NC Media Watch

The latest from the Pew Research - GOP gaining

Russ Steele

Across the nation, white voters are aligning themselves with the GOP according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.  One of our local left bloggers claims that Nevada County is going purple. I wonder if this trend identified by the Pew Research Center is also true in Nevada County?


Exit Question:  Do you think the Pew findings apply to Nevada County?

Cost of CARB: The Nations gas prices are rising to California levels

Russ Steele

The global price of crude oil is moving side ways:


The price of gas in the US is approaching that of California and Nevada County:


Diesel prices are continuing to rise.

 

Exit Question: Why are the US gas prices catching up with California?

Well not really, no public restrooms in new Transfer Station

Russ Steele

As many reader know I used to be on the Nevada County Transportation Commision, but was bared from being on the Transit Services Commision, which manages public transit funding in Nevada County, as I kept asking some of the questions raised by Jeff Ackerman, The Union Editor/Publisher, in his weekly column today.  Public transit in a rural community will never pencil out, so the tax payers get to pay for every empty seat on the Gold County Stage.  Be sure to wave when you see your tax dollars rolling by.

Jeff was also upset about the $1 million cost of the new transfer station, however this was the paragraph in his column that caught my attention. (my emphais added)

If you've seen drawings of the proposed bus stop (they are calling it a transfer station, which is pretty much the same as a bus stop, but more elaborate), it's very nice. It has a roof, wheelchair ramp and a place for a bus or two to park. It even has some grass out front and a place to go potty while you wait for the bus. The restroom is 20-feet-by-10-feet with a 12-foot wheelchair ramp sitting on 1.4 acres.

No the public cannot use the restrooms to go potty.  The ADA compliant restrooms were only for the drivers to use. The public will be locked out of these spacious ADA compliant rooms.  Why you ask? The County and Grass Valley could not come to an agreement on who was to keep any public restrooms clean.  So, the solution was to keep the public out of the restrooms, let them walk across the street and use the Holiday Inn restrooms.

Exit Question: Are you comfortable with how your tax dollars are being spend on world class restrooms, and then being locked out?

Cost of CARB: Fuel prices start back up

Russ Steele

Gas prices in Nevada County and CA showed a slight decline, while US gas prices increased two weeks in a row. Diesel prices across the nation are going up and in CA, but Nevada County is showing a slight decline.  Crude oil is also showing a very slight increase, essentially flat.

With each passing week the charts look more chaotic. Earlier in the year they prices were in synce, and now they are all over the map, and I have no explanation. Please comment if you have any ideas?

 

Conventional wisdom says that Obama is burnt toast in 2012 (Update)

Russ Steele

Steven Green writing at the Vodkaundit has the numbers in his column The Bistromath Economy:

• 9.2% — unemployment rate for June.
• 0.1% — increase since May.
• 16.2% — underemployment rate for June.
• 0.4% — increase since May.
• 8% — conventional wisdom for the maximum allowable unemployment rate to win reelection.
• 15 — remaining BLS reporting months before Election Day.
• 255,000 — net jobs that must be created each and every month to reach 8%.
• 18,000 — net jobs created last month.
• 44,000 — downward revision to April and May job creation.
• 3,825,000 — total net jobs needed before Election Day.
• 2,100,000 — jobs created in the last fifteen months.

Where is Obama going to find, or create, 3.8 million jobs in the next 15 months?   He isn't and conventional wisdom says will be chucked out, just like burnt toast.

You can read the rest of Obama's awful economic numbers here.

Exit question: Can Obama over come conventional wisdom and win re-election? How?

Update (07-10-11, 17:20) Here is an jobs verses stimulus graphic from Mercatus.

Cost of CARB: Decline in fuel prices leveling

Russ Steele

Ellen and I have just completed a coast of coast cross county trip in our GMC 2500, which burns diesel.  Ellen kept track of our fuel usage and the prices. The lowest diesel price we saw on the trip was $3.44 some where in the mid-west.  I will have more details next week on the exact location on of the lowest and highest prices.  We arrived home yesterday and are still in recovery mode.

