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Gas & Oil Prices Too High ? Keystone Pipeline XL Will Make it worse !

After listening to the debate on the Keystone Pipeline construction and hearing about all those jobs it would create, I thought there must be something wrong with it as it sounded to good for a President of the United States to reject in the middle of a weak economy and high energy prices. So I began to find out just what reasons could be behind what seems to be a straight forward … cut and dry issue. After all, it did seem odd that a company official would go out of his way to say that “if the U.S. does not want the oil, he would be happy to sell it to the Chinese !” Because I would think that if he could do that, he would and there would be no issue here for building a pipeline that is very expensive to build. They don’t create jobs from the goodness of their hearts, they do it to make money. But at who’s expense ?

I did not have to search long, as the answer was immediate as my first search to Wikipedia.com to see just where this pipeline was to be constructed.

Before telling you what I seen and please wait till I explain a few things before you go have a looksy for yourself.

As of Sometime on March 13, 2012 I have a quote for oil prices and are as follows:

WTI ( West Texas Intermediate ) US Traded Oil, at $ 106.88

Brent ( Brent North Sea ) Europe Traded Oil, at $ 125.34

Now you can see if you owned oil in the nations mid-section, you might want to sell it overseas for a additional $20 per barrel. the oil itself is extracted from tar sands in such remote places in Canada that it is hard to get it anywhere and that is why China has not contracted for it yet.

This Keystone Pipeline has been built already. What they now want to do is expand it.

Phase one was completed in June 2010 and runs from Hardisty, Alberta Canada to Steel City Nebraska and to Wood River Illinois where the refineries are. It has a flow capacity of 590,000 barrels of oil per day.

Phase 2 was completed in Feb 2011 and runs from Steel City Nebraska to Cushing, Oklahoma.

Now the big argument as of late is the Phase 3 XL & Phase 4 XL extensions.

Phase 3 proposal is to start at the Cushing, OK area and proceed to Port Arbor & Huston Texas.

Does that make sense to anyone ? Take oil from where to is hard to get at and take it to where it is most abundant ?

No it absolutely does not ! And the only reason for taking it there is to sell to the Chinese or anyone willing to pay more for it.

What good does it do the U.S. to open more drilling oil fields if the oil is shipped overseas ?

What about Phase 4 XL

To help with the volume problem that the Canadian Oil Sands Company has getting the oil out of their country, they want to build a extra line, west of the original line that ends up in Cushing OK again.

As far as jobs created if constructed:

Good paying construction jobs that will last but a few years at most & a few jobs to maintain the system once complete.

Jobs lost if constructed:

Well, it hard to calculate just how many jobs in trucking and railroad would be lost as that is how they currently move the stuff around but I would venture out on a limb and say probably two to every one that would have been created.

It would create a very nice looking bottom line for those invested in the oil sands of Canada ! They only needed $40 a barrel to be profitable. If completed, they should be able to get near the Brent price for it and the US shortfall should push prices here to that level as well.

OK, here is the wiki link

You can see if this happens, it will raise the price of oil in the United States and Canada.

Want to have a impact on prices, promote these ideas:

Oil Company’s should not be allowed to bid on their own future oil contracts. There is no market auction in the world that I know of where the Owner is allowed to bid on their own items up for auction.

Investment Banks ( largest oil players in world) that own oil commodities and oil tanker company’s, should not be able to give advise on the subject to clients without “disclosing how much oil the bank is holding outside of market inventories“. This in itself would change everything.

When the oil rush is on, (created by a scare) the investment banks who buy “spot oil” and stuff it into oil tankers and leave it off shore where it is subject to pirates, takes that inventory off the market and creates a shortage where they have been advising the average investor to buy and then the bank sells you that cheap spot oil in the futures market for a 20 to 30 percent premium.

The condition is called con-tango and in our modern case it is created by the banks. Problem is, there is no stopping it except a total collapse of the system. i.e. the $100 a barrel drop when the housing market imploded. Oil was trading at $ 150 per barrel and there was no shortage of production as it relates to consumption. Stockpiles were full.

