Logos from Web 2.0 are caught in the web somewhere between, a NASA image of a nebula, a starry night, clouds, science fiction landscapes of our inner space, the synapses of the brain, the virtual space that is not abstract, imagined or really real.

Web 2.0, is a term coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2004 for a series of conferences on a revivified Internet. O’Reilly (2005) in what is now considered to be his seminal article claimed that, “If Netscape was the standard bearer for Web 1.0, Google is most certainly the standard bearer for Web 2.0 (O’Reilly 2005). He contrasted Web 1.0 with Web 2.0 by citing examples: DoubleClick vs Google AdSense, Ofoto vs Flickr, Britannica Online vs Wikipedia, personal websites vs blogging, domain name speculation vs search engine optimization, page views vs cost per click, publishing vs participation, content management systems vs wikis directories (taxonomy) vs tagging (“folksonomy”) and stickiness vs syndication. The conceptual map his team devised provides a sketch of Web 2.0 showing social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies.

Although some argue that it does not exist as anything more than geek jargon, for this new user, it is a promising and surprising paradigm shift in the Internet and in software development. I began blogging using Web 2.0 freeware in September 2006. Numerous users like myself have access to sophisticated, ever-improving software technologies since the cost of development is shared among enthusiastic nerds and geeks (in a good way). Freeware on Web 2.0 is not proprietary by nature but is capable of generating huge profits because of the viral way in which users share in the development, marketing and growth of the product while improving connectivity and in content in the process.

Web 2.0

• the network as platform
•  not proprietary by nature
• spans all connected devices
• applications make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform
• deliver software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it (wikis: wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Amazon, ebay, craigslist, and all other other Web 2.0 superstar applications)
• consumes and remixes data from multiple sources, including individual users (users of images in Flickr, Picassa,
• provide own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others (Creative Commons)
• creating network effects through an architecture of participation
• tagging, folksonomies
• blogging, microblogging
• search engine optimization
• semantic web
• social networking sites: Facebook, Google +,

A Timeline of Selected Events Related to Web 2.0

2011 Web 2.0 Summit 

“Once each year, the Web 2.0 Summit brings together 1,000 senior executives from the worlds of technology, media, finance, telecommunications, entertainment, and the Internet. For 2011, our theme is “The Data Frame” – focusing on the impact of data in today’s networked economy. We live in a world clothed in data, and as we interact with it, we create more – data is not only the web’s core resource, it is at once both renewable and boundless.”

2007
“Web 2.0 Expo began eons ago in Internet Years – April of 2007 – in San Francisco. It was the first conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who embraced the opportunities created by Web 2.0, a term coined at the birth of Web 2.0 Summit (formerly named Web 2.0 Conference), a joint venture between O’Reilly Media , UBM TechWeb, and Federated Media.” Pike, Kaitlin. 2011-12-01. “Long Goodbye to Web 2.0 Expo.”

Selected webliography

Alexander, Bryan. Levine, Alan. 2008. “Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre.” Educause.

Alexander and Levine (2008) identify two essential features that are useful in distinguishing Web 2.0 projects and platforms from the rest of the web: microcontent and social media.

Boulton, Clint. 2011-10-17. “Web 2.0 Summit: Salesforce.com’s Benioff Praises Oracle, Loves Facebook.” Enterprise Applications News.

“[C]ompanies must “beware the false cloud” Oracle and other virtualization software vendors offer as private clouds that come on disks. True cloud computing, he explained, is hosted, multi-tenant and lives on the Web—not on a disk.”

O’Reilly, Tim. 2007. “What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.” O’Reilly Media. Communications and Strategies. No. 1, p. 17, First Quarter. Social Science Network Page.

Abstract: ”This paper was the first initiative to try to define Web 2.0 and understand its implications for the next generation of software, looking at both design patterns and business modes. Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an architecture of participation, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”

Tim O’Reilly, 2005. “What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”. Uploaded 09/30/2005. Accessed January 6, 2007.

Digitage Web 2.0,
originally uploaded by ocean.flynn.

Viewed 25, 070 times since December 5, 2006. Shared frequently through Creative Commons license. Updated 2012

Recent controversies surrounding the construction of inter-provincial and international pipelines to transport bitumen from the oil sands has raised questions about the reasons Canada does not develop an even more integrated value-added oil industry.  There is a call for keeping more employment in Canada and for expanded use of eastern oil refineries. Questions and concerns about the race to sell bitumen using today’s water-hungry and natural-gas hungry technologies, are being raised.  There is a call to slow down the process.

