Obscene Profits, but Who is Reaping the Most?

The recent news reports tell us that Exxon made 40 billion dollars profit on 404 billion dollars in sales, roughly 10% net profit. But who was the big winner in this windfall? If you said the Saudis or the Iraqis or Argentina, think again. You're actually related to the biggest winner. He's your Uncle Sam.

Americans buy 400 million gallons of gasoline a day. Today, U.S. consumers pay an average of 45.9 cents per gallon in gasoline taxes. The federal gasoline excise tax is 18.4 cents per gallon while the average state and local tax is 27.5 cents. Do the math. 400 million gallons of gas taxed at 45.9 cents a gallon, that's $183,600,000.00 a day in gasoline sales tax. In a year that's over 67 billion dollars. And that's just the beginning. Add in oil company income taxes, property taxes, duties, excise taxes and you begin to see the picture.

Oil companies also pay taxes to governments for the right to extract oil from public lands and waters. For example, the federal government has collected a total of $48.8 billion in royalty payments from oil companies in exchange for their ability to explore and drill in the U.S. outer continental shelf. Oil companies also pay severance taxes to state governments for the right to drill on state lands.

During the time that Exxon made 40 billion dollars in  profits, the government in one entity or another made over 100 billion dollars from us at the pump.

Who is the obscene profiteer?

Now we have the typical knee jerk reaction from our elected officials when they hear of record profits in the oil industry and outrageous prices at the pumps. "Let's tax them."

Who do they really think is paying this tax?

They know who is paying it, you and me. That's why in an effort to pull the wool over our eyes and make it appear that they feel our pain and are doing something about it. The politicians have come up with another brilliant plan to save us all.

THE FEDERAL GAS TAX HOLIDAY!!! Yippee!!!

Sorry, if you're looking forward to the gas tax holiday for relief at the pump, read the fine print. The tax they are talking about is only a fraction of the actual taxes you pay for a gallon of gas. It amounts to .18 cents a gallon.

The federal government figures that most Americans drive an average of 41 miles per day: about a gallon and a half of gas consumption. The federal tax on that gallon and a half is a whopping twenty seven cents.

WOW, twenty seven cents, what can I buy with that? I can hardly wait to go shopping.

For most Americans the entire savings for this election year brainstorm will come in at under $30.00. The irony is you can't even get a fill up for that. This whole scheme stinks of a style of politics wherein the appearance of action and concern is more important than real leadership and viable solutions.

While this gas tax giveaway plan has been endorsed by both John McCain and Hillary Clinton the only sound bite that rings true is the comment by Barack Obama: "This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer," Obama said. "It's an idea designed to get them through an election."

The tax holiday is less about supporting the people and more about manipulating them. It is a political deception,

masquerading as election-year concern for the common man.

In last Sunday's Parade magazine there was an interview with Willie Nelson. I like Willie as much as the next guy, but I have to wonder if he has really thought the biodiesel thing through.

With the cost of bread at over $4.00 a loaf, rice in short supply and people around the world starting to rise up and riot over short supplies and skyrocketing prices of basic food items, it seems to me that it is time to stop growing crops designed to be burned.

Having grown up on a farm, I know that Willie is out of touch when he says, "Biodiesel fuel made from vegetable oils, animal fats or recycled cooking grease is something they can grow and sell".

Personally, I doubt that there are very many farmers who get up before dawn and go out to work in thier fields thinking, "Oh boy, I'm growing biodiesel". Farmers are farmers because they love thier crops. They love filling people's stomachs, not thier gas tanks.

I have a good friend who is in the seedling business. He is a second generation supplier of seedlings to farmers across the country. He has a very successful business that keeps him busy year round, yet every year he plants a hundred acres of watermelons. The watermelon business is a gamble for him. Some years he does ok, but other years, due to weather conditions or market price, he runs the business at a loss. I asked him why he bothered to grow watermelons when his seedling business was such a success and he didn't need whatever little profit he made from the watermelons even in a good year. He said, "Because I love watermelons". That is the mind of a farmer. Farmers are not farmers because they can not do anything else, they are farmers because they love what they do.



