya Angelou Blasts Gun at Home Intruder |

Poet Maya Angelou Blasts Gun at Home Intruder |:
"I was in my house in North Carolina.
It was fall.
I heard someone walking on the leaves.
And somebody actually turned the knob.
So I said, “Stand four feet back because I’m going to shoot now!”
Boom! Boom!
The police came by and said, “Ms. Angelou, the shots came from inside the house.”
I said, “Well, I don’t know how that happened"

USA Today | Sports | COLLEGE | Salaries

USA Today | Sports | COLLEGE | Salaries:
"4 Michigan State Big Ten Tom Izzo"

Wisconsin's Labor Lost

Political Diary: Wisconsin's Labor Lost - WSJ.com:
"Remember Big Labor's throw-down last year over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's public-sector union reforms?
The fight ended with a squeak yesterday as conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patience Roggensack handily defeated union-backed candidate and Marquette University law professor Ed Fallone, with some 57% of the vote.
The vote means conservatives retain 4-3 control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The next two justices up for reelection on the court will be from its liberal wing, which means that after yesterday's win conservatives are likely to maintain or extend their majority for years to come.
That's a blow to unions......."

Fractional Reserve Speed Dating

Captain Capitalism: Fractional Reserve Speed Dating
Naturally, you would think money is the only commodity that can lend itself (pun FULLY intended) well to a fractional reserve system, but in my trials and tribulations in life as a SAEG (tm) I have come upon another commodity where fractional reserving is done, and it isn't in banking.
It's in speed dating.
Many years ago I gave speed dating one shot. I walked into the joint, dropped my $35 down along with 7 other men and for that $35 we got to meet 8 other women for 5 minutes a piece. The one date that I did manage to score out of this escapade brought her gay male friend to chaperone, which prompted me to dance with pretty much every other girl on the floor but her. 

 Gay-chaperoned dates aside, the point was there was an equal number of men to women. 8 to 8. For if there was a shortage on either end you would have too many of one gender chasing too few of the other.
But something interesting occurred after the speed dating event was over. As some people headed to the bar, I decided to approach one of the girls I was interested in and chat her up a bit. Using a simple approach I said,
"You ever done this before?"
She said,
"Yes, but technically not tonight."
Curious, I said,
"Why technically not tonight?"
And her response was one for the Economics of Dating history books.
"Well, the guy who runs this speed dating thing always has too many men and not enough women. So he calls us when he has extra guys and we just fill in and act like we're interested. If women don't show up, he can't sell as many tickets so he buys us drinks as compensation."
Kind of curious about the math, not to mention I just wanted to see how screwed over me and the other 7 men were, I asked,
"So how many women were plants?"
She said,
"4."
I was more or less speechless, but the cynical side of me let out a cynical "Heh, what will they think of next?" Seeing she herself was a plant, I just walked away, went to my car and left.
Naturally I was somewhat upset at this little bit of trickery. What was sold as a way for 8 men to meet 8 women was in reality 8 men to meet 4 women. In short a fraction of the women that were truly available. But by cheating the system of sorts, the host of the speed dating was able to "create" women just like banks "create" money and profit from this newly created asset. He just had to pay them interest in the form of free cocktails (and no doubt the ego tinglies of leading poor saps on).

"The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery"

Ron Paul: "The Great Cyprus Bank Robbery" | Zero Hedge:
"The elites in the EU and IMF failed to learn their lesson from the popular backlash to these tax proposals, and have openly talked about using Cyprus as a template for future bank bailouts.
This raises the prospect of raids on bank accounts, pension funds, and any investments the government can get its hands on.
In other words, no one's money is safe in any financial institution in Europe. 
Bank runs are now a certainty in future crises, as the people realize that they do not really own the money in their accounts. 
How long before bureaucrat and banker try that here?"

Montague group to hold nonpartisan presentation on fracking | MLive.com

Montague group to hold nonpartisan presentation on fracking | MLive.com
"Resolving Our American Democracy, or ROAD, based in Montague, is a nonpartisan civic group and doesn't advocate for specific positions or political candidates, said ROAD Co-chairman Dave Frederick. ROAD holds monthly meetings with informational presentations.
"It's basically to inform people on the issue and do it in a nonpartisan way," Frederick said.
Frederick said that the presenter, Thompson, is a retired corporate researcher and writer who has promised to try to give a balanced presentation.
But, Frederick, said, there will be an opportunity at the end of the meeting to hear from Joy Smith of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, and sign the committee's petition to ban fracking.
"That will be an option for those at the end who have made up their minds," he said."

Why are Michigan's energy costs so high?

Why are Michigan's energy costs so high? | The Detroit News | detroitnews.com:
While Michigan's average electricity rate increase of 29 percent since 2007 is not much different than the 28 percent average increase in Indiana and 22 percent average increase in Wisconsin, it is double the 14 percent average increase in Ohio and dramatically different than the 1 percent increase in Illinois.
If each of these states had similar declines in demand, why have price changes been so different?
The answer is Illinois and Ohio have competitive retail electric markets. Indiana and Wisconsin have clung to traditional monopoly regulation and Michigan, in 2008, abandoned its movement toward market-based pricing in favor of government price-setting.
.....Michigan's high rates are the result of the 2008 reversal of the customer choice and competition program begun in 2000.

Michigan's two largest utilities, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, were keenly aware that during an economic slowdown they would have to charge lower prices to meet the competition. 

Their solution was to outlaw customer choice except for a fortunate handful of customers accounting for just 10 percent of electricity usage, mainly larger businesses and government. 

Monopoly regulation stands the world on its head — prices rise when demand drops.

Muskegon county board meetings: April 2013-video links

No more "I can't make the meetings" excuses. 
They're spending us into bankruptcy and you sit at home.
OK.
Now you can sit at home, watch your computer screen and see them at "work".
You silence simply supports their scams.
Do SOMETHING before there is nothing left to do anything about! 

County main page: http://www.co.muskegon.mi.us/

2013-4-2 Human resources
http://youtu.be/2VCqeKYiCrE

2013-4-2 Courts-Public safety
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK6dMN71DlE

2013-4-4 Ways and means

2013-4-9 Full board

2013-4-9 Board Planning Session
When: Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - 1:00 PM 
Location: South Campus Training Center, 133 E. Apple, Room #205

2013-4-11 Public works

2013-4-16 Ways and means

2013-4-18 Transportation

2013-4-18 Comm dev/Strategic planning

2013-4-23 Full board

Emergency manager: Muskegon Heights schools debt retirement plan jeopardized by water system woes

Emergency manager: Muskegon Heights schools debt retirement plan jeopardized by water system woes | MLive.com:
"Emergency Manager Donald Weatherspoon told the Muskegon Heights school board Monday that he felt his concerns expressed to city officials last month were brushed off.
Board President Trinell Scott, who was at the meeting of city officials, agreed.
“The city manager basically said Dr. Weatherspoon didn’t really know what he was talking about, to sum it up in a nutshell,” Scott said. 
“To me, I felt like they kind of didn’t want to hear what we had to say.”"

Pension fight heats up in Pontiac as emergency manager looks to reorganize board

Pension fight heats up in Pontiac as emergency manager looks to reorganize board | MLive.com:
"Schimmel cited $5.5 million in failed investments, a $2,200-a-month office space rental and trustee travel as reasons for his intervention."