Canada is the only OECD nation that does not have a national energy plan which complicates the environmental and economic issues related to energy. Ever since Prime Minister Trudeau’s Energy Plan almost divided the country along the east-west axis, no Prime Minister has dared to touch the topic. In the Canadian system, provinces control energy while the federal government controls pipelines. Canadian cannot look to the risk-averse, profit-motivated oil industry to consider long-term resource development, investment of profits towards infrastructure beyond extraction, transportation and minor upgrading. It is only through federal-provincial and in some cases regional pressure that the oil industry could be pressured/encouraged to build oil refineries in Canada to develop an even more integrated oil industry. The federal government needs to take the lead.

Even though “we would get far more value for our resources if we were to ship refined product,” Canada only refines about 50% of oil and the rest goes to refineries in the United States. Increases in oil refinery facility size and improvements in efficiencies have offset much of the lost physical capacity of the industry.

While it is widely acknowledged that Canada needs to diversify and depend less on the United States as its major market, there are concerns about basing the Asian market on state-owned corporations. The Economist revealed some disturbing trends in this emerging form of capitalism: state capitalism.

Sixteen of the largest twenty global oil companies are state owned, and together control over 80 % of oil reserves. Their bottom line is profit and have no concern for Canada’s long-term economic health, employment, environmental impact, etc. We need a strong government position yet we do not have a cohesive energy strategy. The oil industry is a risk-averse industry and at this time there is an unwillingness to develop infrastructure beyond extraction and minimal upgrading. In the United States refineries are being closed. The proposed $6 billion Shell refinery was cancelled in 2009 because of  ”the current project execution environment, market conditions and the current inflationary pressures across the oil and gas industry.”

Although greener technologies are being developed, it is estimated that we will continue to be dependent on fossil fuels until c. 2040. Why not stretch out our use of these invaluable resources? There are opportunities for job creation through the development and implementation of  innovative marketable technologies that will make the extraction process more efficient, environmentally friendly and financially feasible? Federal funds have supported much research in the field that never sees the light of day because the oil industry, like the ocean liner, can’t adapt quickly to change.

Why does Canada not have more oil refineries?

Arguments for building more oil refineries:

• Increases in oil refinery facility size and improvements in efficiencies have offset much of the lost physical capacity of the industry.
• Recent controversies surrounding the construction of pipelines to transport bitumen from the oil sands has raised questions about the reasons Canada does not develop a more integrated value-added industry.  “We would get far more value for our resources if we were to ship refined product.”

Arguments against:

• “In 2009 through 2010, as revenue streams in the oil business dried up and profitability of oil refineries fell due to lower demand for product and high reserves of supply preceding the economic recession, oil companies began to close or sell refineries. Due to EPA regulations, the costs associated with closing a refinery are very high, meaning that many former refineries are re-purposed (Wayman E. Recession’s latest victim: oil refineries. Earth magazine. June 2010. Pgs 10-11).In 2009 Royal Dutch Shell Europe’s largest oil company closed oil refineries in the US and considered selling or closing its 130,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Montreal, which it has operated since 1933.
• Shortage of qualified labour
• risk-adverse industry
• oil industry is closing refineries not constructing new ones.
• multinational oil companies lack motivation to protect Canadian interests. 16 of the largest 20 global oil companies are state owned, and together control over 80 per cent of oil reserves. Canada had a state-owned oil company Petro Canada but it was acquired by Suncor.
• government needs to take leading role in motivating oil industry to build oil refineries in Canada to develop integrated oil industry
• high standards for environmental protection would be required in new constructions of oil refineries
• international companies like Imperial Oil look at profits for global company
• Does the world have lots of oil refineries?

• Kearn oil sands project: “The product will be transported to market through a pipeline system. Imperial and ExxonMobil own extensive refinery infrastructure in Canada and the U.S. that could receive bitumen or upgraded feedstock to make a variety of refined products. Production may also be sold to third parties. Any future upgrading capacity to support the Kearl project would be the subject of separate application.”

