News

Fresh Market set to open its doors this Wednesday!! The Journal goes in depth with Romney and Obama’s energy policies as well as how they will play a role in the next debate. We gear up for the VP debate on its way. Also a nice change of pace with a call from listener Chris from EVERGY Power solar company.

Figure provided by Washington Post and statistics provided by EIA

There is a shift in the attention of oil production within our global industry away from the conglomerate oligopoly of OPEC. Within this month crude oil prices in the United States are settled at $90.66 per barrel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this price to be over $10 less than a year ago. This drop in prices at a time when crude oil usually jumps due to high summer demand is a sign of the United States utilizing and discovering other markets of crude oil production that are more efficient than OPEC. The EIA made out the report this month that six Persian Gulf suppliers provide just 22 percent of all U.S. imports.

Specifically, there are a few main entities responsible for the U.S. decline in OPEC demand. Canada is the top gun with its Alberta Tar Sands and the Keystone XL pipeline project that estimates to provide 400,000 barrels a day after the company responsible for the project, TransCanada, passes its reviewed route permit to the Obama Administration as well as the Nebraska State Legislature. If the permit is approved in hopefully the summer or fall of this year, then production of the line will begin promptly around 2015 as reported by the estimates from TransCanada.

With the exportation of 2,207,000 barrels of crude oil a day to the United States, Canada is the top provider of oil to the U.S. according to the EIA. Canada, as well as Brazil and Colombia have increased exports to the United States by 700,000 barrels daily and now provide nearly 3.4 million barrels a day. The actions of accessing oil reserves have veered from deep well drilling to accessing oil from less costly surface deposits such as tar sands or oil shales. More press releases are coming out of the fracking projects with oil shale rock within the Dakotas. The use of hydraulic fracturing has increased oil production in North Dakota from a few thousand barrels a day a decade ago to nearly half a million barrels today. Shale oil is closer to the surface making it more accessible and less costly to refine. Conservative reports estimate that the practice of fracking could amount to 3 million barrels a day by 2020. Utilizing smaller wells of oil is now the next move by one of the U.S.’s leading companies in oil refinement, Shell. (more…)

It’s always that case when an avid newspaper page flipper scans through the headlines as well as the meager articles in search of a story that they feel really matters to them. I for one am definitely one of these individuals. I also know there are many of you page flippers out there who just flip around and say, “oh that looks interesting….but it has too many words in it so I will just keep skimming.” I do that! I am criticizing no one. Nonetheless, a certain article struck my attention one day while I was reading the New York Times. The NY Times is a good read, especially its business section that, more than usually, contains a decent topic of discussion or in their case, journalism. That article discusses a significant platform as well as proposed legislation that is passing through the Democratic party. The legislation is the proposal of a HUGE increase in the minimum wage cap for the workers in the United States. Many states that have noticed growing economies are on the motive to begin reforming old minimum wage rates.

State legislators specifically in New York ($7.25), New Jersey($7.25), Connecticut($8.25), Illinois($8.25) and many other states are pushing to raise the minimum wage above the federal level. Massachusetts has a Senate bill right now within its state legislator with the intention of increasing the states minimum wage. Senate Bill 951 was “reported favorably by committee and referred committee on Senate Ways and Means,” within the state to progressively add to the minimum wage until it reaches $10.00 in July of 2013.

This legislation would make Massachusetts the state with the highest minimum wage, surpassing the state of Washington whose minimum wage is set of $9.04.

These legislative actions that are occurring at only state levels may soon make their way to seeing a federal debate over raising the federal minimum wage. After all it is election season and on the heels of movements such as the Occupy Wall Street as well as the demands by labor groups, Democrats in Congress may attempt the proposal of a new minimum wage referendum bill.

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The Budget Plan

This James Report Podcast goes into an in depth summary of the new 2013 fiscal Budget Plan proposed by the Obama Administration to the United States Congress. This plan is loaded with multiple proposals and practices that have been mentioned in the administrations previous plans and acts such as the American Jobs Act, the Affordable Care Act, the Budget Control Act, and the Deficit Reduction Plan given to the Joint Committee of Deficit Reduction.

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The 2013 Budget Plan provided by the White House Office of Management and Budget

by Alma McCarty

Imagine logging onto your computer. You click the Firefox button and open your browser. You go to Google only to see that you cannot.

“Must be a mistake,” you think to yourself, “or maybe it’s this faulty connection.”

You start to silently curse the WiFi gods for this miniature disaster when you realize that SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act,  has been put into effect.

Google is a goner and Yahoo, too. And for  the two people who actually use Bing, well there’s a solid chance that it’s cashed in its chips a little earlier than expected.

But why are these websites we hold so near and dear in a time of searching need suddenly censored? Because, as a search engine, Google contains  links to other websites with potentially illegal material, such as pirated music and movies. This is something we all know already. Chances are, many of us have been to a few,  even downloaded music for free. We’d like to think this is harmless, that one or two illegally downloaded items can’t hurt. We are so used to the fact that we have pretty much total freedom on the Internet to search and surf as much as we desire.

