Oil ends lower as U.S. drillers add to rig count
2017-11-10 2:43 PM ET (MarketWatch)
Trump wants to open up Alaskan oil.
Will gasoline be down to a dollar per gallon?
Remember that many North Dakota drillers gave up because it was not profitable for them. Then OPEC dropped its production and prices got better for U.S. oil. See https://www.npr.org/2017/05/24/529852301/boom-time-again-for-u-s-oil-industry-thanks-to-opec.
As the above MarketWatch item states, more production lowers prices.
Showing posts with label price. Show all posts
Showing posts with label price. Show all posts
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Wednesday, September 09, 2015
Teetering on the edge of the abyss
I apologize to my dozen readers for not submitting a column for last week. I was still in Internet purgatory and could not give you any further information about my accommodation to our surprises with cordless access. I did have a couple ideas on politics, but I just couldn’t come up with more than 200 words for either of them.
Because you are reading this you know that our provider, Consumer Cellular, has let us have Wi-Fi access again. But even that was iffy. Our access was not turned on until I called around 9:00 on the morning of the first of September. Then for some reason it was blocked again. Another call.
I still have no idea why we were having run-away data in the middle of August. Over a gigabyte in one six-hour period when I wasn’t even knowingly accessing the Web!
I did learn from a search of Apple Community Support that one can close all open apps. My run-away problem could have been a run-away app that kept pinging the web. Anyhow, to close open apps push the home button twice. Miniatures of all of your open apps will appear from left to right. Swipe up on each miniature and the app will be closed. When you click on the app in the home screen, it will open again in the same state as when you closed it.
Don’t worry about closing your phone and message apps. When a call or text message come in, your iPhone will open the necessary app.
I am carefully monitoring my usage both by checking usage with the settings app on my iPhone and with the Consumer Cellular website. Already I have used 826 MB of my 4,096 MB limit, and we are not even five days into the month.
I am not going to be downloading podcasts or updating apps on my dime. I used 135 MB updating three apps and 250 MB getting the latest episodes of four podcasts. Since I download podcasts once a week that would be 1,000 MB a month.
I will definitely be updating these from coffee shops.
I use seven to twenty MB per session accessing accounts and paying bills. I use about twenty MB reading newspapers. These may be doable from home, but I will wait a few days before I resume accessing these from home.
So far today I have accessed the web from an Essentia Health cafeteria before exercising and from Whole Foods Co-op while my wife shopped. I plan to send this from Mt. Royal Market when I’m done.
Let’s see, two coffees a day at two to three dollars each. That would be $120 to $180 a month. That is more than my savings from cutting the cord! Well, I should be getting out of the house more often. And we are not getting all those robocalls on our landline.
Robocalls remind me of diatribe letters that I get every so often. The writer puts on the outside of the envelope in big, oversize, multi-colored capital letters some diatribe about Obama. I don’t even bother reading all the outside message, the letter goes unopened into the recycling box.
Actually, I am apolitical about all of these dire consequence letters, surveys, whatever else some group sends out: Back Obama! Stop the Republicans! Save the whales! All of them go unopened into the recycle box. We get at least six a week.
Back to our regularly scheduled article.
Some glitches cause one to wonder what is going on. I would access my bank account, enter my ID and password, and then get a big message about “System Error”. But it didn’t happen all the time. I think the first time might have coincided with Consumer Cellular turning my account off again on the first day of restoring service. But it also happened yesterday, and today it worked fine.
One app I thought would eat up a lot of data is FaceTime. Our son called my wife’s FaceTime account and they chatted for fifteen minutes or so. The usage on her phone only went up by about 50 MB. I think this might be because FaceTime has some excellent data compression.
Apropos data compression, I hope newspaper sites that play video ads automatically have good data compression. I hope the same for those interesting videos in the New York Times Science section: like two octopuses fighting.
From some of the postings in the Apple Support Community, I did learn that one can increase the data limit with AT&T. I believe it was well beyond the 4 GB we can get from Consumer Cellular. I think also AT&T provides 4G service rather than 3G service. I should look these up as well as LTE. I believe the higher level of service gives better quality and faster speed.