• Multinationals are not concerned about Canadian economy
• 1990s mergers created companies that have more market power
• loss of competition
• Athabaskan oil sands are extra heavy and high in sulphur involving most complex and expensive refining processes
• green movement has oil sands under microscope
• oil refineries are major polluters in themselves
• oil industry has market power so control of oil refinery production can affect gasoline prices etc
• weak anti-trust laws
• poor global economic conditions
• Albertan oil industry promises revenue and employment
• it is costly to build an economically oil refinery that passes environmental standards
• The biggest oil refinery Suncor in Edmonton, Alberta processes 135,000-barrel-per-day and runs entirely on oil sands-based feedstocks and produces a high yield of light oils.” Suncor be the fifth largest oil and gas company in North America with assets of $43 billion. When it acquired PetroCanada it became Canada’s largest upstream producer and second largest refiner of gasoline and oil products.

How much does it really cost to build a brand new and economically viable oil refinery?
The estimated cost of the Wallaceburg, Ontario oil refinery proposed by Shell Canada in 2007 was between $6 billion and $8 billion. The projections were for the employment of 700 people once operational and thousands of jobs during construction. The project was cancelled c. 2009 because of  ”the current project execution environment, market conditions and the current inflationary pressures across the oil and gas industry.”

Is there more of a financial benefit to Canada to see raw bitumen?

Cooper, Mark. 2003-10. “Spring Break in the US Oil Industry: Price Spike, Excess Profits and Excuses.”

Reductions in storage capacity and the number of gasoline stations of over ten percent have also taken place in just the past half-decade. These reductions in capacity have been driven in part by a merger wave that has resulted in a significant increase in the concentration of ownership of refinery capacity and gasoline outlets. Four-fifths of regional refinery markets have reached levels of concentration that trigger competitive concerns, even by the standards adopted by the antitrust division of the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice. In these markets, the largest four firms account for at least one-half and as much as three quarters of the refined product output. A similar trend has been in evidence at the level of gasoline stations.

“In 1990, 22 integrated companies covered an average of 28 states. In 1999, 17 companies covered an average of 26 states.”
(Gilbert and Hastings, p. 27; see also Hastings, Justine, “Vertical Relationships and Competition in Retail Gasoline Markets: Empirical Evidence from Contract Changes in Southern California,” Competition Policy Center, 2000.)
“The rule of thumb reflected in all iterations of the Merger Guidelines is that the more concentrated an industry, the more likely is oligopolistic behavior by that industry…. Still, the inference that higher concentration increases the risks of oligopolistic conduct seems well grounded. As the number of industry participants becomes smaller, the task of coordinating industry behavior becomes easier. For example, a ten-firm industry is more likely to require some sort of coordination to maintain prices at an oligopoly level, whereas the three-firm industry might more easily maintain prices through parallel behavior without express coordination (U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Horizontal Merger Guidelines, 1997, at section 0.1.).”

How many oil refineries does Canada have in 2011?

“Canada is home to 18 refineries, 16 of which are operated by Canadian Petroleum Products Institute (CPPI) members and represent the majority of the country’s refining capacity. Canada is a net exporter, mainly to the United States, of refined petroleum products and crude oil.”

British Columbia

• Husky Energy Inc. Prince George Refinery, Prince George BC
• Chevron Canada Limited. Burnaby Refinery. Burnaby BC

Alberta

• Suncor Energy Products Partnership. Edmonton Refinery. Edmonton AB
• Shell Canada Products
  • Scotford Refinery Fort Saskatchewan AB
• Imperial Oil Limited Strathcona Refinery Edmonton AB

Saskatchewan

• Consumers’ Cooperative Refineries Limited Regina SK * Not a CPPI member
•  Husky Energy Inc. Lloydminster SK* Asphalt plant and CPPI member

Nova Scotia

• Imperial Oil Limited Dartmouth Refinery Dartmouth NS
• Newfoundland North Atlantic Refining Limited Come by Chance Refinery Come by Chance NF. North Atlantic Refining Limited is a downstream subsidiary of Harvest Operations Corporation which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Korean state-owned Korea National Oil Corporation (“KNOC”). The Korea National Oil Corporation, whose CEO is a KNOC executive who replaced is a “significant operator in Canada’s energy industry offering stakeholders exposure to an integrated structure with upstream (exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas) and downstream (refining and marketing of distillate, gasoline and fuel oil) segments. [] KNOC Upstream oil and gas production is weighted approximately 70% to crude oil and liquids and 30% to natural gas, and is complemented by their long-life refining and marketing business.” The replacement in 2012 of a Canadian CEO by a Korean CEO is considered to be a major paradigm shift in the Asian-Canadian oil investment partnerships.

