Back in January, General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz called global warming a “total crock of s—.” when talking to a group of reporters in Texas.

Of course, this completely outraged those who are trying to change global economic policy, and in effect requiring billions of dollars in capital spending, based on a measly 100 years of climate data.

Naturally, no one in global warming party is standing up to defend him, and many ignorant to the world of science have called for his removal from GM. Well, Bob fired back:

In a posting on his GM blog on Thursday, Lutz said …

Read more…

One aspect of investing in real estate is trying to take advantage of a short sale. Being unfamiliar with what a short sale is, I thought I’d do some research.

A short sale involves buying a house for less than the amount the seller owes the lender, pure and simple. A more sophisticated way of making real estate purchases, short sales probably require more tact and patience than buying a foreclosure, as it involves knowing more about a persons situation than you might let on.

A short sale usually occurs when a seller can’t make his loan payments because of …

Comments are being held for moderation until February 29th.

I had a few teaser comments in my post on how Venezuela is cutting off their supply of crude oil to the United States, and I noted the low quality of the crude they export to us, and I touched on the refining requirements to process their oil.

So I thought I’d expand on this a bit and explain the different types of crude oil.

When it comes to crude oil, there are several different varieties, some of which are more familiar than others. For instance, sweet crude refers to hydrocarbons with relatively small amounts of hydrogen …

I’m starting to shift my resources back to expanding my oil and gas business. Not that it has been on autopilot completely, it just hasn’t required much attention lately, which can be attributed to having good people run the day-to-day production.

It’s time for more though, and I’m looking to increase production through additional acquisition or drilling.

This weekend I’ll attend a land auction with five different tracts for sale. Tract four is the one I’m interested in, as it has existing production on a full section, which equals about 640 acres. According to state records, there are five producing …

An interesting consequence of a Microsoft/Yahoo merger would funnel nearly three fourths if the U.S. email accounts through one huge data processing monster. What this means is that email accounts and a host of other personal data would be held by one company; something I suspect the U.S. government might squawk at.

Interestingly enough, 46% of internet users in the U.S. have email accounts run by Yahoo, Microsoft holds 27% and 29% use Google’s Gmail.

Personally, I’m not sure I’m crazy about having three quarters of the email accounts held by one company. In essence, there’s too much personal data being held in one place.

Then there’s the possibility of monetizing …

It was bound to happen (again). Today Verizon Wireless revealed new plans to offer a flat-rate unlimited calling plan. They say it is an effort to attract high end customers, which may be true, but I see it as a commoditization of the wireless industry.
The plan will cost $99 per month and offer up unlimited calling to anyone in the United States. Interestingly enough, AT&T trumped Verizon by announcing a similar deal for $0.99 per month more, but also eliminating any additional roaming charges.
It is clear to me that cell phones are becoming a commodity just like the old fashion predecessor, the land line, …

I did a little surfing over at the Wall Street Journal, and while perusing the videos, came across a clip from on of my favorite comedians, Drew Carey. The title of the video was “The Middle Class is doing fine”, and it really touched on how bad we have it… err, how bad we think we have it… err, how bad we are led to believe we have it. Yeah, that’s it.

Our television sets force feed us stats and rhetoric about how tight our budgets have become, how fast we’re losing money, and how difficult it is to make ends meet. The truth is, we’re not that …

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS: chart, web, Y!) is in the business of providing investment banking, and investment management services, primarily to corporations and financial institutions.

Goldman has been one of the few big investment banking and financial services firms that has actually held up well through the the fallout of the credit crisis and the housing slump. It’s low involvement in small residential mortgages and favorable short trades among the rest of the sector has worked in its favor.

The black sheep mentality compared to the rest of the sector has held the stock …

Venezuela has taken steps to fortify their dominance in the oil and gas market, and has said it will suspend oil shipments to Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM: chart, web, Y!). This is an obvious attempt by Hugo Chavez to thumb his nose at the United States, however I’m not sure what his true motivation is: money or power… perhaps both.

You see, the crude oil coming out of Venezuela is heavy crude high in sulfur, making it very difficult to refine in comparison to light sweet crude. The high sulfuric content wreaks havoc on industrial components due to its highly caustic and corrosive …