Since it has re-started, I can see nothing to stop $200 a barrel oil this year unless the world takes action to regulate how it is traded and who may bid. That would mean it is not going to happen until the market collapses.

I still have visions of MAD MAX movie in my head with Master Blaster… You Want heat, Be nice to Master Blaster

In any case, this is not a free market price. There is no shortage of oil or oil production. Just those who profit from those who speculate. The end consumer looses no matter what.

If you are one who thinks opening up more fields for oil drilling would help, ask yourself now how the price can go so high when there is no shortage and also ask yourself the following:

Why the oil fields we opened for drilling in the past dozen years are not being drilled in any meaningful way. Just enough to keep from loosing contracts (use it or loose it). It might help if no one company could get a exclusive on a oil field and especial offshore fields. Then many company’s would have a opportunity to drill if others were not extracting enough. That is a free market.

Oil company’s never miss a high price opportunity to force the public to force the government to open up for more drilling fields that they lock-up contracts for and do little to nothing with them. Why would they want to produce more, it would flood the market and the price would go down. Self defeating. They only want to make sure no others can drill and extract that oil and move prices lower.

Augmented Reality Coming To A Device Near You !

First, for those of you who do not know what Augmented Reality is we will define others first.

Reality is the world as you see it (o.k. no brain-er)

It should not be confused with Virtual Reality as this is a reality that simply does not exist at all. It is completely a rendered reality.

Augmented Reality is the real world augmented with some simultaneous virtual reality items.

So what can this do for us?

Rather than speak like a geek and tell you of things you may not yet comprehend, lets just look at what is coming down the pike real soon as in within the next year.

Google, with the aid of it’s Android operating system, is rumored to be releasing an AR Goggle. this will most likely have compass/giro/GPS to have an idea of where it is and how it is positioned so that it can accurately display data.

What can be done with a pair of 3D Goggles with a camera is allow you to look at the real world and, using say Google Maps or other Google apps on your phone, see that real world with additional information about what you are looking at. Building addresses,names or a peek inside or markers for particular restaurants etc. It could give you live GPS info while you were hiking and show you the way through the woods while hiking.

You might not go to the dress shop, just use their smartphone app, try-on all the clothes in their stock and see what you will look like in them. Yes, a image of you overlay with the clothes you are virtually trying-on ! And do this while you are waiting on our plane/bus/doctor’s office.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Just a few of many you will see in the next year. Google’s angle of course will be advertising augmentation using maps apps.

Now that being said, it is already in use in such items as Parrots’ AR Drone. A 4 rotor flying camera controlled with a smartphone or iPad. Just have a looksy at some Youtube Videos of AR using QR codes that some advertisers have just dabbled with at this point.

Most of what we have seen at this point to the masses has just been cute and cool stuff. I believe Google will change that very quickly having the first major impact on Augmented Reality in a real and useful products.

There are plenty of company’s and App developers to fill the void once the market has been broken into.

Normally, the Porn and Gaming World are the first to latch on to the tech in graphic displays and I think when the market has been proved, they will be there just the same. This is a tech boom that is sure to put a bunch of Geeks to work very soon.

I do think there is a very big market for VR and AR porn. Nobody likes to admit or talk about it much but these folks spend lots of money online to see “stuff” and if that stuff can be more real, well, that always equates to more dollars spent. I just wonder how far the porn world will go with augmented reality. It could keep some perv’s off the street.

Sony will be making some inroads to the market. They are set to release 3D Headgear / Goggle and could easily be made with a camera and head-tracking to make AR very cool with them but I suspect initial products just to be used for 3D entertainment.

There are company’s developing even a better AR Goggle that will put the image right on the retina of your eye using a laser. Now that’s a bit scarey for me until it is completely tested against error.

3D Headgear / Goggle are not new, Vuzix is on 2nd or 3rd generation of High-Res HD 3D Optics that look like a pair of Sunglasses. They have head tracking and cameras for some units. They could be poised to take some market share quickly once this opens up. Plenty of others make a 3D Goggle. Unless you are into this kind of tech, you probably have not herd of them yet. I like to watch some 3D movie trailers on YouTube with my Vuzix Wrap 920 that I bought to have a portable First Person View ( FPV ) of my RC Aircraft. I see what the camera sees on the aircraft and can fly it like I was on it. I have a Heads-Up Display ( HUD ) inserted on the video of my flight data like GPS coordinates and speed, direction, distance and altitude. Very useful for me. What will Augmented Reality World Bring to me ? I anxiously await but see the possibility of overlay of maps in my flight display, helping me navigate when I am not in familiar territory.

