Franklin County Democrats

Public Citizen recently hosted a webinar on high gas prices.  The summary is an interesting read and the event is a look at the world of reality as opposed to the fabricated world of oil company and FOX NEWS spin.

The role of refineries

What is the relationship between the glut of oil storage facilities in Cushing, Okla., and the closing of East Coast refineries?

Refineries are where crude oil is processed and refined into petroleum products like gasoline. There are about 140 refining facilities in the U.S. Refining profitability is largely determined by the margin between the cost of crude oil and the value of the refined product. The current squeeze on U.S. refineries is due to the combination of high oil prices and weak domestic demand for gasoline. As a result, we have refinery overcapacity, which is pushing down refining profit margins, persuading large refining facilities in the northeast to close their doors. Why in the northeast?

Refiners in the northeast are typically fitted to process “sweet” oil from Brent crude, imported from oil fields in the North Sea, which is easier to refine but considerably more expensive than sour crude, which comes from Canada, the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico and South America. Northeast refineries also process West Texas Intermediate crude, a grade of sweet oil similar to Brent, but that is produced in North America.

Refineries in the Midwest are fitted to refine the heavier crudes and have access to the West Texas Intermediate crude.

Refineries have an incentive to either close or boost exports (we’re now exporting 3 million barrels of refined petroleum products every day) to keep gasoline prices higher than they otherwise would be.

With the recall of Wisconsin Governor and GOP Champion Scott Walker just a few weeks away an examination of his record as Governor would be in order.  During his campaign Mr. Walker didn’t mention the attacks on collective bargaining and education that became one of his first moves as Governor.  He did promise that he would create 250,000 jobs.   A big promise considering the tax cuts for the rich, cuts to public services, and austerity including refusing stimulus dollars for high-speed rail and broadband approach he has taken. 

Did all these right-wing economic tenets pay off for the citizens of Wisconsin?  Enjoy Ed Schultz as he discusses the fact that Wisconsin had the largest job loss of any state in America over the last year and how that compares to the neighboring state of Illinois.   I hope you enjoy the dressing down that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn gives Mr. Walker and his policies as much as I did.

Not so amazingly, conservatives around the world that have ignored the basic economics that dictate short-term stimulus followed by deficit reduction once recovery is in place as the proper course for exiting a recession have been facing the consequences.  England has just re-entered a recession thanks to Prime Minister Cameron’s austerity measures.

Will reality become a factor in GOP policy decisiions or will ideology continue to dominate? Any bets?

As we approach this weekend’s Truman Day Dinner Democrats have a lot to celebrate.  We have changed this country from wealth for the few in the Gilded Age to creating the largest middle class in history.  While the challenges are many, enjoy this fact-checked story of a day in the life of Joe Republican to see how far we’ve come.  Does this remind you of any friends or family?

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN

 Joe gets up at 6 A.M. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee.  The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water quality standards.  With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication.  His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it, too.

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From Otto Fajen’s report:

GOOD JOBS FIRST ACT
The House Economic Development Committee will hear HB 1571 (Jeanette Mott Oxford D-59) on April 24. The bill establishes the Good Jobs First Act which substantially increases the accountability and reporting requirements for all state development subsidies to corporations. The bill limits development subsidies to those creating jobs with good salaries within the state at a cost to the state of no more than $35,000 per job. The Association supports the bill.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Time: 5:00 PM
Location: House Hearing Room 3
You can find information about HB1571 at:
http://www.house.mo.gov/billsummary.aspx?bill=HB1571&year=2012&code=R

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The AFL-CIO has just released CEO Pay and the 99%, a website devoted to documenting the pay packages of CEO’s and their relationship with average workers.  I would feel really bad if these folks had to pay the same tax rate that the rest of us pay!

CEO Pay and the 99% shows that a CEO of a company in the S&P 500 Index, on average, received $12.9 million in total compensation in 2011. That’s nearly a 14 percent raise over the previous year. And that’s on top of a 23 percent increase in 2010.

