Many of you who have read my brief bio, know that I was employed by Exxon Corporation, now ExxonMobil, for 28 of my 45 years in business. As I watch their commercials on television today and see the many capable employees they profile to discuss their work in the important technical areas to conserve energy, develop alternative fuels, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I realize how lucky I was to be one of the caretakers of this great company for the period 1960-1988 and what great talent they continue to develop to sustain their important role in our economy.
This year is Exxon’s 127th year in business and they continue to be the biggest and most profitable corporate entity in this great country, even after they were broken up by the government in 1911. In addition, they continue to provide dividends and stock appreciation for their shareholders and are a cornerstone investment for many annuities and retirement funds of middle class America. Exxon has been through the great Depression when demand and prices for their products fell for more than 10 years, tariff wars triggered by the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 which caused the collapse of international trade, nationalization of its assets by dictators and rogue countries in Latin America, the Mid-East, and Russia, the strain of the great wars where their properties and ships were destroyed (they lost 60 tankers during WWII ) and they still delivered the energy our nation needed.
Yes, they had a few oil spills, particularly Valdez in Alaska, which gave them bad publicity but nobody remembers that they paid more than $8 billion dollars to clean up the spill and restore the area and kept many fishermen with fat wallets for many years. Needless to say, they are still the brunt of politicians who think they make too much money, even though their margins are much lower that most of the Silicon Valley, pharmaceuticals and many other companies. They can deliver gasoline at the pump in the U.S. for $1.00/gal (ex-taxes), cheaper than most other places in the world and yet continue to be vilified in the press and Washington.
Exxon has persevered these 127 years through economic cycles and world wars, experienced vast changes in the political landscape, advanced and adapted to major technological developments, brought important products to the industrialized world, and achieved economic success through honesty, discipline, creativity, and innovation and never ASKED ANYONE FOR A BAILOUT! You can bet that President Obama will never have the opportunity to fire Exxon’s CEO.
Now you know why I am so proud of having a small part as a temporary caretaker of a great American enterprise.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
"Old Hickory" - A Model of Presidential Toughness
I must say that Jon Meacham’s book on our 7th President, Andrew Jackson, “American Lion” (Random House)www.amazon.com was a mixed bag. While it failed to give an informative perspective on the history of this era, it was an excellent look at the intimates, associates, and enemies of Jackson throughout his Presidency. This was made possible by the acquisition of papers and letters in recent years from descendants of the people involved during this period.
Jackson was a powerful and transformational figure. He held a position with the public that was similar to our first military hero, George Washington; however, Jackson was a political populist. Many of our most notable Presidents used him as a model because he defined the role of his office, relative to Congress, in a way never before demonstrated by his predecessors. Previously, the focal point was the Capital and the White House was just an arm of the Congress. Jackson changed this and it never has been the same again.
The hero of the battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, “Old Hickory” had many political enemies, particularly from abolitionists in the North and many states rights “nullifiers” in the deep South, particularly in South Carolina. Although this was some 30 years prior to the Civil War, the seeds were sown during this period. Jackson’s rather inconsistent view of equal rights is hard to rationalize based on his insensitive treatment of the American Indian and his cavalier attitude towards slavery. It is a vivid illustration of how the cultural mores of the day could dictate evil behavior in well meaning and principled individuals.
Jackson was orphaned at a very early age and lost his brother as a young adult. He never had children and his wife died during the period between his election to the Presidency and his inauguration. This is amazing when you think of the pressures on him at the time. His niece, her husband, and their children became his family and they supported his social responsibilities during his Administration. His rise above these setbacks is a testimony to his perservance and toughness and his strong spiritual make-up.
His arch enemies in the Senate were strong and elegant speakers, like John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, giants in their own right. Some of the rhetoric in the speeches and documents revealed in this book would make the partisanship and personal attacks of today seem like child’s play. In fact, the Senate's censure of Jackson for his unilateral decision to effectively destroy the Bank of the United States and move all deposits to State Banks, was unprecedented at the time and illustrated a new more powerful role for the executive branch. This was later expunged in a hotly contested Senate vote late in his second term in a magnanimous gesture of farewell.