Ah, speed! Sometimes I watch a page come up in a blink of an eye, and sometimes I wonder if the progress bar is even moving. Is it that a site has a large number of users, the site has some other problem, the network has a problem, or my computer has a problem? Or all of the preceding?
Apropos AT&T, we received a card this week offering “$300 in credits when you switch to AT&T”. You have to visit a store, shop at a website, or call an 800 number. There is also a square to scan with a smartphone.
I read the square and found prices per month to buy individual iPhones, but it was unclear how much monthly service would cost and how much data would be available. So much for the free market (buyers have all the information they need).
Also appears in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-09-09
Because you are reading this you know that our provider, Consumer Cellular, has let us have Wi-Fi access again. But even that was iffy. Our access was not turned on until I called around 9:00 on the morning of the first of September. Then for some reason it was blocked again. Another call.
I still have no idea why we were having run-away data in the middle of August. Over a gigabyte in one six-hour period when I wasn’t even knowingly accessing the Web!
I did learn from a search of Apple Community Support that one can close all open apps. My run-away problem could have been a run-away app that kept pinging the web. Anyhow, to close open apps push the home button twice. Miniatures of all of your open apps will appear from left to right. Swipe up on each miniature and the app will be closed. When you click on the app in the home screen, it will open again in the same state as when you closed it.
Don’t worry about closing your phone and message apps. When a call or text message come in, your iPhone will open the necessary app.
I am carefully monitoring my usage both by checking usage with the settings app on my iPhone and with the Consumer Cellular website. Already I have used 826 MB of my 4,096 MB limit, and we are not even five days into the month.
I am not going to be downloading podcasts or updating apps on my dime. I used 135 MB updating three apps and 250 MB getting the latest episodes of four podcasts. Since I download podcasts once a week that would be 1,000 MB a month.
I will definitely be updating these from coffee shops.
I use seven to twenty MB per session accessing accounts and paying bills. I use about twenty MB reading newspapers. These may be doable from home, but I will wait a few days before I resume accessing these from home.
So far today I have accessed the web from an Essentia Health cafeteria before exercising and from Whole Foods Co-op while my wife shopped. I plan to send this from Mt. Royal Market when I’m done.
Let’s see, two coffees a day at two to three dollars each. That would be $120 to $180 a month. That is more than my savings from cutting the cord! Well, I should be getting out of the house more often. And we are not getting all those robocalls on our landline.
Robocalls remind me of diatribe letters that I get every so often. The writer puts on the outside of the envelope in big, oversize, multi-colored capital letters some diatribe about Obama. I don’t even bother reading all the outside message, the letter goes unopened into the recycling box.
Actually, I am apolitical about all of these dire consequence letters, surveys, whatever else some group sends out: Back Obama! Stop the Republicans! Save the whales! All of them go unopened into the recycle box. We get at least six a week.
Back to our regularly scheduled article.
Some glitches cause one to wonder what is going on. I would access my bank account, enter my ID and password, and then get a big message about “System Error”. But it didn’t happen all the time. I think the first time might have coincided with Consumer Cellular turning my account off again on the first day of restoring service. But it also happened yesterday, and today it worked fine.
One app I thought would eat up a lot of data is FaceTime. Our son called my wife’s FaceTime account and they chatted for fifteen minutes or so. The usage on her phone only went up by about 50 MB. I think this might be because FaceTime has some excellent data compression.
Apropos data compression, I hope newspaper sites that play video ads automatically have good data compression. I hope the same for those interesting videos in the New York Times Science section: like two octopuses fighting.
From some of the postings in the Apple Support Community, I did learn that one can increase the data limit with AT&T. I believe it was well beyond the 4 GB we can get from Consumer Cellular. I think also AT&T provides 4G service rather than 3G service. I should look these up as well as LTE. I believe the higher level of service gives better quality and faster speed.
Ah, speed! Sometimes I watch a page come up in a blink of an eye, and sometimes I wonder if the progress bar is even moving. Is it that a site has a large number of users, the site has some other problem, the network has a problem, or my computer has a problem? Or all of the preceding?