But flash-forward to a time where the Internet isn’t so wild and free: it’s a desolate, soulless, post-apocalyptic place with censored material everywhere.

SOPA, in partnership with its less worldly cousin PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, will hold serious power if passed by Congress. Long story short, these proposed bills would give legal power to sue search engines, censor websites, and shut down anything with a link to a link to illegal material.

Now, I’m not a huge techie but even I know this is bad. Potentially, some little kid in Middle-of-Nowhere, USA, could be sued by a major company because it is “copyright infringement.” Goodbye, YouTube.

Tonight, several websites including Wikipedia and Reddit are going on strike by blacking out, protesting SOPA and PIPA. Google will not go completely dark, but rather will post a protest link on the homepage.

Google is quoted in a Computerworld article stating “”Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet. So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our US home page.”

Basically, the Internet companies are angered because the government will allegedly take control of the Internet; a monster, which the masses believed could not be tamed. Other companies just want copyrights to be accounted for, but this course of action seems too extreme for my taste.

Stealing is wrong, but isn’t there another way? What do you think?

Joint Committee In session

The deadline is closing near. The Joint Committee of Deficit Reduction has to make a deal or automatic cuts to the federal government will ensue. Tune in to the James Report Podcast and get some info about the Committee as well as how critical its decision is to you.

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N.Y.P.D. officers arrested over 100 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators Tuesday morning as Zuccotti Park was cleared of the tents that define the Occupy movement. The eviction began around 1 a.m. and ended at about 4:30 a.m., though the park remained closed while city crews continued their cleanup efforts. NY State Supreme Court Justice Michael Stalling cited concern for public health and sanitation, as well as the movement’s exclusion of the park from the general public and its effect on nearby businesses when ruling in favor of the vacation of Zuccotti Park. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained that the decision was due to the “intolerable” condition of the park. When they return, demonstrators “must follow all park rules,” declared Mayor Bloomberg. Many protesters complied with the order, though some formed a barricade to keep police away. The protesters lamented that their First Amendment rights were infringed upon, a claim discounted Mayor Bloomberg, who said the protesters “rights do not include the right to endanger the public or infringe on the rights of others.” Demonstrators made several unsuccessful attempts to reenter the park. Persisting with the movement, many protesters gathered a few blocks away in Foley Square and Duarte Park.  A few demonstrators accused the police of misconduct; three were treated for minor injuries. The park reopened at 6 p.m. with public use laws fully enforced. Occupiers reentered the park with a mix of emotions, unable to set up camp.

President Barack Obama has issued close to 100 executive orders since taking office in 2009. One of his earliest criticized orders was his order to close the Guantanamo Bay camp. Approximately 90 or so executive orders later President Obama has released more than 5 executive orders in the past two months. Most of these orders are being heavily publicized by the Obama Administration as being apart of President Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign to move around Congress in order to implement the policies of his administration. The attempts by the president to enact multiple executive orders shows great tension between the executive and legislative branches of our government. Although policies are coming out of the administration, are the means by which the President is executing them truly ethical to the standards of presidential power?

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Obama signs the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010.

The Supreme Court announced today it will hear a challenge to President Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which barely passed through Congress in March of 2010.  The Affordable Care Act consumed much of Obama’s first year as president and exacerbated the heated political divide in Washington and in communities around the U.S.

Since Obama signed the hotly contested  legislation into law, Republicans and some conservative Democrats have used the controversial measure–which mandates that all U.S. citizens purchase health insurance by the year 2014–as firepower in an on-going debate detailing the role of government in the everyday lives of American citizens.  A number of federal courts have already ruled on the Affordable Care Act as recently as last Tuesday, when a conservative judge upheld the law in a Washington appeals court.  Rulings have largely been mixed and tend to fall along party lines.

The Supreme Court was expected to hear a challenge to the law after President Obama himself requested it do so before the end of 2012.  The hearing may come as soon as March of next year, with a ruling in June.  Implications for the 2012 presidential race are unclear, when Barack Obama will battle for a second term in what will likely be an extremely close election.  Some say a defeat, or partial defeat, would be just as beneficial for Obama as a victory.

A defeat–or a victory–will likely recast the race relatively late in the game.  If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, a partial defeat may indeed help Obama, since components of the legislation remain popular among the public in isolation.  A wholesale defeat, it seems to me, might prove positive as well if Obama is able to shape the conversation around Republicans’ refusal to deal with the country’s ongoing health crisis.  It will also rob any of the G.O.P. presidential candidates of a major goal– to eliminate the law altogether.  A defeat for Obama may also be a defeat for the Republican Party, since it will necessarily re-focus the debate on other issues, which may be less pressing to the conservative base.

Do you think the law will be upheld?  If not, what implications will it bear for Obama’s run for re-election next year?  Leave us a comment below.