Jackson left many problems behind and was followed by some mediocre Presidents, particularly his groomed successor, Martin Van Buren. However, his strong leadership abilities, communication skills, and military exploits made him very popular with the people which really riled his adversaries. He certainly deserves a place as one of our most colorful and near-great presidents.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Nuclear Waste: An Imagined Problem
I read an article the other day by William Tucker, author of the book, “Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End American’s Long Energy Odyssey” (Bartleby, 2008). As some of you may know, I have a PhD in chemistry and worked early in my career as a research chemist for Exxon Corporation, trying to develop a commercial process to recover additional oil from reservoirs that have been depleted after conventional recovery methods. This was in the 60’s and even at that time the major oil companies were concerned about the depleted reserves of crude oil in the U.S. The Alaskan discovery at Prudhoe Bay in the 70’s gave us a breather, but as you can see the problem is still with us today?
As a scientist, I could never figure out why we didn’t put the effort into the use of nuclear power to meet our energy needs, particularly in the generation of electricity. This seemed obvious, since it is the most efficient, powerful, cheapest, and safest means of doing so. If the French have generated 75% of their electricity this way for the last 30 years, why couldn’t we? Good gracious, the French?
We have the technology to do this now, so why is it not even on Obama’s priority list? Obviously, the environmental lobby has convinced the liberal media and politicians that this is risky business because of the potential hazards posed by nuclear waste. The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no such thing as nuclear waste!
A typical nuclear fuel rod is made up of two forms of Uranium: U-235, the fissionable form which generates the energy upon degradation, and U-238, an inert form which remains as the carrier or packing material. Natural uranium ore contains only 0.7% of U-235 and must be “enriched” to 3% in order to qualify as reactor grade. To qualify for a nuclear weapon, the ore needs to be enriched to 90%, a difficult process, which only a few know how to do (Iran is trying right now!).
In a nuclear reactor, these fuel rods last for about 5 years before they are replaced. At that point, about 12 ounces of U-235 will have been converted to energy, enough to power the city of San Francisco for five years, with no carbon dioxide emissions or chemical waste of any kind. The depleted rods are then submerged in storage pools of water to block the radioactivity and after a few years they are stored in lead-lined casks, where they can sit for a century or so, if need be. Is this waste? Absolutely not; 95% is plain old U-238 which exists as 1% of the earth’s crust anyway, and could be put right back into the ground. The remaining 5% can be separated and 40% can be recycled as fuel and 60% has important use as medical and industrial isotopes. France actually reprocesses its recyclable material and the unused remains over the past 30 years sit beneath a single room at La Hague.
The truth is we send our depleted rods to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for storage and call it nuclear waste, when it really is material we could reuse for fuel and our $4 billion/yr. nuclear medicine industry, if we wanted to. If we had a significant nuclear industry, we would.
So, why don’t we build more nuclear power plants? I wish Greenpeace or Al Gore would tell me.
As a scientist, I could never figure out why we didn’t put the effort into the use of nuclear power to meet our energy needs, particularly in the generation of electricity. This seemed obvious, since it is the most efficient, powerful, cheapest, and safest means of doing so. If the French have generated 75% of their electricity this way for the last 30 years, why couldn’t we? Good gracious, the French?
We have the technology to do this now, so why is it not even on Obama’s priority list? Obviously, the environmental lobby has convinced the liberal media and politicians that this is risky business because of the potential hazards posed by nuclear waste. The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no such thing as nuclear waste!
A typical nuclear fuel rod is made up of two forms of Uranium: U-235, the fissionable form which generates the energy upon degradation, and U-238, an inert form which remains as the carrier or packing material. Natural uranium ore contains only 0.7% of U-235 and must be “enriched” to 3% in order to qualify as reactor grade. To qualify for a nuclear weapon, the ore needs to be enriched to 90%, a difficult process, which only a few know how to do (Iran is trying right now!).
In a nuclear reactor, these fuel rods last for about 5 years before they are replaced. At that point, about 12 ounces of U-235 will have been converted to energy, enough to power the city of San Francisco for five years, with no carbon dioxide emissions or chemical waste of any kind. The depleted rods are then submerged in storage pools of water to block the radioactivity and after a few years they are stored in lead-lined casks, where they can sit for a century or so, if need be. Is this waste? Absolutely not; 95% is plain old U-238 which exists as 1% of the earth’s crust anyway, and could be put right back into the ground. The remaining 5% can be separated and 40% can be recycled as fuel and 60% has important use as medical and industrial isotopes. France actually reprocesses its recyclable material and the unused remains over the past 30 years sit beneath a single room at La Hague.
The truth is we send our depleted rods to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for storage and call it nuclear waste, when it really is material we could reuse for fuel and our $4 billion/yr. nuclear medicine industry, if we wanted to. If we had a significant nuclear industry, we would.