Apropos AT&T, we received a card this week offering “$300 in credits when you switch to AT&T”. You have to visit a store, shop at a website, or call an 800 number. There is also a square to scan with a smartphone.
I read the square and found prices per month to buy individual iPhones, but it was unclear how much monthly service would cost and how much data would be available. So much for the free market (buyers have all the information they need).
Also appears in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-09-09
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing
Last week in “The Magic Marketplace can be malevolent” I wrote that the marketplace for labor is not always a benevolent mechanism. This week I would like to consider some cases where companies have ignored value for price and where companies have put value ahead of price.
Management of a large electronic chain decided to fire all their high-paid floor employees and let them reapply at a lower pay level. The company ignored the fact that the high-paid employees had gained considerable experience and were providing exceptional customer service. Unfortunately, many customers lost their favorite go-to employees and found the remaining help unsatisfactory. And this attitude spread rapidly, years before social media. The company rapidly declined and has become a textbook example on how not to treat employees. Remember Circuit City?
Sometime ago I read a letter in a newspaper complaining about firefighters going for groceries with a fire truck. The writer questioned why they didn’t take a smaller vehicle. Did the writer consider the increased response time of a crew returning to the fire station to get the big rig? If the crew returned to the fire station to get the big truck, how much more value would be lost in a burning house?
“If you can read this, thank a teacher!” But too many begrudge teachers the salaries they get, using among other wild-eyed statements “greedy teacher unions”. After he resigned, Nevada Superintendent of Schools James Guthrie said the top tier of teachers should be paid $200,000. This would give teachers a salary commensurate with other skilled professionals. Do those who decry the lack of qualified workers see any connection to their unwillingness to pay sufficient taxes to educate future employees?
Some of those who grouse about teachers’ or others’ pay keep pushing their own pay up. Many CEOs and board members are getting pay far in excess to the value they give to shareholders. They often play games about comparing salaries “with comparable companies”, but it is the board or if the board is hand-picked by the CEO, it is the CEO who determines his or her own salary. Doesn’t sound like the marketplace is determining salaries. Sometimes they get the boot; sometimes they run the company into bankruptcy. Many CEOs groused about a law that strove to let shareholders have a say in executive pay; it was watered down so that the vote was non-binding. See “Time to Make CEO Pay Match Shareholder Performance”, Suzanne McGee, The Fiscal Times, 2015-05-01. She wrote that often the pay of the CEO is inversely related to the performance of the company. Interestingly, a proposal was made by the Securities and Exchange Committee to make corporate top executive pay more transparent to shareholders. It was voted against by the two Republicans on the committee. Could it be that Republicans aren’t business-friendly but CEO friendly?
As an example of the inverse relation of pay of the CEO to the performance of the company consider Walmart, Target, and Costco. The CEO of Costco gets a hefty pay package but it is far less than those of the CEOs of Walmart and Target. The Motley Fool published an interesting comparison on five measures of company strength. I haven’t fully understood it yet, but the Fool’s conclusion is that Costco is a far better long-term investment than either Walmart or Target.
Costco pays its employees about $20/hour compared to a third less for the other two. It has only about four percent of its employees as part-time. On the other hand, Walmart has one-half of its employees as part-time. Part-time is great for students, but it is lousy for people who have to support families.
Speaking of part-time, as a college student, I was getting $1.74 an hour for around 14-16 hours a week at Kroger. I did stocking, cashiering, and bagging. According to PayScale, Kroger pays its cashiers $7.26 to 11.99 an hour. Assuming an inflation rate of three percent, then somebody with equivalent experience should be earning about $10.88. I’ll let you play around with various inflation rates; for example, do these same calculations with the actual inflation rate for each year.
But average inflation doesn’t tell the whole story. Some things are a lot cheaper relatively than in 1958. Somethings are a lot more expensive.
When our daughter was born in 1962, I was a graduate student earning $75 a week. School insurance paid most of the cost. I do remember the room cost was $10/night and the obstetrician cost was about $700 total. At three percent inflation the room cost should be less than $50/night. In 2010, the average cost of a hospital stay was $1,600 to $2,000/night.