The Armed Forces have been looking at this Augmented Reality Headgear for tactical improvements to the men in the field.

Welcome to the new Augmented World !

New White-Fi Network To Bring More Internet To More Places

Yes, I did not miss-spell it, White-Fi or White Space Networking is now live in a test in North Carolina.

White spaces are the radio frequency’s in “unused TV channel areas” .

Using a database to control its use where a TV signal is being used, and not used for white-fi, is the heart of making use of the white space network.

For now, it is being used for “back-haul” connectivity from Internet/ISP to local wi-fi ( 802.11a/b/g/n ). But as this gets going, I would expect to see this deployed in tablet and handheld devices within a year.

There is no doubt the need is there and it will be a game changer for all those monopoly’s of 3g internet service that we all pay through the nose for.

I believe it was first conceived by Microsoft but has spread in interest to Google and the like. Major deployments should be expected in the fall of 2012 and I would think it will be a BUZZ word as folks with little to no broadband connectivity start screaming for it.

Personally, I can find future problems with the new tech network but anything that will provide for the unprovided and stop the congestion of normal 802.11 networking is a plus with any problems sure to be worked out along the way.

That is if the big internet providers don’t lobby lots of restrictions on the white space tech.

Soon to play out in a Super PAC Donation in your Congressional district !

Additional Reading from PC Mag

Think Company’s Are Not Compiling Info On You… Think Again…

Yes the corporate world has been doing what Uncle Sam is not allowed to do. Why should this bother anyone.

You would think this is not a big deal and if you listen to what they say, it’s not. But what the fail to tell you is not current use of the data, but future use and future possibilities of hacks and the unknown of what will someone do with the info in future.

Please allow me to give you a live example of my own personal experience and this would be just one of many in the last 5 years. First I should tell you I have nearly limitless email addresses that I use for security purposes (to know when this kind of stuff happens).

I was astounded when I received a email from Apple wanting me to participate in a survey of customer experience with the Apple iTunes Store. First I thought it was a spoof/Phishing email so I investigated the full header of the email and then proceeded to look at where the links in it went to.

Sure enough, it is a genuine Apple email. I did not legitimize the email (encoded with a service number that represents “ME”) by clicking the link within but went to the site and looked for the survey.

So whats the problem ? The problem here is I have never used that email address with any Apple products or services and/or correspondence with that company. I do know that they obtained a different email from PayPal when I bought FREE apps from the iTunes store. No monetary transaction but the info was still shared without my knowledge.

So why should this bother me?

It is just a small picture of a even larger image. None of the company’s that have your information, many who have shared it with many unknown “affiliates” can keep the information secure. So I am willing to bet there are folks out there, legit and not, who will find the info a great value to resell. When a company goes belly-up who guards it then? Why can’t they tell me who AFFILIATES ARE ! And exactly what and who they share it with and when. And if they are allowed to SHARE this info and with whom?

Don’t believe me….

Well last year, I was able to go to the Chinese version of our eBay and actually bid on my own Apple iTunes account information.

I am tired of my information being shared with affiliates who are not bound to me to keep it safe and secure. In fact, I will never know who they are and to top it off, who are their affiliates they might share it with. The more places it is stored, the more chances for a hack.

Well back to the original problem of this message from apple. They shared it with the company responsible for taking it.

Here is the fine print from the page and the page itself.

”

You must be 15 years of age or older to participate. Apple has contracted Medallia, an independent marketing research firm, to conduct this survey. Your responses will remain strictly confidential. If you need assistance, please click here.

”

Apparently, Medallia had the email address and associated with me and my iTunes account.

