Natural Selection! People are Idiots! TV Shows!

Natural Selection! People are Idiots! TV Shows!

Okay, the election is over and we can move on to more mundane topics. Like the economy. You may or may not have read my last blog on the cost of energy, but have you noticed that gas is at a price not seen for about 3 years. This is a good thing!

Yesterday in a town not far from where I live, a 17 year old girl was entering her high school to have a 14 year old boy, walked up behind her and slit her throat. The latest is that the young lady is in serious condition and the boy is in protective custody. Now this young man has had troubles in the past, it was suggested that he be given counseling and be treated for various psychological ailments, but in the infinite wisdom of the state; he was not treated because it would have been too traumatic. So now we have a young woman, who has been forever scarred both physically and mentally. Chances are, if this young man had been born 100 years ago, he would not have survived child birth. Why???
How many times have we heard that this person or that person, had they been intercepted by law enforcement, or had the judiciary not provided leniency, this next heinous crime would have not been committed? Natural Selection???? We demand it in nature. The World Wildlife Fund demands it of all countries. If a fawn is abandoned by its mother, it can receive no help, it must die. You cannot have a double standard and say that you are one political persuasion or another. If the same applies to the fawn, the same should apply to the throat slitter.

Cost of energy. It is paramount that we maintain our self restrictive purchases of fuel. Demand has to remain low. We cannot continue to line the wallets of OPEC and Big Oil. Our economy will grow on lower energy costs. Please refer to my earlier blog. Can’t figure it out, get a calculator. Geesh!

We are victims of our own device. We need instant gratification. It has to happen now. We need the new plasma TV, our neighbor has the better car, house, spouse, why don’t we???. We have become less self sufficient and more interdependent. We have allowed ourselves to be lulled into the dream of being able to have anything we can, through the most convenient mathematical equation we can afford. Are we idiots???

Television!?! I’ve been a producer primarily in the late ‘80’s and recently. On cable TV content makes me want to puke. I am so tired of watching the same program over and over again. I turn on any cable network channel and can watch the same show at 8 and 10, and then again on the next day and probably the next and an encore showing on Saturday and Sunday. Certain producers get so far up the ass of network big wigs that they are the only ones who get their programs viewed. The very thing that these network big wigs bitch about in politics, they are committing within their organizations. They come up with a couple of good anchor shows and hope the rest of the crap will carry the audience. CNN is by far the worst network newscast available, but they have the highest ratings, according to their stats. Larry King and Lou Dobbs are the ruling shows on CNN, everything else is crap. And CNN gets the carryover audience. It’s not only network news, but virtually every other cable network out there. TV has become stagnant. Much like our economy, TV execs have become accustomed to the norm, their norm. TV has to be cutting edge, it has to be entertaining, it has to be more than re-runs. Take a chance on new producers. It doesn’t cost as much as they network execs says that it does. If the show bombs, okay, but don’t stop. We are tired of watching the same crap over and over again. I have a piece with a network that was supposed to air in April, but it is still on hold. I have three pilots in the can, but who is interested? If you could keep on showing the same piece on Will Rogers and maintained a .05 rating and selling advertising on that viewership, does it make good economic sense? Or does showing a new pilot that may pull in a .10, and result in possibly bring in more revenue make sense? Again, Natural Selection. It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow!

People need to get real. What affects you on a day to day basis? What are you responsible for? What are you willing to tolerate? Does it make sense to put up with crap? Are you going to be apathetic, or are you going to be proactive? What has your community done for you!?! Or should it be, what have you done for your community?

What Cheaper Crude Means For Us!

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) has announced that it is slashing production of crude by 1.5 million barrels per day, beginning in November, in an effort to prop up a declining market. Crude is down over 50% from an all time high of over $147.00 per barrel in July of this year. A crude oil barrel is 42 U.S. Gallons. The greed of OPEC and Big Oil is evident in this latest move.

But what does lower crude prices mean for you? It means that in this declining economy your dollar at the pump goes further. It means maybe buying a chuck roast instead of hamburger. It means more money flowing into the economy. I've been saying for over 2 years now that the high oil prices would have a devastating effect on the economy worldwide and look what has happened! I blame the greed of OPEC, Big Oil and the failure of government worldwide to stem the tide of this greed as the key to our economic calamity.

Let's do the math. If you, average American, commute to work and you spent $40.00 (assuming a gas price of $4.00/gallon), 3 days per week for fuel, your weekly expenditure is $120.00. Multiply this by 52, which is $6240.00 per year. Now at the current market price of crude gas should be around $2.00 per gallon, so in the same period of time, at the lower price you spend half, $3,120. Now, let's assume that 50 million drivers in the U.S. see this savings. That's $156 Billion per year. Wow! What kind of economic stimulus is that! Now let's take it a step further, assuming that remaining 150 million Americans (not counting 100 million of the population to be conservative) who travel, drive and commute, experience a savings of 1/3 this amount $1040.00, you again have $156 Billion, times 2 equals $312 Billion. Almost half of the recent Emergency Bailout. Now take into account, all forms of transportation, reduction of cost of goods sold and generation of electricity is another savings of nearly $700 Billion per year, for a total of $1.012 Trillion annually. Again, Wow! That's $300 Billion more than the Bailout. Oh, and by the way, the average amount owed when a home mortgage goes into default is about $3,100.00.
DO THE MATH!

What we can do, is continue to conserve, make one trip count for many, put on an extra sweater and turn down your thermostat, get with friends and neighbors and carpool or rideshare for everything from going to work to going to the grocery. We can and must keep energy prices down. This is the one key thing we, as consumers, can do on our own to help bring back our economy.

One quick example, there is a fellow I know, who owns a local company that supports oil and gas activity. He employs 43 people not including himself. He has 30 vehicles from big trucks down to pickups, and other equipment that either runs on gas or diesel. In July his average daily fuel bill was nearly $4,000. DAILY! Now it's nearly half that. Which is a savings of nearly 3/4 of a million dollars per year. One small company, think of the new jobs, new investment in equipment and it goes on and on. How has high fuel prices affected you?