Diesel prices continue to decline, except in Nevada County.

On the other hand the decline in gas prices seems to have leveled off  with the price of crude oil creeping back up again.

Nevada County Jobs Analysis - Through May.

Russ Steele

As many readers know, I have been following the creation or the loss of Nevada County non-government jobs in the Nevada County Business News since January of 2008. Here is the latest graph through May, 2011.


Note that each spring there is an uptick in local jobs, even thought the overall trend is declining.  These can often be attributed to seasonal summer jobs, however Katy Hight, Business News Editor, notes that of the 85 job increase, 60 of those jobs are in the manufacturing sector. These are not seasonal jobs. That is good news, let's hope that Nevada County can sustain this manufacturing job growth. 

Off the Top of My Head: Road Trip Economic Observations

Russ Steele

My OTOMH monthly column is up at the CABPRO Report here.

Cost of CARB: Higher fuel prices are coming - Really!

Russ Steele

While the price of crude oil continues to drop, Barrons is predicting that it will soon be at $150.00 a barrel, while CARB constinues to work on California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which is designed to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% in 2020.  The LCFS when implemented in 2012 will increase the cost of fuel, this cost will be added to the projected rise in crude oil prices by Barrons.

The U.S. economy is never completely ready for higher oil prices, which is one reason they take a nasty economic toll when they arrive. But readiness can be enhanced by awareness of the likely outlook for petroleum prices–and the outlook today is relatively grim, although probably not disastrous.

Despite the recent 20% decline from April highs, new highs on crude, heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline seem likely over the next 12 months. Following some further easing over the summer, the second leg of the long-term bull market in petroleum–the first occurred in 2007-08–probably will begin this fall.

Regardless the fuel prices continue to drop in the Nevada County, California and the US this last week.  Here are the latest fuel price plots:






Exit question: When will the falling prices reverse direction and start climbing again?

Conservative Advantage: Numeracy and scientific logic in the climate debate!

Russ Steele

AGW Warmer Chris Mooney writes about a scenario that has been playing out in Nevada County for years, as conservative and liberals debate global warming and the human contributions to that warming.  Mooney references a study by Dan Kahan and his colleagues at Yale, and elsewhere, who found that knowing more about science, and being better at mathematical reasoning has resulted in more climate science skepticism directed at the unproven theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Chris Mooney:
"The surprise—for some out there, anyway—lay in how the ingredients of this stew mix together. For citizens as a whole, more literacy and numeracy were correlated with somewhat more, rather than somewhat less, dismissal of the risk of global warming. When you drilled down into the cultural groups, meanwhile, it turned out that among the hierarchical-individualists (aka, conservatives), the relationship between greater math and science knowledge and dismissal of climate risks was even stronger. (The opposite relationship occurred among egalitarian communitarians—aka liberals)."

This is bad, bad news for anyone who thinks that better math and science education will help us solve our problems on climate change. But it’s also something else. To me, it provides a kind of uber-explanation for climate skeptic and denier behavior in the public arena, and especially on the blogs."

It certainly has played out on our local blogs. The more science and math oriented blogs have relied on real world data for their assessments, rather than unproven computer models and blind faith in UN IPCC Reports for their assessments. 

Two of my favorite science and math related blogs are Anthony Watts', What Up With That and Steve Mc Intyre's Climate Audit Mooney had this to say about both:

". . . if you go to blogs like WattsUpWithThat or Climate Audit, you certainly don’t find scientific and mathematical illiterates doubting climate change. Rather, you find scientific and mathematical sophisticates itching to blow holes in each new study."

I rather think that NC Media Watch and Rebane’s Ruminations have blown some holes in the local liberal's AGW religious fervor. 

H/T to Tom Nelson