Just remember that information about you can be used to look how the holder of it wants it to look and while the government can not do what these company’s can, the Government can subpoena the info being held if they know it exists. I just have this paranoia that when I am falsely accused of something, It will be some FBI agents job to get a conviction and they don’t care how they slander you to look like a bad person, they just do it. So all those pages you may have stumbled on by accident become an issue. Please remember this if you ever sit on a jury about to judge someones guilt based partly on where and how they surfed the web.

And how will this affect you credit worthiness if you are to be judged by what you might do as Credit Agency’s now have patents on software to do just that. It is unknown to me if they are actually using it.

The unfunny thing is that the survey email “was not sent to my account on file” with Apple iTunes or the one they nabbed from my PayPal account or the one on file shared with AT&T.

Most of this info in the sort term will be used by those unsavory folks who will target you/trick you into clicking from that email and giving up account info or worse virus / malware planting to obtain all your account info and web browsing data.

One piece of advice… Don’t use your friends/relatives email to correspond with anyone as they might be emailed data in the future that could lead to accounts being compromised from their computers.

Need I remind you that the following fortune 500 company’s have had large scale hacking in the last few years. Google (multiple times), American Express, Sony (playstation live accounts), Apple, MasterCard and other popular sites like Zappo’s Just to mention a few from the top of my head!

Google has the worst and terrible way of linking accounts that makes one breach a multiple breach. Since I have muti accounts with youtube/adsence/analytics/code/gmail/chat/voice and more, one breach can give access to all my accounts even though I use separate email addresses and seperate passwords for each account, they link them together.

I received a letter from American Express a few days ago telling me that my account had been compromised. UN-Funny thing is that account was cancelled over 7 years ago so there you can see how long this stuff stays around. Of cource they tell me my SSN was not compromised but its NOT a measured assessment that I can trust ! You already lied to me telling me it was safe and secure and now you tell me SSN was not compromised…. who can believe that now.

Just remember this, Today someone can tell you their system is the most secure system in the world and that does not make it 100% and even if it were, tomorrow is a new day with a new set of rules in data security.

Verizon Backs-Off New Charge… Victory for some but more yet…

So Verizon Hears the public cry and reverses their previous announcement of a new $2 fee for paying online. If you are tuning in late, please read yesterdays post first.

What I find more interesting is the statement they made of what they were trying to do.

They stated that they were trying to encourage customers to sign-up for other “AUTOMATIC PAYMENT METHODS” and that it was “designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions”

Now in the case you do not understand exactly what type of payment they are talking about, let me explain and tell a short story why you never want to sign-up for a method of this type unless you have plenty of money and have lots of time to sort out whether you are being charged correctly.

These types of payments come directly out of your checking account or credit card without your prior knowledge of what the charge is going to be. Oh.. I’m sure they will send you a text message or something like that a few minutes before hand.

Why is this such a bad thing. Its not if you know what the charge is going to be and can remember to have plenty of balance available in the case you either get extra charges (nobody gets those on their cell bill) you may or may not have actually made and it also has to do with the trust they will not make a mistake in the process.

Now the short story of personal experience.

About 9 years ago, I had a retail shop and accepted credit cards for the convenience of the customers. Like most small service and retailers, not many company’s want to deal with the little guy without charging you a arm and a leg. So I had run into a deal with a credit service provider that was reasonable at first glance and will not go into the horror stories of that mess.

The deal was I accepted credit cars and the money was deposited in my bank account as long as I followed the rules of proper credit checking with their service.

For the fees I would owe them, once a month, they would automatically withdraw from my checking account.

This all seems very reasonable but I was not allowed any other payment methods, just the automatic withdrawal of funds from my checking account. OK fine.

After several other company’s began dealing the same way, it began to make me nervous that if just one of them had a security breach, my account could be empty when I needed it most so I started a new account for anything other than electronic money transfers (checks only) and left this account just for the ones that required no paper.

After doing business with these folks for a number of years, I knew exactly what my charges to the account were going to be (a big waste of time to calculate every month) and would not allow the account to get more than 10 percent over what I knew was going to be withdrawn.

