Have you noticed

That no one is complaining about big oil these days or their "insane profits".  It proves a point I've been trying to make for several years and that is the oil companies are not the giant evil monsters that many people make them out to be.  Like any other corporation they are in business to make a profit and yes $35 billion dose seem to be a bit much until you consider that if they made the same profit margin as say Chase Manhattan Bank there profit would of been close to $88 billion.  In 2007 Exxon made the highest profit of any company in the USA on about an 8% margin, what the MSN media dose not tell you is who came in second which was the afford mention CMB with a margin of 25+%. Seems to me that if you want to complain about someones profit it would be some one that is asking the taxpayers to bail them out of their mismanagement. But hey what do I know.

July 11, 2008 the price of crude reaches a record price of $147.27 per barrel.  July 24, 2008 the price has fallen to $125 per barrel even when experts were saying on the 11th of July that it would probably reach $180+ a barrel and there was no end in sight to the high price of fuel.  So what happened?  If you listen to the all the "experts" it was because of fears that the world economy was going into the tank (which it did and the price of energy was the cause) and/or the demand went down take your choice.  I'm here to tell you it was neither of those.  July 14, 2008 President George Bush lifts the presidential ban on off shore drilling. the price of crude begins its fall.  Sept. 30, 2008 a Democratic led congress is forced let the moratorium on off shore drilling expire.  The falling price of crude accelerates and now sits hovering around $40 a barrel despite efforts by OPEC (the real big oil) to get the price back to $70 a barrel by lowering production.  Don't know about you but that tells me a lot.

Now for my question how much money is OPEC dumping into the Democratic Party and Greenie groups to keep us from drilling for our own oil?  I don't have the answer but I'll bet it is a ton.  Just something to think about.  As Paul Harvey might say "now you know the rest of the story".

Getting back to it

People keep asking when I'm going to fire up the keyboard again so I thought I would write a few words. Been a busy couple of years bought a home, that I probably won't make the last payment on but my heirs might. The company I work for was sold to a bigger fish and the country suffered through the longest presidential campaign in its history. The Avs look to be on the way to missing the playoffs but the Blackhawks look like they are going to make it for the first time since they traded Chilli. Football is as boring as ever, want to know why football is more popular than hockey? It is because football is deigned for those people with the attetion span of a ten second sound bite where as hockey you have to pay attention and to top it off my fantasy hockey teams are doing terible :).

Well that seems to be a good start so have a good day.

Right Direction

A little over a year ago the NHL owners locked out the players in a move that ended the season before it even got started. Saying that they needed to go in another direction if the league was going to survive financially. Now with the much fought over and dreaded salary cap in place, a few rule changes and a new network to watch it on (provided you don't have the Dishnetwork) the NHL is back. After a little less than a month I have to say I like the direction the league is going and although I’m still a little upset about all the crap that kept the league from playing last season and I still think Bettman should be fired. I’m going to keep on watching.

Internet Scams

I don't know about some of you but I have been noticing the increase in Internet scams. The one I'm most interested in right now is the survey scam. I worked in the survey industry for a couple of years so I have a first hand knowledge of how it works, whether it is on the net or in the mall they all work pretty much the same. A company wants to know what people think of their product or service. They go to a company whose purpose in life is to ask the questions, they negotiate a price that normally is dependent on the number of questions and how accurate they want the finding i.e.. the more people you ask the better the findings. When I was working as an asker about 20 years ago I could make $5 to $20 per respondent.

Now here is the scam, You get an email saying your opinion is important and that you could make thousands a week, quit your job and lay around on some sunny beach all day with nothing more than your lap top as you give your opinion on various subjects. Thinking to yourself wow what a deal you click on the link and you end up a some sight that tells you that they will get you all kids of survey gigs and all you have to do is send them $29.95 as a handling fee. What a deal you think spend so little to make so much and you immediately send in your hard earned dollars. That is when you find the scam, one they only give you the names and contacts of companies that are doing surveys and you must contact them to get on their list. Two most of the companies you contact are no more than a sign up to receive spam and out of a thousand emails you might get one survey to do. Three the survey you get doesn't pay anything it will get you points in some contest or you are entered into a drawing to win some amount of cash and if your real lucky they will pay you 3 to 5 dollars. Basically if you were to sit on that sunny beach with your lap top you would be fried to a crisp before you made enough to quit your job.

This doesn't mean that there are no legit surveys out there you just need to follow some basic rule to find them. The biggest is if they want money from you to join don't do it. If they don't offer cash up front more than likely they are a little shady, remember they are making good money for you opinion you should be to. Lastly be ready to have your spam filter go into over drive until you find the good survey companies they are out there you just have to do the work to find them.

Well since I created this monster I guess I should post something. I am a newbie to the Blog crowd and have noticed over the past couple of weeks the impact Blogers have had with the main stream media. Mostly with the sham that Rather's CBS try to pull on the eve of this election. The thing that strikes a cord with me is the fact that had it not been for Blogs they would of gotten away with it. The part that I like the most is how upset the main stream media is about getting caught by us "common folk". It is great!! Keep up the good work Blogers every where.

For my part, if anyone every reads these ramblings, will to add my thoughts on my favorite sport HOCKEY to the events of the day if I find them note worthy.