We bought our first new car in 1963, a Ford Falcon. Its cost was about $2,200. Assuming the average inflation it would cost over $10,000. You would be lucky to get a two-year old car for that price now. Of course, the cars of today are packed with comfort and safety features that were only dreams in 1963.
The cost of transportation has become a big part of the budget of those with lower incomes. And as we have spread out more, public transit becomes less available and a car has become more of a necessity.
Meaningful discussion about these issues, as it has always been, comes down to point of view. We are right and you are wrong. Too many of us ignore our wrong choices and give too much importance to being in the right place at the right time.
It reminds of Pete Seeger’s tale of two slugs that fell off a shovel. One falls in the gutter and the other in a dead cat. After a few days of eating and eating, the lucky one goes looking for the other. When asked how he became so fat and sleek, the lucky one says, “Brains and personality!”
Many may dispute Mel's brains and personality, but he knows that a bit of pluck and a lot of luck helped.
Management of a large electronic chain decided to fire all their high-paid floor employees and let them reapply at a lower pay level. The company ignored the fact that the high-paid employees had gained considerable experience and were providing exceptional customer service. Unfortunately, many customers lost their favorite go-to employees and found the remaining help unsatisfactory. And this attitude spread rapidly, years before social media. The company rapidly declined and has become a textbook example on how not to treat employees. Remember Circuit City?
Sometime ago I read a letter in a newspaper complaining about firefighters going for groceries with a fire truck. The writer questioned why they didn’t take a smaller vehicle. Did the writer consider the increased response time of a crew returning to the fire station to get the big rig? If the crew returned to the fire station to get the big truck, how much more value would be lost in a burning house?
“If you can read this, thank a teacher!” But too many begrudge teachers the salaries they get, using among other wild-eyed statements “greedy teacher unions”. After he resigned, Nevada Superintendent of Schools James Guthrie said the top tier of teachers should be paid $200,000. This would give teachers a salary commensurate with other skilled professionals. Do those who decry the lack of qualified workers see any connection to their unwillingness to pay sufficient taxes to educate future employees?
Some of those who grouse about teachers’ or others’ pay keep pushing their own pay up. Many CEOs and board members are getting pay far in excess to the value they give to shareholders. They often play games about comparing salaries “with comparable companies”, but it is the board or if the board is hand-picked by the CEO, it is the CEO who determines his or her own salary. Doesn’t sound like the marketplace is determining salaries. Sometimes they get the boot; sometimes they run the company into bankruptcy. Many CEOs groused about a law that strove to let shareholders have a say in executive pay; it was watered down so that the vote was non-binding. See “Time to Make CEO Pay Match Shareholder Performance”, Suzanne McGee, The Fiscal Times, 2015-05-01. She wrote that often the pay of the CEO is inversely related to the performance of the company. Interestingly, a proposal was made by the Securities and Exchange Committee to make corporate top executive pay more transparent to shareholders. It was voted against by the two Republicans on the committee. Could it be that Republicans aren’t business-friendly but CEO friendly?
As an example of the inverse relation of pay of the CEO to the performance of the company consider Walmart, Target, and Costco. The CEO of Costco gets a hefty pay package but it is far less than those of the CEOs of Walmart and Target. The Motley Fool published an interesting comparison on five measures of company strength. I haven’t fully understood it yet, but the Fool’s conclusion is that Costco is a far better long-term investment than either Walmart or Target.
Costco pays its employees about $20/hour compared to a third less for the other two. It has only about four percent of its employees as part-time. On the other hand, Walmart has one-half of its employees as part-time. Part-time is great for students, but it is lousy for people who have to support families.
Speaking of part-time, as a college student, I was getting $1.74 an hour for around 14-16 hours a week at Kroger. I did stocking, cashiering, and bagging. According to PayScale, Kroger pays its cashiers $7.26 to 11.99 an hour. Assuming an inflation rate of three percent, then somebody with equivalent experience should be earning about $10.88. I’ll let you play around with various inflation rates; for example, do these same calculations with the actual inflation rate for each year.
But average inflation doesn’t tell the whole story. Some things are a lot cheaper relatively than in 1958. Somethings are a lot more expensive.