Biodiesel is not what farmers do. It is what corporations do. The biodiesel crop suppliers are not the family owned farms scattered across the America. They are the conglomerates in Malaysia and other parts of the world that are burning down the rainforests to make room to plant millions of acres of palm trees to be converted into biodiesel. They are the corporations trying to do what the sugar cane farmers were prevented from doing in south Florida. They want to reopen the everglades to farming, not to grow food, but to grow biodiesel crops, destroying the natural habitat in the process.

Indonesia has become the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both based in the Netherlands. How did this happen? Simple, its' because they are burning thier rainforest and replacing it with palm trees to supply Europe with its' increasing demand for palm oil. Increasing that is until just recently. The European nations have begun to rethink the whole biodiesel fiasco and are waking up to the realization the they rushed into this new technology without having done adequate research. The biodiesel industry in southeast Asia was funded by billions of dollars in national subsidies. The Netherlands quickly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in 1.7 million tons in 2006, nearly double the previous year. Now they are rethinking the value of thier plan. It is not sound environmental policy to try to create a slightly cleaner fuel in one part of the world at the cost of sacrificing the environment in another. While the billions of dollars in European subsidies appear to have reduced carbon emissions in European countries by importing biofuels, this has been achieved by exporting them and increasing thier impact many times over by the permanent destruction of rainforest and peatland in southeast Asia



In case you were wondering, I support true renewable alternative energy sources, but I am not a fan of biodiesel.

I do however remain a fan of Willie Nelson.

Exterior frame walls 24" on center or 16" on center?

The knee jerk reaction to stud spacing on exterior walls is to say that if 24" on center is good, 16" on center is better. Actually this is a case where less is more. Last year devastating tornadoes ripped through central Florida leaving twisted and torn apart homes in their wake. I visited this area a few days later so I could see for myself why some homes were damaged, but intact, while others next door were completely destroyed. What I saw was no surprise. The frame homes built with exterior wall studs spaced 24" on center faired much better, on the whole than those constructed with studs 16" on center. The photo above demonstrates why. With studs spaced 24" on center the hurricane tie downs, (the metal straps connecting wood components,) are able to make a direct connection from the truss to the stud placed directly beneath the truss. From there the bottom of the stud connects to the foundation, making a continuous vertical uplift bond. With the studs spaced 16" on center this connection is not possible. The studs do not fall in line with the trusses which are placed 24" on center. The result is that smaller metal connectors are used, such as the one shown in the photo. These tie downs only connect the truss to the top plate. This is where the failure occurred in most of the sites I visited. Instead of a straight vertical uplift bond, the offset between truss and wall stud meant that the uplift had to be transferred through a horizontal top plate. In addition the truss was anchored only to the top plate and this was done through a smaller strap than could be used if the walls had been constructed using proper 24" spacing. I have heard of home buyers telling their builders they liked the home but wanted to upgrade to 16" on center wall studs for additional strength. This is not an upgrade, it is a down grade. For maximum durability frame built homes should space exterior wall studs at 24" on center allowing for a vertical uplift bond from floor to ceiling with metal connections securing each stud to each truss.

IS ORGANIC FOOD BETTER FOR THE EVIRONMENT?



The purpose of organic farming is to cut back on the amount of pestcides and chemicals that are released into the soil and ground water. Regular farming uses various artificial compounds to increase the typical yeild per acre. But what is the real end result of both methods of farming?



Organic farming is only about half as efficient as conventional farming methods. It requires far more land to produce the same amount of food on an organic farm. Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues estimates that modern high-yield farming has saved 15 million square miles of wildlife habitat, and that if the world switched to organic farming, we'd need to cut down 10 million square miles of forest. Less-productive farming could also lead to even less food for the world's undernourished. There is also debate about the taste difference between organic and conventionally farmed produce. Several blind taste studies have failed to find any difference if all other things were equal. In reality the best tasting produce is the freshest. There is nothing that destroys flavor and nutritional value more than shipping produce from hundreds or thousands of miles away and then letting it set on a shelf in the grocier store for weeks. I have often told people, I have never had a tomato as good as the ones I had as a child, but it has nothing to do with whether it was organic or not. It was because I grew up on a farm and ate the tomatoes fresh off the vine. Something to think about when choosing between organic or conventional at the super market is, where did the product come from, and how fresh is it. After all, are we really cutting down on polutants if we grow organic and the load it on a deseil truck and send it across the country?