So, why don’t we build more nuclear power plants? I wish Greenpeace or Al Gore would tell me.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Should Al Gore Win The Booby Prize This Year?
I wonder how many of you are aware of a looming burden being prepared by the liberal Democrats and their glorious leader for the U.S. economy. It’s called cap-and-trade which is devised to encourage development of alternative sources of energy by auctioning off permits to emit carbon dioxide, at a cost that is supposed to discourage the use of fossil fuels. These fuels currently generate over 80% of our energy. It’s called “climate revenue” and is predicted to generate more than $600 billion annually to the government coffers. This is really a tax on the private sector and they will view it as additional energy costs, thus reducing their gross margins. When your margins go down, you increase your prices and eventually it gets passed on to you and me.
President Obama’s energy proposals grossly underestimate the time to bring alternative fuels to compete with oil and gas on a commercial scale. As a matter of fact, his energy czar says we will need a lot more fossil fuel sources while we’re waiting and will probably have to spend $12 trillion until we get there. However, let’s leave this problem to our new czar of global warming, Mrs. Carol M. Browner, head of the FDA under Clinton. She is the new “coordinator of climate policies”, replacing God in that position. In order to take this job she left her position as a leader of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, a group that advocates global governance, which requires “rich” countries to shrink their economies to help fight global warming. In fact,after she was named to this position Mrs. Browner’s name quickly disappeared from the rolls of another one of her affiliations, Socialist International. Get the picture?
All of these gyrations based on the premise that we are at the precipice of a global catastrophe, global warming, when the inconvenient truth is that for the last few years we appear to be on the brink of an approaching ice age, according to a new study by Russian scientists. Can’t you tell by the fact that the last few global warming conferences have been delayed by ice and blizzards. You would think they would learn to schedule these in July.
Anyway, a cap-and-trade emission trading system has been operating in Europe for the past two years and has been a dismal failure. It has been an opportunity for political manipulation, bureaucracy, and worse. Causing volatile energy prices as permit prices soar when fuel prices rise and bust when they fall.
This is another ill-timed and poorly analyzed program that will reduce our global competitiveness and cost us billions. Why not encourage more drilling on the Continental Shelf and begin a thrust in nuclear energy, which will generate millions of jobs right away and put us on the road to energy independence? No, I guess that’s too easy! Let’s continue to make hybrid cars at higher prices, build windmills all over the country, and continue to generate ethanol from corn so that corn prices soar, at a cost that must be subsidized by the taxpayers in order to ever be competitive with hydrocarbon fuels. What a mess! We can thank Al Gore for all of this. No wonder he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He really is a “piece” of work.
President Obama’s energy proposals grossly underestimate the time to bring alternative fuels to compete with oil and gas on a commercial scale. As a matter of fact, his energy czar says we will need a lot more fossil fuel sources while we’re waiting and will probably have to spend $12 trillion until we get there. However, let’s leave this problem to our new czar of global warming, Mrs. Carol M. Browner, head of the FDA under Clinton. She is the new “coordinator of climate policies”, replacing God in that position. In order to take this job she left her position as a leader of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, a group that advocates global governance, which requires “rich” countries to shrink their economies to help fight global warming. In fact,after she was named to this position Mrs. Browner’s name quickly disappeared from the rolls of another one of her affiliations, Socialist International. Get the picture?
All of these gyrations based on the premise that we are at the precipice of a global catastrophe, global warming, when the inconvenient truth is that for the last few years we appear to be on the brink of an approaching ice age, according to a new study by Russian scientists. Can’t you tell by the fact that the last few global warming conferences have been delayed by ice and blizzards. You would think they would learn to schedule these in July.
Anyway, a cap-and-trade emission trading system has been operating in Europe for the past two years and has been a dismal failure. It has been an opportunity for political manipulation, bureaucracy, and worse. Causing volatile energy prices as permit prices soar when fuel prices rise and bust when they fall.