When our daughter was born in 1962, I was a graduate student earning $75 a week. School insurance paid most of the cost. I do remember the room cost was $10/night and the obstetrician cost was about $700 total. At three percent inflation the room cost should be less than $50/night. In 2010, the average cost of a hospital stay was $1,600 to $2,000/night.
We bought our first new car in 1963, a Ford Falcon. Its cost was about $2,200. Assuming the average inflation it would cost over $10,000. You would be lucky to get a two-year old car for that price now. Of course, the cars of today are packed with comfort and safety features that were only dreams in 1963.
The cost of transportation has become a big part of the budget of those with lower incomes. And as we have spread out more, public transit becomes less available and a car has become more of a necessity.
Meaningful discussion about these issues, as it has always been, comes down to point of view. We are right and you are wrong. Too many of us ignore our wrong choices and give too much importance to being in the right place at the right time.
It reminds of Pete Seeger’s tale of two slugs that fell off a shovel. One falls in the gutter and the other in a dead cat. After a few days of eating and eating, the lucky one goes looking for the other. When asked how he became so fat and sleek, the lucky one says, “Brains and personality!”
Many may dispute Mel's brains and personality, but he knows that a bit of pluck and a lot of luck helped.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Free market and education
From an undated note on my desk:
Inspired by a letter in the Wall Street Journal (1983-05-05) extolling free enterprise in education.
The free market is not an ideology in itself; it is a realization of a philosophy of diversity of ideas.
The trouble with our free enterprise is that goods and services are judged solely on how much somebody with money (or other barter) is willing to pay.
Inspired by a letter in the Wall Street Journal (1983-05-05) extolling free enterprise in education.
The free market is not an ideology in itself; it is a realization of a philosophy of diversity of ideas.
The trouble with our free enterprise is that goods and services are judged solely on how much somebody with money (or other barter) is willing to pay.
Friday, March 07, 2014
Free market in telecommunications?
A free market does not exist in telecommnications.
Consider that a free market
– Has many buyers and sellers
– Both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market
– Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision
– All costs are covered in the transaction, that is, there are no externalities
Let’s start with the last because it has some relevance to current politics. What are the externalities of telecommunications? There are the overhead lines, the underground cables, and the radio waves zipping through our bodies. Most of us don’t seem to be concerned with the last; we’ve had radio, TV, and radar signals going through us for decades. The overhead lines are not very aesthetic but we put up with them. Similarly, the underground cables don’t seem to be a problem until one has to be dug up.
The externality that is raising the most discussion is the use of copper wires. However, this need is being reduced by the use of fiber optics and wireless communications.
The telecommunications market certainly has more sellers than it used to, some in competition with one another for the buyers’ business. Still, given that the buyers’ choices in any given area are limited to less than a dozen, the market is more of an oligopoly than a free market.
A few of us could go off all the nets and save a bundle of money. But most of us depend on telecommunications for communicating with friends, family, and emergency assistance. Few businesses would succeed without telephones and Internet access. They need it for marketing, sales, and customer support.
All the information you need to make a buy decision? Hah! You really have to dig around to get a detailed quote on what a particular package of services will really cost you. Ads are all over about Internet service for $19.95 for five years guaranteed. But do you know how much you’ll pay for installation, service fees, and taxes? Do you know how fast the service will be? Do you know how much faster service will cost? Even if you sign up for service, the customer service department can’t tell you how much service fees and taxes will be. Gosh, if the billing computers have this information, why don’t the customer service computers have this information?
About the only company that is upfront about the costs of services is Consumer Cellular. Its web page has the cost of the basic service, the cost of each upgrade, and you can do it all online. Like all others, they don’t have a calculator for service fee and taxes.
As with much of my writing, this examination was started by my own recent experience. I’ve wanted to have faster Internet speeds for some time, I wanted caller ID on our home phone because probably three-quarters of our incoming calls are junk calls, and I wanted better Internet access at our cabin. I thought our best arrangement would be to drop CenturyLink for phone and Internet at home, get a Home Base phone from Consumer Cellular, and get a portable modem from AT&T.
Well, the AT&T modem didn’t deliver much speed at our house and so I returned it. I use my Consumer Cellular iPhone to periodically check the AT&T speed. That speed has improved but is not consistent; sometimes it is way better than the CenturyLink DSL speed, sometimes it is worse.