In stark contrast, the average wage for workers hovered at $34,000 in 2011. Median household income fell $3,700 over the past decade. And those who are employed received an average 2.8 percent raise—barely keeping up with inflation.

Volkswagen Motors of Germany, the parent company of VW and Audi has just selected a location for it’s new North American plant – Mexico!  Automotive News is reporting that the primary reason is to avoid a 10% tariff levied by Europe on all vehicles made in America and imported into Europe.  Of course, the U.S. does no such thing to European automobiles sold here.

Another reason is VW may have had a hard time finding another state like Tennessee which coughed up $577 million dollars in taxpayer money for the only VW plant in America to do the same.  Compare this with the relatively small  but effective tax incentive of $15 million per year for ten years that Governor Nixon promoted and signed to convince Ford to invest over a billion dollars in Kansas City.  The same incentive was used to persuade General Motors to expand production to three shifts in Wentzville – both of these actions are helping maintain and create thousands of Missouri jobs.

Of course the real reason for all this is that Governor Nixon sees the whole picture of Missourians as producers and consumers and both are necessary for a healthy economy.  VW sees America as a market of consumers that are evidently not worthy of producing this product. 

The link to the Automotive News video story will also enjoy a brief story on the many ways Ford is using renewables in their vehicles.  From coconut, soy, and recycled denim come a variety of non-petroleum plastics and resins used in Ford vehicles.

This weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a trivia contest to benefit Project Graduation at Pacific High School.  The event was fun but frustrating due to my memory lapse regarding a question regarding “the real name of radical labor activist Mother Jones?”

We should all be as radical as Mother Jones.  This labor legend helped improve the lives of coal miners specifically but all workers generally.  Her influence has been long lasting and significant.  As many readers of this blog are aware there is even a progressive website named after her.

I hope you will take a moment to learn about this fantastic women.  I just did and apologize to my trivia team and the labor movement for missing that question but it won’t happen again.  Mother Jones name is Mary Harris Jones.

When someone tells you Mitt Romney is a “job creator” send them this video. So many of the so called “job creators” are really just “money makers.” If it’s in their best interest to create jobs, they will. If it’s in their best interest to lay off workers, they will. If it’s in their best interest to close down plants in the U.S and ship those jobs overseas, they will do that too. And as Robert Reich points out in the video, taxpayers subsidize it. That’s the economic system Republicans want to protect, and that’s why Mitt Romney is their candidate for president.

Mike Wallace passed away last Saturday night at the age of 93.  For many years the running joke was that the most feared sentence a person could hear was “Mike Wallace is here to see you”.  I am a big fan of Mr. Wallace and his direct, insightful style of interviewing.  With that in mind I am posting an interview Mr. Wallace had with Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers in 1958. 

To see how the world has changed just watch this interview.  When was the last time you saw an American labor leader on TV for thirty minutes?  How about the fact that the show was sponsored by a cigarette maker and the studio was full of smoke?  How about an interview in which the interview doggedly pursued the interviewee to really answer the questions? A far cry from today’s softball and never challenge the misrepresentations of fact that occur every Sunday on the political talk shows.  As a bonus, Mr. Reuther makes the case for socially progressive views that have been missing from the American scene for decades.  Enjoy the interview and RIP Mike Wallace, I’ll miss you.

Today’s front page of the Post-Dispatch featured a story on the teacher tenure  bill in the statehouse.  This legislation has been covered extensively by my friend Lloyd Klinedinst on this blog but has garnered the attention of the mainstream media.   This portion of the story caught my eye.

School administrator groups have backed the bill’s thrust but generally stayed on the sidelines of the political fight. Some St. Louis-area superintendents said in interviews that while the tenure structure is cumbersome, they have been able to work within the system to weed out weak teachers.

“The only reason you have ineffective teachers is because you have ineffective administrators who aren’t taking care of the problem,” said Linda Henke, superintendent of the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District.

Currently, public school teachers in Missouri receive tenure if they are retained after working for a school district five years. With tenure, they have certain legal rights to keep their job.