This is another ill-timed and poorly analyzed program that will reduce our global competitiveness and cost us billions. Why not encourage more drilling on the Continental Shelf and begin a thrust in nuclear energy, which will generate millions of jobs right away and put us on the road to energy independence? No, I guess that’s too easy! Let’s continue to make hybrid cars at higher prices, build windmills all over the country, and continue to generate ethanol from corn so that corn prices soar, at a cost that must be subsidized by the taxpayers in order to ever be competitive with hydrocarbon fuels. What a mess! We can thank Al Gore for all of this. No wonder he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He really is a “piece” of work.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Small Business - Absent from Obama's Radar Screen
I’ve been thinking for the last couple of days what I want to talk to you about. It’s easy to read the daily paper and continue to criticize the rather clueless Obama administration for their incredibly amateurish handling of the economic crisis, but I don’t want to bore you. What I’d like to talk about is the way real people are being impacted. I’m talking about the people who actually work for a living and pay taxes and their mortgage, people who are not looking for a handout from the government, people who own small businesses and who support their families, friends, and relatives with jobs, the small business owners who really fuel this economy.
I volunteer for an organization called SCORE, the Service Corp of Retired Executives. We are counselors to small business entrepreneurs and provide business advice, mentoring, workshops, and seminars for start-up businesses or small business owners seeking professional advice for any business issue. SCORE is supported by an on-going grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration and independent contributors and foundations who understand the importance of this work. We have 370 Chapters across the country with 11,200 volunteers covering over 600 different business skills.
In our experience these past few months, we see many people in real trouble, particularly here in Southwest Florida, where the economy is heavily weighted towards construction, housing development, retail, and services. We actually see business people in tears suffering from worry, anxiety, and depression. These individuals are very proud and many people rely on them for jobs and they now find themselves looking at the abyss they never believed would face them. They have such pride that they could not admit what has happening to them and came to SCORE too late in the game to turn things around.
Where is the help for small business in the Stimulus package? No where to be found! We readily help those people who don’t pay any taxes and then send them a tax rebate complements of those who do. Oh yes, lets now raise the tax rate for those rich small business owners who make over $250k/yr. Let’s disincentivize them from making more money, creating more jobs, and investing to grow their business. That’s what Mr. Obama just recommended to Congress. Many small business people will now be in a 40% tax bracket, and when you combine this with State, Sales, Property, etc. taxes, most will have more than half their income confiscated by our government. How would you like to work half the year for nothing? These people are the engine of our economy; there is something wrong with this scenario.
On my next posting, I want to talk about another ingenious way this Administration is seeking to confiscate money without calling it a tax. It’s called “climate revenue” and its being driven by the falsehood that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, or carbon dioxide, being generated by businesses that use fossil fuels (which is virtually all of them). Obviously, this must be true since one of our most renowned scientists, Al Gore, says so.
I volunteer for an organization called SCORE, the Service Corp of Retired Executives. We are counselors to small business entrepreneurs and provide business advice, mentoring, workshops, and seminars for start-up businesses or small business owners seeking professional advice for any business issue. SCORE is supported by an on-going grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration and independent contributors and foundations who understand the importance of this work. We have 370 Chapters across the country with 11,200 volunteers covering over 600 different business skills.
In our experience these past few months, we see many people in real trouble, particularly here in Southwest Florida, where the economy is heavily weighted towards construction, housing development, retail, and services. We actually see business people in tears suffering from worry, anxiety, and depression. These individuals are very proud and many people rely on them for jobs and they now find themselves looking at the abyss they never believed would face them. They have such pride that they could not admit what has happening to them and came to SCORE too late in the game to turn things around.
Where is the help for small business in the Stimulus package? No where to be found! We readily help those people who don’t pay any taxes and then send them a tax rebate complements of those who do. Oh yes, lets now raise the tax rate for those rich small business owners who make over $250k/yr. Let’s disincentivize them from making more money, creating more jobs, and investing to grow their business. That’s what Mr. Obama just recommended to Congress. Many small business people will now be in a 40% tax bracket, and when you combine this with State, Sales, Property, etc. taxes, most will have more than half their income confiscated by our government. How would you like to work half the year for nothing? These people are the engine of our economy; there is something wrong with this scenario.
On my next posting, I want to talk about another ingenious way this Administration is seeking to confiscate money without calling it a tax. It’s called “climate revenue” and its being driven by the falsehood that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, or carbon dioxide, being generated by businesses that use fossil fuels (which is virtually all of them). Obviously, this must be true since one of our most renowned scientists, Al Gore, says so.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Things In Life That We Are Certain Of
At mass today I was privileged to have Father Edward L. Beck, C.P. give the homily at my parish. Father Beck is the author of three books, God Underneath, Unlikely Ways Home, and Soul Provider, all published by Doubleday and available from www.amazon.com . He gives retreats and workshops on spirituality, nationally and internationally. In addition, he hosts a weekly TV show for ABC called Faith Matters Now on the ABC Now Network and his work can be found on his web site www.EdwardLBeck.com .
