How to help lower gas prices.

Good morning folks. It's a grand and glorious day indeed. Opening day 2011 for Major League Baseball. Even the Cubs are tied for first place today. Of course if you actually admit to being a Cubs fan you're going to need a lot more help than this simple blog can provide. Having said that let's move on to the topic at hand.

Apparently, according to facebook, (where else does one go to find information?) today is the day we are all going to stick it to the big oil companies and boycott the gas pump! Finally we are going to show them. Thousands have pledged to go all day without pumping any gas! This'll show 'em that we won't put up with this treachery.

Now I don't claim to be a mathematician. I'm certainly not an expert in anything really (although I've been told that nobody does nothing better than me)but I must say the gas pump boycotts don't make any sense. I'm going to attempt to explain why boycotting gas pumps are a bad thing and how we (you and I) can really make a difference.

After researching a couple of different online sources (does anyone research with books anymore?) I've discovered that Americans consume around 400 millions gallons of gasoline every day. That's right around 20 million barrels of oil. Now let's say that we somehow convinced every single American to avoid purchasing gasoline today. Why that would be fantastic wouldn't it? Oil companies wouldn't make a single American cent on this March 31! Hold the wedding my friends. Would this not actually increase oil demands over the next several days? Let's say just for theories sake that over the next 4 days we consumed 500 million gallons per day. This would actually temporarily increase demand for gasoline thus increasing the price of a gallon of gas.

So what's a petroleum addicted country to do you might ask? Find a way to decrease demand my friends. It's simple. I think it's simple anyway. Lets have a go at it. There are approximately 308 million people living in this great land. (According to the 2010 census) We use around 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline a week which equates to about 9 plus gallons of fuel per person per week. What if we could get that number down to around 8 gallons a week? This is where we can make a difference.

If we could all figure out a way to cut our personal fuel consumption by 1.3 gallons a week that would make major ripples in the oil industry. 1.3 gallons per person is the equivalent of one days consumption. By my calculations (which are likely to be wrong, once again I'm no mathematician) this could cause the price of a gallon of gas to dip 50 to 75 cents. Fairly significant I'd conclude.

Let's take a look at all the ways we consume oil. It takes oil to make plastic bottles. Many folks heat their homes with oil. We put gasoline in our lawnmowers, weed trimmers, garden tillers and sidewalk edgers. We put gas in our cars and motorcycles. Oil is used to make compact discs, candles, as additives in food and detergents in cleaning supplies. Oil is used to make the ink in pens and printers. It's used to make the rubber on many types of shoes. We use it power tractors and many types of farm equipment. We use lots of it to fuel airplanes. Yes my friends we are certainly a country addicted to oil.

My conclusions and I hope yours as well is that we are wasting our time with gas boycotts. We ought to be spending time discussing ways we can reduce our country's oil consumption. Perhaps we can find ways to use less plastic bottles or cut our grass one less time each summer. (Better yet I've been looking online at "old fashioned" mowers. The ones with spinning blades and no engines) Maybe we can ride our bicycle to work once a week this summer or walk to the corner store instead of driving there for that loaf of bread. We can make a difference.

Of course we all know the oil companies will simply cut their production of oil to meet the weakened demand. People in the oil industry are smart. They keep setting new records for profits every year. They spill oil in our waters and take about 10% of your incomes. Maybe we should research a little more into how they make so much money year in and year out. Alas that's a topic for another day. I'm off to watch ESPN and baseball. Happy Opening Day my beloved readers.

Unions. Thank God for Them.

Good afternoon faithful blog readers. Yes both of you! Baseball season opening day is tomorrow. How 'bout them Redbirds huh?

Hey anyone read anything lately about states eliminating people's rights to unionize? Have you heard anything about the work of the state republicans in Wisconsin? In Indiana? In my adopted home state of Ohio? These are definitely some emotionally charged issues. I'm not unbiased. I'm your average union worker. Hard working. Loyal. Dependable. I believe these actions by Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio are unconstitutional. Let's explore Unions a little bit shall we? Maybe along the way we can debunk a few myths and gain a little gratitude for the working man.

FACTS-

- In order for a job to be unionized there has to have at one point been a vote taken amongst employees and a majority must have voted for their right to unionize.

- If you work a 40 hour week, have health insurance and retirement benefits, work in safe conditions, enjoy a coffee break and lunch break on your job, then you should have some gratitude for labor unions. Without unions you wouldn't have these "perks."

Republican leaders and talking heads continuously point out the college professor saying it's difficult to live on $100,000. It's easy to see why those of us struggling to get by on $60,000 annual family incomes scoff at this. But I ask is this really all we are paying our high seniority professors? We pay the Presidents of state universities millions of dollars and pay for their housing and vehicles. Many sports coaches at public universities are millionaires many times over. Many of the highest educated people go on to make fortunes in the private sector. A few of these stay behind to teach future generations for a small percentage of the salaries of private workers.

What about the janitors at the public universities? These men and women making $35,000 a year? Or the secretaries making $30,000? Or the campus police making $28,000? Taking away these working folk's right to collectively bargain is borderline criminal.

I've overheard a lot of comments from folks grateful that their company is non-union. Grateful they work for good people who value employees. That's all well and good but let's not forget that unions set the tone for industry. Many non union jobs pay significantly less than union wages. So obviously unions are good for the middle class and bad for wealthy CEO's and company owners.

We often hear all the myths about all unions do is keep bad workers from getting fired. Sure that sometimes happens. How about my experiences? When I screwed my knee up pretty bad playing recreational softball it was a union that helped me keep my employment while I healed. It was a union that helped pay my bills and feed my kids. I remember when I finally reached out for help and decided to address my drinking problem. It was a union that helped me keep my job then too while I spent time in a treatment center trying to heal. It was also a union that insured I received medical pay while in treatment. I remember when as a teamster on a particular job some managers had started doing some of the union employee's work. It resulted in the loss of several hundred dollars of weekly income for me personally and many others as well. After winning a grievance that income was restored. What would I have done without my union brothers then?

Let's not forget folks that unions are a constitutional right. They are a true testament to a democratic nation. Weakening these unions give more control and power to our government and to big business. When business gains power it's bad for all of us.

Our State Senators and Representatives received raises this year. The top gubernatorial aides received significant raises. These folks don't pay for retirement or health insurance either and they make much more money than the average state employee. Taking away a man's collective bargaining rights is a shame. We can't let this happen. How soon until we can recall Kasich?

-"It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions." -Franklin Delano Roosevelt