Fort Knox back-story
It was with great sadness that I read the recent BDN story regarding the privatization of Fort Knox. Following GOP doctrine, Gov. LePage wants to absolve the state of fiscal responsibility for Fort Knox and so, in all but the actual deed to the property, will give it to the Friends of Fort Knox, thus privatizing this public property.
Limited space doesn’t allow me to enumerate the history behind this act. Suffice it to say it is the signature legislative bill of representative and former FOFK president Michael Celli. I and many other former members as well as former directors of the FOFK strenuously disagree with this act.
It is an act of disrespect towards the residents of Maine, an act of cowardice in meeting the fiscal responsibilities of the state, greed, corruption by power and the hidden political agenda of all involved. It is far easier to keep something than it is to give it away and then take it back.
But most important, remember that Fort Knox belongs to the residents of Maine, not the FOFK, regardless of how benevolent they may have been over the years. I urge Mainers to voice their opposition to this act by contacting the governor and their state representatives.
Gordon Williamson
Prospect
Stand up to speculators
It’s breathtaking. The combined populations of the United States and Canada are being held hostage by a small group of price speculators.
Most of us are now paying more than $4 a gallon for gasoline, with the prospect of further escalations to come. President Obama, usually quick with a jazzy answer, mumbles about market forces. Congress is too busy squabbling with itself to notice our plight.
The solution to this debacle sits right in the president’s lap, but he lacks the political will to use it.
Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, during World War II and the Korean War, respectively, and using the power of executive order, imposed price controls on a broad spectrum of essential goods and services. The Justice Department went after anyone who violated these orders.
Here we are, once again at war, or so our leaders keep telling us, and yet not one word about price controls escapes the lips of anyone in Washington or Ottawa. Better the North American economy grind to a halt than the residents of our two countries should be offered relief.
It is political cowardice of stunning proportion, and I not vote for anyone in the upcoming election who cannot show enough spine to put the well-being of residents ahead of the greedy manipulations of a small cadre of gougers and speculators.
The White House and Congress have yet to display as much courage as just one ordinary American who gets up and goes to work in the morning.
Henry Smith
Sorrento
Slap in the face
Is this the same Bangor City Council that said the city was too cash-strapped to help fund the American Folk Festival?
In 2005 the city loaned a couple $70,000 for home improvements and to pay off a mortgage that was being foreclosed for nonpayment. They breached the repayment schedule to which they had agreed, and in 2010 city staff reported the couple had not made one payment for three years, had not paid property taxes, insurance bills or sewer bills. They failed to return phone calls and ignored certified mailings.
In September 2010, one of the borrowers appeared before the Finance Committee to explain why they weren’t making payments. An agreement was reached for the couple to begin making monthly payments. Payments were not made as agreed, and the agreement was again extended. The outstanding balance is now over $133,000, with no payment in sight.
The Finance Committee recently voted to postpone bringing action against the couple. Councilor Charles Longo told reporters it was important to give this family a second chance. I don’t know where the phrase “second chance” came from, but my count is chance after chance over the course of seven years.
This vote is a blatant, obsequious, calculated effort to garner votes by feigning charitable intent and is a slap in the face to Bangor taxpayers who struggle to pay what they owe. As one who recently paid several hefty Bangor tax bills, I am disgusted at this politically motivated free ride.
Brent Slater
Bangor
Public, not private interest
I attended the recent Department of Health and Human Services meeting in Calais. The main point of the meeting seems to revolve around the loss of 52 beds allotted to Washington County for nursing care.
It came to my attention that if First Atlantic Health Care is allowed to close its facility in Calais it will be able to take the allotted beds to another county. Once they are taken away, Washington County and Calais in particular will not be allowed to open another facility in this county because First Atlantic has full possession of these allotted beds.
Is this more evidence of allowing the private sector taking control of the public need?
First Atlantic got approval from DHHS in a secret meeting to do the closure and apparently using false statistical information. It claimed the need for nursing home beds would be reduced in Washington County because of the out-migration of young people. It failed to disclose the fact that the number of people in Washington County 60 and older is increasing. According to some of the people who testified at the hearing this trend of increase in the elder population here is projected to continue until 2028.
Washington County can’t afford the loss of this facility and the loss of 90 plus skilled care personnel. The proposed closure of Atlantic Rehab and Nursing Home in Calais will be another death knell to Washington County.
