Pride and Shame

Let me see if I have this correct. 

Fed prints money out of thin air…..Then gives it to banks…..who loans to government or buys treasury bills while making enormous fees. Government uses money to buy votes. 

Tax payers (less than 50% of us) pay it all back. Kind of like a credit card. You know they take longer to pay off than a mortgage. In fact, now days, you really don’t have to pay your mortgage. 

I think that is how it works. 

Pride and shame no longer exist in our society. Otherwise, these and other things would not be acceptable.

Conflict of Interests

Conflicts of interest are all too common these days in political circles. The most significant of which is the one that involves politicians and the voting masses.  Rather than doing the hard things that are necessary, politicians continually make promises to their base that will land them votes.  The voters, as a whole, are willing participants who will vote for the guys who promise the most.

So there you have it,  voters demand more benefits and politicians provide or sustain them.  Unfortunately, to do so requires that the funds necessary to support these benefits must be borrowed or taken from someone else because there are not enough voters paying into the system to support the spending.  As with all conflicts of interests, someone is disadvantaged and in this case it is the younger generation who is not yet eligible to vote to protect their future interests, but will be expected to pay for the benefits for most of their lives.

The bottom line is simple, we can no longer afford our government.  Its costs have become so egregious and unsustainable that without immediate solutions, it will fail. The American people will not fail, but the government, as it has evolved, has failed.  What will result is that the people will once again be on their own.  

It’s time to go in a different direction folks, we cannot expect to continue voting for the same people for the same reasons of the past if we really expect to see change that protects our future.  It really is that simple. Vote new.

Frac Not A Four Letter Word

The environmentalist are entitled to their opinion, but they should not be allowed to invent their own facts. I have heard too many stories about harm coming to folks living near gas drilling and frac’ing operations that simply are not true.  I have been involved with thousands of wells over the last 30 years including frac’ing using every method known. If there were harmful elements associated with drilling or frac’ing,  I and a whole bunch of my friends and co-workers would not be here to tell.  I am not aware of a single incidence where any disease or illness was the result of frac’ing or drilling. The stories you hear about people in close proximity to active operations becoming ill are disingenuous at best and flat out lies at worst.

New techniques for drilling in the Marcellus Shale, a formation that underlies Appalachia from upstate New York to West Virginia, and better methods for disposal of wastewater have greatly improved oil and gas production in the past few years.  Today abundant new supplies of natural gas are fueling an expansion of the petrochemical and steel industries in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.  Thousands of jobs have been created across the region.  Natural gas prices are reaching decade lows which is a huge benefit to consumers.

Petrochemical companies are taking advantage of cheap natural gas to invest billions in new job creating plants.  There are several companies considering building several processing plants here in West Virginia.   This would not have been possible without continuing improvements in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

Today more experienced crews, stronger well casings, refined fracturing fluid and wastewater recycling are all indicative of the improvements made by drillers – improvements not required by regulators but made by an industry that realizes environmental protection must be a cornerstone of its business.  Shale gas exploration with hydraulic fracturing is safe and the economic benefits are substantial.

Hydraulic fracturing – known as frac’ing --  involves forcing a mixture of water, sand and small amounts of other components deep underground at high pressure to crack shale rock and free trapped natural gas or oil. It’s a decades old technology that has been used safely millions of times all over the country to improve the productivity of conventional wells. While Frac’ing is nothing new to the industry, it has just recently emerged into national prominence because of its pairing with horizontal drilling (also not new)– a combination that has allowed oil and gas companies to effectively tap huge shale formations from Texas to West Virginia for the first time.

The initial economic benefits for the state and country have been profound but we have only scratched the surface of what shale gas can mean for our economy. We can’t let critics of frac’ing, who seem to care little for facts, hijack the future of shale gas development. These critics claim that hydraulic fracturing poses an unacceptable threat to underground water supplies that rest just a few hundred feet below the surface.

They choose to ignore that frac’ing wells typically reach 7,000 feet, or more, below the surface to tap the layer of shale holding trapped natural gas. These deep wells consist of a barrier of several thousand feet of impermeable rock between the frac’ing process and groundwater supplies. In addition, frac’ed wells are designed to include thick layers of steel casing that are cemented in place to create a solid seal between gas production and the environment.

Fracturing fluid is made up of 90% water, 9.5% sand and just 0.5% percent chemical additives – the vast majority of which are found in household cleaning supplies and cosmetics. Critics’ concerns over the disposal of fracturing fluid that returns to the surface with produced gas should be laid to rest as well. Drilling companies in the Marcellus are rapidly adopting wastewater recycling which allows this flowback fluid to be treated and reused in new wells – reducing the need for freshwater in other fracturing projects and mitigating concerns over wastewater disposal.

With experience operating in the Marcellus, drilling companies have improved well construction, developed effective wastewater recycling techniques and increased the efficiency of the process by leaps and bounds. Fracking a well now takes four to five days but provides  natural gas production for 30 years or more. This is clean-burning natural gas for use in cooking and heating homes, producing electricity and supplying feedstock for our chemical and manufacturing industries.

We need these jobs and this investment. The shale gas revolution is a game changer but to reap its full rewards we have to first understand that hydraulic fracturing is safe and that it’s only getting safer. Advances in the technology, made in just the past few years, have proven that frac’ing can and will  become more efficient. Misinformation about the process serves to impede the economic potential of shale gas development in the state and would be a terrible mistake paid for by the people who would otherwise benefit from the jobs created and lower utility costs.

Class War or Monarchy?

Is what is ailing our political system really as simple as some would have us believe? The media seems to subscribe to the theory that supports the class warfare agenda. In their view, it’s pretty simple, conservatives work for the rich Americans and liberals work for the poor Americans.  It could be even more simple than that.

It could be that politicians work for themselves above all else and the rest of us are pawns in this chess game they play with each other for the votes they need to keep them in power. After all, one only needs to examine the benefits congress affords onto themselves to get an understanding of why they will work so hard and tear down anyone or anything to keep their positions.

Obamacare is the perfect example. How could congress pass legislation that is so far reaching while exempting themselves and their closest supporters from the requirements placed on the rest of us.  They did that.  How could congress allow Social Security and Medicare to become the mess it is while creating a system for themselves that guarantees the best healthcare and retirement plan known to exist.

At least in the private sector, your ability to achieve something that benefits your company and/or the customers they serve helps to determine your benefits and rewards. Politicians need only to find a way to garner votes. Most often, this is not accomplished by achieving something worthy, but by promising something undeliverable and by lambasting political opponents.

Congress members should live by and be held accountable for every law passed.  In essence, Congress has created 535 monarchy’s where they receive services and benefits from the lower class without ever being required to produce anything for the people they are supposed to represent.  They are nearly dysfunctional.

The people are becoming more and more aware of the shear debauchery and incompetence that plagues our government.  That is why we are witnessing more and more movements by various segments of the population that are tired of the status quo.  Oh, you can bet the politicians will demonize those who oppose them and the media will likely assist. However, it has gone so far now that I doubt the charade can continue much longer. People are fed up and politicians from both parties are to blame.

Legislators need only look within to find the perpetrators who have created the mess this county is in politically, economically and otherwise.