All happy about the protections I gave myself for about 20 months and then the day came…

I could not use a credit card to purchase inventory I needed in a online order… so I called the issuing bank to find out what was up. Well the automatic payment from my checking account was rejected from a lack of funds. How could this be… I grabbed my sheets I used to calculate and rechecked and found no problem with my math and had listed all the charges so I turn to my Local (regional) Bank and they tell me I have all sorts of rejections for the last several days and the charges are mounting for NSF every day for each.

A trip to the bank and a printed statement provided for the last week and I see that the credit card service had taken the correct amount out of my account but did so twice in the same minute. There was no reason for the bank to reject such a double dip as I signed a waver authorizing them to withdraw from my account whatever and when ever they wanted. I would have to fight to get my funds back but what about all the charges they caused me at no fault of my own ?

As it turned out (to keep this a bit shorter) This created a avalanche of NSF and all the bounced electronic transactions and fees cost me over $2,000. It is no help to me that I did get back the original double dip mistake. I also lost 2 days of work to sort the mess out costing me customers and money associated with them. Had I not got as active as I was, it would have put me out of business in 3 more days.

OK Now, it was a bit longer story than I wanted but I hope you understand that when you authorize them full access to your account, you are giving them your financial life. Do you really trust them that much.

Just think, you will never have to get upset about new fees in the future cause you will not really find out till its to late… the money will be gone. Oh, they will tell you in advance about new fees in a email trapped in your junk mail account of some fine print on your paper bill if you get one.

If you do trust them a bit further to think that their system is so secure that you will never have a problem.

Do you have the time and money to sort it all out when it goes wrong and I say this knowing you must fight to get your funds back, they will not just hand them over because someone made a mistake.

Look forward to many of these Merged-up somewhat monopolies to encourage you to do the same auto-drafting to your checking account. After all, they need money for something that does not go to the shareholders !

They say money at the speed of light and I say theft at even the speed of sound is to much for me.

MOOT ADVICE:

Lastly I will say that paying with a credit card and mailing a check to the credit card is the method that gives you the most rights and protections and you do not have to loose your funds while you argue the transactions. Keep everyone away from your cash-stash !

If everything is as safe and secure as they say today, tomorrow is a new day with new rules.

There are no secretes, just things you do not know about !

Verizon Slams Cusomers With New $2 Charge… But there is more to this…

Yes Verizon has stated they will be charging customers a $2.00 fee for paying their bill online.

Lets just back-up and see why this is so totally absurd.

Banks and every other large business, especially those that have multiple mergers in the last 10 years, have spent a lot of time and money convincing the public to be green and paperless by paying online.

While the main reason they took this initiative is that it saved them lots and lots of money directly in the form of bank fees for paper transactions and mailing and printing costs and indirectly by fewer employees required to handle payments.

So they got what they wanted and a very large portion of Verizons customers pay online.

And now, the savings to them will now cost you extra.

To this author, reality seems to read to me that after the expensive merger with Alltel and steep competition in the cellular market, raising base rates of cell service or Cable TV / Internet service to boost a bottom line would be suicidal to Verizon. So they want to bring it in, in the form of fees that they thought would not be noticed.

Surprise… we noticed and quickly.

So I ask the question… How was the merger with Alltel beneficial to the public ? The company was prosperous and expanding. It is not like they were bankrupt and failing.

So will you condone this activity from a company that has a monopoly on CDMA Cellular Service. That means you can not take a phone purchased at their store to any other carrier for service because they own all the property for the technology.

Because of all the merger activity on the GSM tech side of Cell Phones, You have little choice. It’s like voting for the lesser of two evils. Thank goodness the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile did not pass the smell test or you basically would have only 3 Cell Networks incomparable with each other.

I have always preferred to pay by check and by mail until one of those company’s pushing me to pay online will guarantee the safety and security of my email and the electronic transaction itself.

What is curious to me since the big move in the banking industry really was this very same electronic transactions and paperless savings. It seemed only natural to think once they had most of us converted to electronic money and debit cards that they were going to start with fees here and there until we got use to the idea again. Then Whammy! OK I was daydreaming or was I ?

It sure is interesting that all this profitable merger activity in the banking industry and all the huge savings with electronic transactions has yet to yeild the shareholder a reasonable share of the new profits. Where do they go … more merger?

That is a subject for a future MOOT Post !

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