Thomas Bonner
Alexander
Plastic not so fantastic
My family and I enjoy walks in the Bangor city forest as often as time and weather allow. It has become one of our favorite family activities, especially on nice days. Lately, though, our family walks have become somewhat less enjoyable due to irresponsible pet owners disposing of plastic-bagged dog excrement off-trail in the forest.
I personally think that dogs should be allowed to “do their business” off-trail in the city forest without the condition of owners being required to bag it and dispose of it. After all, animals in nature don’t have owners to bag up their leavings, so what exactly is the difference? What irks me here is the fact that the leavings are bagged and then disposed of in the forest as opposed to trash receptacles.
What gives? Are these people only half responsible? The city forest is not a midden heap for you to half-poop it. I would have far less complaint if you let your dog defecate in the middle of a trail than to have to see some pristine forest area look, literally, like a bag of crap.
Please be considerate.
William Perkins
Bangor
Demand for oil is at the lowest it’s been in over a decade and the supply of oil is up from what it was 3 years ago. Oil companies have made over a trillion in profits during the last decade. This should all add up to low gas prices, but it doesn’t because of the increased speculation in the market. 10 years ago, speculators controlled only 30% of the oil futures market, but today they control 80%. They buy and sell back and forth, essentially gambling, trying to make a profit. This turns into about an added 75 cents to a 1.00 per gallon at the pump! It reaches much further of course since fuel prices can cause food prices to increase (between machinery at farms and delivery trucks). It’d be one thing if these prices reflected actuality, but increasingly, we’re simply paying a gambler’s tax.
Henry Smith–We all feel the pain at the pump and regardless of who deals with it or how it is dealt with, the price of petroleum products is going to continue to increase in the future. It does add insult to injury to know that a few unscrupulous “traders” are extracting billions of dollars from us with their legalized gambling on Wall St. Executive Order price controls are a possible way to address the problem but I would rather see a return to progressive taxation, even a maximum wage. If we take away the incentive to extract obscene profits from the system, then these traders will have a choice–give the windfall back to the government/taxpayers, settle for a more modest fortune, or get a real/productive job.
The Reinvestment and Recovery Act funded six new buses for the Bangor BAT system. These buses are clean, comfortable and reliable. A new route has recently been added to serve outer Hammond Street.
As gas prices rise, investment in public transportation makes more and more sense. It stimulates the economy by allowing people to get to work without a car and thus keep more of their hard-earned money to spend at local businesses. This is much better economic policy than manipulating gas prices through price controls. A monthly bus pass is $45, or about 11 gallons of gas at current prices, and goes a whole lot farther.
WVOM gradfly, Ric Tyler is a self admitted speculator. I don’t see the tea baggers going after him for the high price of gas. I quess that is only reserved for a black democrat president.
Skin color again? Shame on you.
Shame on you for being a tea bagger.
I have never said I was a Tea Party member, should I say “shame on you for being a (whatever the heck I assume you are)”?
The shame should be yours for making such a statement.
Mr Slater-I for one am waiting to see exactly what Councilor Longo had in mind when he made his motion “for one more chance.” He made himself feel good about what he did but so far has failed other wise to “help” resolve this situation. He has at this juncture the opportunity to act as a facilitator/mediator for a viable solution to this situation. If nothing has happened to resolve the situation one can only conclude his “feeling good” about it was the end. He has failed to realize that this situation all be it difficult requires him to step back up and conclude it. The council has the responsibility to the taxpayers to act. I am aware is extremely difficult to “throw out” a family but so far in this case that seems to be the only solution given all the prior “chances” this family has had.
Henry, you are right about the reason for the high price of gas being a lack of leadership from Obama. His answer for a lack of energy policy is to suggest something called a “Buffett Rule” that fixes nothing (another feel good bill). We need a president that can actually develop a budget as this one has never done that.
You are delusional if you think any president — Democrat or Republican — can influence oil prices.
The delusion lies with anyone that actually believes the President is powerless when it come to influencing oil prices. If Obama re-opened the off-shore drilling areas that he put off limits when he took office, and opened the ANWAR for drilling, released permits and told the environmentalists to take a hike, oil prices would start to fall. Then, when the first drill bit hit the ground and other countries saw that we were serious, oil prices would fall dramatically.
Then Obama could work with the Congress to relieve their stranglehold on different blends and unify the production of gasoline into 4 or 5 blends at the most. This, in itself, would reduce the price of a gallon of gas by up to 20 percent.