What if I upgrade my DSL speed? How much does it cost? Well, the “free market” CenturyLink won’t tell me on their website. I am supposed to call for that info. Once upon a time in the days when we had Qwest, the website offered three different speeds with prices. When we got tired of 256kbps, we made a few clicks and we had faster speed in a day or two.
Finding the prices elsewhere is a bit of a chore. Over half the hits are for CenturyLink web pages or for CenturyLink reseller pages. I think on the second search page I found a site that gave detailed pricing (without taxes and fees, of course). It would cost us “$5.00” more to go from a nominal 7Mbps to 12, “$15.00” to 20, and “$25.00” to 40. My wife balked at even the upgrade to 12Mpbs because she thought things were fine.
As for the cost of getting caller ID, it is the same story. One cannot get just caller ID, but has to get a package of many unneeded features. Could I find the cost? Of course not! It’s a “free market” and companies are free to do as they please.
As I was reviewing the many pages that I had opened in my quest, I found one with a long list of entries complaining about CenturyLink service. Of course, those who are satisfied don’t post on such sites, but the number of instances of overbilling, not sending any statement, having a collection agency demand payment, of undelivered service, of repeated calls for non-functioning or poorly function service, and on and on. Do I even want to make even a small change in my service?
My final set of changes for telecommunications was to have my Consumer Cellular iPhone become a hotspot (no charge, done in about 15 minutes) and upgrade to the max of 2GB of traffic. That should allow us to use our iPads at the cabin to read the newspapers. Or even write this column at our cabin and send it before the deadline. When it gets warm enough for my wife to want to go there again.
Consider that a free market
– Has many buyers and sellers
– Both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market
– Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision
– All costs are covered in the transaction, that is, there are no externalities
Let’s start with the last because it has some relevance to current politics. What are the externalities of telecommunications? There are the overhead lines, the underground cables, and the radio waves zipping through our bodies. Most of us don’t seem to be concerned with the last; we’ve had radio, TV, and radar signals going through us for decades. The overhead lines are not very aesthetic but we put up with them. Similarly, the underground cables don’t seem to be a problem until one has to be dug up.
The externality that is raising the most discussion is the use of copper wires. However, this need is being reduced by the use of fiber optics and wireless communications.
The telecommunications market certainly has more sellers than it used to, some in competition with one another for the buyers’ business. Still, given that the buyers’ choices in any given area are limited to less than a dozen, the market is more of an oligopoly than a free market.
A few of us could go off all the nets and save a bundle of money. But most of us depend on telecommunications for communicating with friends, family, and emergency assistance. Few businesses would succeed without telephones and Internet access. They need it for marketing, sales, and customer support.
All the information you need to make a buy decision? Hah! You really have to dig around to get a detailed quote on what a particular package of services will really cost you. Ads are all over about Internet service for $19.95 for five years guaranteed. But do you know how much you’ll pay for installation, service fees, and taxes? Do you know how fast the service will be? Do you know how much faster service will cost? Even if you sign up for service, the customer service department can’t tell you how much service fees and taxes will be. Gosh, if the billing computers have this information, why don’t the customer service computers have this information?
About the only company that is upfront about the costs of services is Consumer Cellular. Its web page has the cost of the basic service, the cost of each upgrade, and you can do it all online. Like all others, they don’t have a calculator for service fee and taxes.
As with much of my writing, this examination was started by my own recent experience. I’ve wanted to have faster Internet speeds for some time, I wanted caller ID on our home phone because probably three-quarters of our incoming calls are junk calls, and I wanted better Internet access at our cabin. I thought our best arrangement would be to drop CenturyLink for phone and Internet at home, get a Home Base phone from Consumer Cellular, and get a portable modem from AT&T.
Well, the AT&T modem didn’t deliver much speed at our house and so I returned it. I use my Consumer Cellular iPhone to periodically check the AT&T speed. That speed has improved but is not consistent; sometimes it is way better than the CenturyLink DSL speed, sometimes it is worse.