Father’s homily was particularly important and thought provoking, considering the environment we are all facing during these difficult times and the changes occurring in our country today. He discussed the five certitudes of life that cut to the very core of our existence and our impact on others.
1. Life is Hard: Yes, although we all prefer to focus on the good things, we all go through difficult times. We lose loved ones, our kids go astray or have problems, we have financial issues, we have health problems, we get divorced, we have addictions and mental disorders. These are things that escape no one no matter how wealthy or how poor.
2. You Are Going To Die: Yes, we can’t escape this. Do we live our lives realizing this inevitability? Have we accomplished all that we wanted? Is our life in order? Life will go on after we’ve gone just like we never existed. Yes, our loved ones will remember us fondly, we hope, but the world will not care if we ever existed. I don’t want to disillusion you but do you think you will miss this blog after I go?
3. You Are Not Very Important: Particularly in the grand scheme of things. Maybe great Presidents, leaders, and historical figures will have altered things somewhat for a time, but they too will just be names in history books as the generations go on. Are you beginning to feel more depressed?
4. Life Is Not About You: Just ask Donald Trump, right? Well, in the context that we are sent here by God to do good things for others, our role is to impact others for their good and betterment. We earn money to support our family and loved ones, we help the disabled and deprived people in our society, we use our intellect or physical skills to make a contribution to society. When we become the focal point in our lives, we become very unhappy and probably get into a lot of trouble.
5. You Have No Control: We really have no control over events in our life. Oh yes, we can plan and try to stay on course, but things usually happen that change the plans and force us to alter our journey. All those smart people in government and all the economic titans appear to have no control over the events that have befallen us. Did the passengers on the plane that crashed in the Hudson have any control on whether they lived or died? You drive a car down a road and get hit head-on by a drunk driver and are disabled for life. These are things that are controlled by what people call “fate”. Is that God’s plan? Or as an atheist would say, just a “coincidence”.
After you contemplate how bad things are, just remember the five certitudes that Father Beck pointed out in church today. It doesn't mean we are not special or unique in God's eyes, remember we are the creatures not the creator. We are special because no matter what happens we will adapt and cope, as long as we understand the five certitudes.
Father’s homily was particularly important and thought provoking, considering the environment we are all facing during these difficult times and the changes occurring in our country today. He discussed the five certitudes of life that cut to the very core of our existence and our impact on others.
1. Life is Hard: Yes, although we all prefer to focus on the good things, we all go through difficult times. We lose loved ones, our kids go astray or have problems, we have financial issues, we have health problems, we get divorced, we have addictions and mental disorders. These are things that escape no one no matter how wealthy or how poor.
2. You Are Going To Die: Yes, we can’t escape this. Do we live our lives realizing this inevitability? Have we accomplished all that we wanted? Is our life in order? Life will go on after we’ve gone just like we never existed. Yes, our loved ones will remember us fondly, we hope, but the world will not care if we ever existed. I don’t want to disillusion you but do you think you will miss this blog after I go?
3. You Are Not Very Important: Particularly in the grand scheme of things. Maybe great Presidents, leaders, and historical figures will have altered things somewhat for a time, but they too will just be names in history books as the generations go on. Are you beginning to feel more depressed?
4. Life Is Not About You: Just ask Donald Trump, right? Well, in the context that we are sent here by God to do good things for others, our role is to impact others for their good and betterment. We earn money to support our family and loved ones, we help the disabled and deprived people in our society, we use our intellect or physical skills to make a contribution to society. When we become the focal point in our lives, we become very unhappy and probably get into a lot of trouble.
5. You Have No Control: We really have no control over events in our life. Oh yes, we can plan and try to stay on course, but things usually happen that change the plans and force us to alter our journey. All those smart people in government and all the economic titans appear to have no control over the events that have befallen us. Did the passengers on the plane that crashed in the Hudson have any control on whether they lived or died? You drive a car down a road and get hit head-on by a drunk driver and are disabled for life. These are things that are controlled by what people call “fate”. Is that God’s plan? Or as an atheist would say, just a “coincidence”.
After you contemplate how bad things are, just remember the five certitudes that Father Beck pointed out in church today. It doesn't mean we are not special or unique in God's eyes, remember we are the creatures not the creator. We are special because no matter what happens we will adapt and cope, as long as we understand the five certitudes.
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