There’s a lot the President could do. Instead, he makes stupid excuses. And the left covers for him. Pitiful.
Sounds like nationalization. Chavez anyone? Drilling is up, we’re producing more than we can economically refine. Not everything is as simple as you and others maintain.
We need more refining capacity especially on the east coast.
We not only need refining capacity on the East coast I would suggest that instead of sending Canadian oil to the Gulf coast to be refined and then shipping the refined products back to the Midwest that refinery capacity be created on the Great Lakes.
This would lower shipping costs and lower possible ecological issues.
Check out recent articles in that conservative daily bible, the Wall Street Journal. East Coast refineries can’t make money since they don’t have access to sufficient pipline capacity to take advantage of cheaper North Americancrude. They can’t make money off the more expensive impoirted crude of high enough quality.
So instead of opening new refineries on the Lakes, run the pipeline East.
You hit the nail on the head..
Drilling is up on private land, but way down on public land. Obama has done everything he can to reduce drilling. He said he would while campaigning. Didn’t you listen?
Private land because the oil companies own it and know where to find it (in some cases, have known for years). Sounds like the ideal of the Rs on avoidance of government interference and privatization. Once again, your views are too simplistic for a complex situation.
EJ, if you keep fibbing, you ain’t going to heaven. there is oil in ships that can’t be off loaded, because there’s no place to put it. we don’t have a shortage of oil, gas always goes up this time of year because of change over. I also have to ask why didn’t Bush make gas prices go down, he also said there was not much he could do.
Under President Bush, gas peaked at $4.12 a gallon. Bush took actions that lead to the price dropping to $1.84 by the time he left office. Obama reversed the actions Bush took, and that’s a contributing factor for the prices we’re paying today.
Also, under Bush, when the gas prices topped 4 bucks, the price of a barrel of oil was nearly $150.00. Under Obama, the gas prices are at about 4 bucks, and the cost of a barrel of oil is $105.00. In other words, a barrel of oil is $45.00 less and the price is 4 bucks a gallon.
Why? Simple. Since President Obama took office, the printing presses have been running day and night injecting dollars into the economy. Nearly 2 trillion has been printed and distributed, and that has caused the value of the American dollar to fall by nearly 30% on the global market. On top of that, wages are stagnant in the private sector, unemployment is up, government spending is out of control, and there is an anti-oil attitude in the White House.
By the way, I Googled for oil tankers unloading, and found unconfirmed comments from 2009.
“Bush took actions that lead [sic] to the price dropping to $1.84 by the time he left office.”
Such as… ? (And provide sources.)
Also, especially on the East Coast, refining capacity is on the decrease becasue they don’t have ready access to domestic and other North American crude.
What’s pitiful is ignoring the facts: http://www.factcheck.org/2011/03/is-obama-to-blame-for-4-gasoline/
The fact I was addressing was that the President can influence the price of oil and gas.
Very little, not enough to matter.
Your second paragraph is one of the largest problems in this country. Here in the state of Maine we have 2 different blends alone. Reformulated and non-reformulated. The non is refined in Nova Scotia at the Esso refinery and the reformuated is refined in Saint John at the Irving refinery. #2 fuel and diesel used to be one and the same, now we have low sulfur diesel and regular #2. If we are woried about the environment, why not make it all low sulfur?
The formulation requirements are mainly due to environmental requirements which vary from area to area. Yeah, we should all have low sulfur diesel but it’s morfe expensive becasue of the more extensive refining (hydroprocessing and hydrogen ain’t cheap).
Environmental requirements introduced by over-reaching governments, both state and federal. Most of them are unnecessary.
Read many of Bonny’s posts and you will see they don’t tend to be logical.
But a leader of a mideast country can just rattle his sword and prices skyrocket.
That’s because the leaders of mideast countries have no fear of or respect for American. Something to do with the weak leadership now in power.
Nope. See my other posts. Aren’t you one of those declaring the President to be a dictator?
Despots can do that (also include Chavez).
Why is anyone surprised? This is exactly what Obama said he would do to gas prices. Didn’t you believe him? Once he gets gas up around $6 a gallon he’ll be able to sell you the Volt for $40,000. Of course the Volt still won’t be viable in Maine because we’ll be forced to pay for the most expensive power commercially available — WIND. Thanks to John Baldacci and Angus King.