What if I upgrade my DSL speed? How much does it cost? Well, the “free market” CenturyLink won’t tell me on their website. I am supposed to call for that info. Once upon a time in the days when we had Qwest, the website offered three different speeds with prices. When we got tired of 256kbps, we made a few clicks and we had faster speed in a day or two.
Finding the prices elsewhere is a bit of a chore. Over half the hits are for CenturyLink web pages or for CenturyLink reseller pages. I think on the second search page I found a site that gave detailed pricing (without taxes and fees, of course). It would cost us “$5.00” more to go from a nominal 7Mbps to 12, “$15.00” to 20, and “$25.00” to 40. My wife balked at even the upgrade to 12Mpbs because she thought things were fine.
As for the cost of getting caller ID, it is the same story. One cannot get just caller ID, but has to get a package of many unneeded features. Could I find the cost? Of course not! It’s a “free market” and companies are free to do as they please.
As I was reviewing the many pages that I had opened in my quest, I found one with a long list of entries complaining about CenturyLink service. Of course, those who are satisfied don’t post on such sites, but the number of instances of overbilling, not sending any statement, having a collection agency demand payment, of undelivered service, of repeated calls for non-functioning or poorly function service, and on and on. Do I even want to make even a small change in my service?
My final set of changes for telecommunications was to have my Consumer Cellular iPhone become a hotspot (no charge, done in about 15 minutes) and upgrade to the max of 2GB of traffic. That should allow us to use our iPads at the cabin to read the newspapers. Or even write this column at our cabin and send it before the deadline. When it gets warm enough for my wife to want to go there again.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Shale Oil - Bad then, good now?
When I read "U.S. Energy Independence Could Be Here Before We Know It", Tim Sprinkle, The Exchange, Yahoo! Finance, 2013-03-20, I thought of Jimmy Carter being slammed for his efforts to promote shale oil. I did a search on "Jimmy Carter" and "shale oil" and found "The Great Shale Oil Swindle, What Happens When the Boom Goes Bust", Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, 2013-03-18.
His points are that companies are overstating the amount of oil and gas available, shale and oil production drops quickly, the "glut" of oil is depressing prices, and global oil demand may be dropping. Adam Smith warned of capitalists deceiving the public; often they deceive themselves!
His sources include some credible newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London!!
Jimmy Carter was lambasted for looking at shale oil and now Republicans think we have energy dependence because of shale oil.
"Well, the truth is, no one in America did more for oil shale development and other alternative fuels development than Jimmy Carter and his Synfuels initiaitives. If you want some of the history, and why Carter's investment and tax incentive strategy failed, read here. Basically, Reagan gutted energy research Carter started, including how to economically convert shale into oil. When the Iranian crisis ended and Saudis flooded the market with cheap oil, Exxon shut down its $5 billion Colony Oil Shale project in western Colorado, and the industry lost interest in oil shale. "
- Oil Shale and the ANWR: Stretching the truth, Charlie Quimby, "Across the Great Divide", 2008-07.
How often does politics boil down to "If we think of it, it is a good idea; if you think of it, it is a bad idea."
His points are that companies are overstating the amount of oil and gas available, shale and oil production drops quickly, the "glut" of oil is depressing prices, and global oil demand may be dropping. Adam Smith warned of capitalists deceiving the public; often they deceive themselves!
His sources include some credible newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London!!
Jimmy Carter was lambasted for looking at shale oil and now Republicans think we have energy dependence because of shale oil.
"Well, the truth is, no one in America did more for oil shale development and other alternative fuels development than Jimmy Carter and his Synfuels initiaitives. If you want some of the history, and why Carter's investment and tax incentive strategy failed, read here. Basically, Reagan gutted energy research Carter started, including how to economically convert shale into oil. When the Iranian crisis ended and Saudis flooded the market with cheap oil, Exxon shut down its $5 billion Colony Oil Shale project in western Colorado, and the industry lost interest in oil shale. "
- Oil Shale and the ANWR: Stretching the truth, Charlie Quimby, "Across the Great Divide", 2008-07.
How often does politics boil down to "If we think of it, it is a good idea; if you think of it, it is a bad idea."
