Sadly, I score about 80% on the faint-of-heart quiz.
The last job I had was basically self-managed and I didn’t start to relax in that one until they brought on someone who functioned as my manager (even though he technically wasn’t). My manager in my new job is based several states away. He’s done a good Click Here to continue reading.
“I have to grow 500 acres of 100 bu. per acre milo to net enough money to buy all the fuel I need for my farm. But it takes only 100 acres of sunflowers to grow all the fuel I need for my farm – about 11,000 gal. of oil.
“I paid a total of $6,000 for the press and engine. It doesn’t take many gallons of fuel to pay that back.”
According to McAmoil, growing your own biodiesel fuel is far more practical than using cooking or vegetable oil. “There isn’t enough restaurant oil within a 100-mile radius of my farm to operate my diesel-powered equipment for even two days. A lot of farmers in the High Plains are starting to buy presses so they can grow their own fuel. One farmer is looking at buying several presses so he can operate five different irrigation engines, using 50,000 to 60,000 gal. of biodiesel fuel per year. He’ll hire someone to operate them full-time all year long.
This almost sounds to good to be true. But it is common knowledge that you can run a diesel engine off of vegetable oil. So why not off of oil that you press at your farm?
If you read the full article, you will see that the guy adds some gasoline to the mixture so it is not 100% homegrown. Still, this could be the wave of the future.
Admittedly, it is still turning food into fuel, but it does so in a manner that is a lot more practical then ethanols. For one thing there is no fermenting. The oil is being pressed out of the crops and being used in the tractors will only a little gasoline being added. Moreover, the left over mash is being feed to cattle.
Most importantly, this process is not being driven by government mandates. The guy did a straight up cost comparison between how much acreage he would have to plant to pay for diesel fuel and much acreage he would have to plant to grow his own fuel. The amount he would have to plant to grow his own fuel was less the amount of acreage he would have to plant to buy it.
From an AP story about gas station owners who are refusing to accept credit cards (h/t Crunchy Con)….
His complaints target the so-called interchange fee — a percentage of the sale price paid to credit card companies on every transaction. The percentage is fixed — usually at just under 2 percent — but the dollar amount of the fee rises with the price of the goods or services.
As gas tops $4 a gallon, that pushes fees toward 10 cents a gallon. Now stations, which typically mark up gasoline by 11 to 12 cents a gallon, are seeing profits shrink or even reverse.
I don’t understand why credit card companies charge a percentage of all sales instead of a flat fee. Does it really cost them more money to process a transaction for $4 then $100?
There are real benefits to both the gas station owners and the customers to be able to pay at the pump. When you pay at the pump the gas station has less labor costs because you never have to deal with a live person. Furthermore, they don’t have to face the risk that you will drive off with out paying for your gas. For customer the benefits are even more numerous.
So I think gas stations should band to together and mandate the use of their own card instead of refusing to accept them all together. The bigger convenience store chains already have their own card so it should not be too hard for them to tell the credit card companies to shove it.
At a moment when corn should be almost waist-high here in Iowa, the country’s top-producing corn state, more than a million acres have been washed out and destroyed.
Beyond that, agriculture experts estimate that 2 million acres of soy beans have been lost to water, putting the state’s total grain loss at 20 percent so far, with the threat of more rain to come.
As this essay shows, the facts do not support the demonizing of septic systems. Yet that has not stopped a growing consensus amongst supposedly educated people that septic systems are a great danger to environment and human health.
The US government has gone from being the biggest player in the mortgage market to being just about the only player. Per recent reports sent by an alert reader, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae now finance 80% of all mortgages, and the FHA guarnatees another 10%, so these entities now come close to having mortgage finance all to themselves.
From the Tristate observer…..
“According to the May 1, 2008 CCC inventory report there are oÂÂnly 24.1 million bushels of wheat in inventory, so after this sale there will be oÂÂnly 2.7 million bushels of wheat left the entire CCC inventory,” warned Matlack. “Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian relief. AAM fully supports the action and all humanitarian food relief. Our concern is that the U.S. has nothing else in our emergency food pantry. There is no cheese, no butter, no dry milk powder, no grains or anything else left in reserve. The oÂÂnly thing left in the entire CCC inventory will be 2.7 million bushels of wheat which is about enough wheat to make ½ of a loaf of bread for each of the 300 million people in America.”
* In 2004 the typical family spent more than 18 percent of its income on debt payments, while 12.2% of families spent more than 40% of their income on debt payments.
* Nearly half of all credit card holders have missed payments in the last year.
* 15 million Americans use a payday lender each month, borrowing at eye-popping APRs: 35 states allow APRs of more than 300%.
* In the Rocky Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming), the median APR of state usury limits increased from 36% in 1965 to 521% in 2007.
* A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income.
* In the Texas Lottery, 18- to 24-year-old players spend a median $50 per month on lottery play, the highest level among all age groups.
I have not accumulated a wealth of professional resources, but I know this one is a keeper. Evil HR Lady is the only professional blog I have read for hours at a time, and wished I was clearheaded enough to keep reading. She has one of those blogs that you are sure can explain the Click Here to continue reading.
U.S. grains and oilseed futures markets caught fire on Friday, with corn notching an all-time high above $7 a bushel, caught in a frenzied broad-based commodity rally led by soaring crude oil, traders said.
Further boosting corn and soybean prices were worries about the young U.S. crops. Torrential rains pummeled the American heartland this week, increasing prospects for a yield drag on both.