More than twice as many Volts sold in March 2012 as in Feb. 2012: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2012/04/06/Chevy-Volt-Sales-Pick-Up-Some-Juice.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwu3D-Luo-E – Michael Jackson: Driver, er, Man In the Mirror
Did you even read the article you linked?
“The sales bonanza in March probably isn’t repeatable this month, Alan Batey, Chevy’s VP of sales, told brandchannel, because
it resulted from some unique factors including a strong surge in demand
from dealers in California, where new lower-emissions version of Volt
could be eligible for single-occupancy access in carpool lanes and up to
$1,500 in state rebates.”
As long as you pay people to take them. Like all of the rest of the green garbage. Print some money and give it away so you can pretend that this is a viable alternative.
http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin#series=type:company,id:XOM,calc:profit_margin&zoom=&startDate=6/30/2001&endDate=12/31/2011&format=real&recessions=false – Exxon -Mobil Corporation’s profit margin from the begining of the Iraq war (March 2003) to 2012.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/SeeNoEvil.html – Images of children killed in Iraq war.
When I first went to hell I thought it wasn’t really happening.
Guess what?
You aren’t paying attention. Both the Feds and the state have to pay people to take these cars. Sorta like when your mother had to bribe other children to play with you when you were a kid.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kelley-blue-book-announces-inaugural-total-cost-of-ownership-award-winners-2012-02-08 – Chevy Volt winner of Kelley Blue Book total cost of ownership award in the electric car category :
“The Chevrolet Volt has a five-year ownership cost expected to total $40,629, while the Nissan LEAF’s five-year expected total is $42,089 with all key costs to own a vehicle considered.”
Leaving plenty of money left over for your mom to pay me to play with her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvZPSSHino – Sweetbox “Stay With Me”
Funny, I didn’t know that the President sold cars …
Not only did he take GM from the bond holders, buy part of it, and give the rest to the union; but he told people if they couldn’t afford gas that they should all buy new cars.
He is the classic car salesman shyster.
“Why is anyone surprised? This is exactly what Obama said he would do to gas prices. ”
Obama said no such thing.
Energy: When gas prices hit $4 a gallon in 2008,
candidate Barack Obama said it was due to previous failed energy
policies. Now that prices are heading still higher, President Obama
calls it progress.
Already, pump prices are higher than they’ve been in previous years,
suggesting they will top $4 soon and possibly reach an unprecedented $5
this summer.
http://thinkprogress.org/report/koch-oil-speculation/?mobile=nc – How Koch Industries became an oil speculation powerhouse.
http://thepardu.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/the-kochs-round-up-the-millionaires-donors-club-for-a-game-of-get-rid-of-obama/ – Koch Brothers game of “Get Rid of Obama”
To follow on what “Arrowhd” posted.
According to the following link, speculation may add as much as 40% to a gallon of gas. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-11/news/31325065_1_oil-futures-oil-prices-speculators
According to this link to Congressional testimony, speculators trade about a billion barrels of oil a day “on paper”, but the world only produces about 85 million barrels of oil. What does all that trading do, except to drive up the price?
http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/hearing080509_masters.pdf
And, according to this link, the U.S. exported more gasoline than it imported. It seems to me if this gasoline were kept here, it would help to drive down prices.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/02/us-exported-more-gasoline-than-imported-last-year/1#.T4g2ANk-3VY
I’ve read (but can’t find links) that the demand for gasoline is down in the U.S. Also that oil wells that could be producing are capped.
Apologies for the length.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/oil-demand-eia-idUSL2E8F2BWA20120402 – Reuters says gasloline demand in January 2012 was lowest since January 2001.
Apologies for the firmness.
If “firmness” means good info, there’s certainly no apology needed.
“The true measure of life is not length, but honesty.” – John Lyly, Author
of “Endymion”
Gasoline demand data is available, from the American Petroeum Inst. The reason for more gasoline exports is that there’ more profit in that than in the US market.
Well, crap, I didn’t realize we had a choice whether or not to pay our Bangor property tax – where was my head (don’t answer that)? I can hold out for seven years and I can get yet another chance? Why are we in such a hurry to get those down to treasury? Now I understand why no one registers their car within 6 months of their registration running out – you can have numerous chances over the next decade to do so! It’s not like there seems to be any penalty for it. Light came on, folks. Good info to know…