Saturday, April 14, 2012
The price of gas and other things, a perspective
Many are complaining about the cost of gasoline as the price approaches $4/gallon. Consider that about fifty years ago gas was often 25 cents/gallon. The price is now about 16 times as much. But consider also the use of those gallons of gas. Fifty years ago many cars got 10-15 miles per gallon; now many cars get 30 or more miles per gallon. In other words we are getting an effective $2/gallon or better of travel compared to fifty years ago. So, as far as our use of gasoline, the price could be considered only eight times as much.
Consider postage. Fifty years ago the price of a first class stamp was three cents. Now it is 47 cents (I don't know exactly because I buy forever stamps). Hm! That's about 16 times as much, about the same as the increase in the price of gasoline. But postage is now a better deal. Fifty years ago a first class letter would take five days or more to go across country. Now it can go coast to coast in three days and even four or less to Hawaii. To get that kind of service fifty years ago, you had to buy an airmail stamp at eight cents. So, in one sense, postage has gone up about six times as much as fifty years ago. Pretty low inflation considering it is a government service continuously hobbled by Congress.
Consider newspapers. Fifty years ago the price of a daily paper was five cents. Now it is one dollar, twenty times as much. And they are a lot smaller. And in most cities there is only one newspaper rather than two or three. Worse, the last newsstand increase was from 75 cents to one dollar. A 33-1/3 percent increase, and I never saw a single complaint in letters to the editor. A newspaper is produced by a "free market" company.
The list of items whose prices have "skyrocketed" goes on and on. I remember sixty years ago going to the movie (sometimes a double feature with a cartoon, a short, and the news) for ten cents for the ticket and ten cents for a box of popcorn. I wouldn't buy a candy bar at the theater because they cost six cents compared to five cents at the drug store next door. Ice cream cones were five cents a scoop. Sundaes and milk shakes were 25 cents. "Pepsi-Cola hits the spot / Twelve full ounces, that's a lot / Twice as much for a nickel, too / Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you!"
Consider postage. Fifty years ago the price of a first class stamp was three cents. Now it is 47 cents (I don't know exactly because I buy forever stamps). Hm! That's about 16 times as much, about the same as the increase in the price of gasoline. But postage is now a better deal. Fifty years ago a first class letter would take five days or more to go across country. Now it can go coast to coast in three days and even four or less to Hawaii. To get that kind of service fifty years ago, you had to buy an airmail stamp at eight cents. So, in one sense, postage has gone up about six times as much as fifty years ago. Pretty low inflation considering it is a government service continuously hobbled by Congress.
Consider newspapers. Fifty years ago the price of a daily paper was five cents. Now it is one dollar, twenty times as much. And they are a lot smaller. And in most cities there is only one newspaper rather than two or three. Worse, the last newsstand increase was from 75 cents to one dollar. A 33-1/3 percent increase, and I never saw a single complaint in letters to the editor. A newspaper is produced by a "free market" company.
The list of items whose prices have "skyrocketed" goes on and on. I remember sixty years ago going to the movie (sometimes a double feature with a cartoon, a short, and the news) for ten cents for the ticket and ten cents for a box of popcorn. I wouldn't buy a candy bar at the theater because they cost six cents compared to five cents at the drug store next door. Ice cream cones were five cents a scoop. Sundaes and milk shakes were 25 cents. "Pepsi-Cola hits the spot / Twelve full ounces, that's a lot / Twice as much for a nickel, too / Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you!"
Saturday, April 19, 2008
How to reduce the price of gas
The quickest way to reduce the price of gasoline is to stop driving. Unfortunately, too many people would rather drive than take the bus. The next quickest way is to price gas in liters. Just think, the current $3.459/gal. in Duluth could become $0.909/liter.
This has the added benefit of making comparison with other countries easier. One would only have to convert euros or yen or whatever to dollars instead of first converting liters to gallons and then currency to dollars.
A third benefit, probably short-lived, is that gas would once again be below $1.00 per unit.
This has the added benefit of making comparison with other countries easier. One would only have to convert euros or yen or whatever to dollars instead of first converting liters to gallons and then currency to dollars.
A third benefit, probably short-lived, is that gas would once again be below $1.00 per unit.
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