Ontario

• Shell Canada Products a European Oil Major Sarnia Manufacturing Centre (Corunna refinery)  75,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Corunna ON Originally built in 1952 by Canadian Oil Companies Limited.
• Imperial Oil Limited Sarnia Refinery Sarnia ON
• NOVA Chemicals (Canada) Limited Sarnia ON “NOVA Chemicals’ Corunna site The Corunna facility started up in late 1977 and was purchased by NOVA Chemcals in 1988. It was the first fully integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in North America. It is a refinery and petrochemical complex that supplies between 30% and 40% of Canada’s total requirements for primary petrochemicals. The refinery is capable of producing in excess of 3.5 billion pounds (1.6 million tonnes) of basic petrochemicals and 3 billion pounds of refinery and energy products annually. The Corunna site processes crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquids (NGLs) that are delivered to the site by pipeline from western Canada. These products are the feedstocks used to manufacture ethylene, propylene, butadiene, iso-butylene, n-butylene, benzene, toluene and xylene. During petrochemical production, other co-products are also manufactured, including synthetic natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline components, diesel fuel, home heating oil and heavy residual fuel oil. ” 500 employees work at the Corunna plant.
• Imperial Oil Limited Nanticoke Refinery Jarvis ON. Approximately 25 percent of petroleum products sold in Ontario originate from the Nanticoke refinery. Approximately 260 employees. Daily capacity: 112,000 barrels of crude oil.
• Suncor Energy Products Partnership Petro-Canada Lubricants Centre Mississauga, ON
• Suncor Energy Products Partnership Sarnia Refinery Sarnia ON

Quebec 

• Suncor Energy Products Partnership Montréal Refinery Montréal QC
• Ultramar Ltd. Jean-Gaulin Refinery Lévis QC
• New Brunswick Irving Oil Limited Saint John NB * Not a CPPI member

Ontario refineries had a capacity of 74,400 m3/day (468,700 b/d) in 2007. At that time these refineries included:

• Imperial Oil – Nanticoke, Ont. 112,100;
• Imperial Oil – Sarnia, Ont. 121,600;
• Shell Canada:
  • Montréal East Refinery 130,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Employees: 450 full-time.
  • Scotford Refinery 100,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil daily. Shell’s Scotford Refinery operational since 1984 is one of North America’s most efficient and modern refineries, and is the first to exclusively process synthetic crude from Alberta’s oil sands.
• Nova Chemicals – Sarnia 80,000; Corruna; Moore; St. Clair River;
• Petro Canada, Lubricant plant – Mississauga
• Suncor Energy Prod. Inc. – Sarnia 85,100

The following table is from Statistics Canada website.
Statistics on Canadian Petroleum products — Refined petroleum products, refinery production by type

Where are the existing oil refineries in Canada?

Centre for Energy: Canadian Oil Refineries Map

“One of the key barriers identified was the risk-averse nature of the industry. Unless industry is given a compelling reason to do so, such as fiscal or regulatory pressure from the government, companies are unlikely to invest in new refining capacity in the mature North American market. Rather, they will invest capital wherever in the world that returns are highest. According to industry, government will have to play an instrumental role if the vision is to be achieved (Laureshen, Clark and Du Plessis 2005:15).“

Context

Timeline of Selected Events in Integrated Oil Industry

2003 Between 2000-12 and 2003 there were four gasoline price spikes caused by domestic refining and marketing that resulted in an increase of over $30 billion in gasoline prices. (Cooper 2003).”

2003 Reductions in storage capacity and the number of gasoline stations of over ten percent have also taken place in just the past half-decade. These reductions in capacity have been driven in part by a merger wave that has resulted in a significant increase in the concentration of ownership of refinery capacity and gasoline outlets. Four-fifths of regional refinery markets have reached levels of concentration that trigger competitive concerns, even by the standards adopted by the antitrust division of the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice. In these markets, the largest four firms account for at least one-half and as much as three quarters of the refined product output. A similar trend has been in evidence at the level of gasoline stations (Cooper 2003).”

2003-03-11 “Consumer Groups Seek Energy Price Probe,” Energy Daily, March 11, 2003, p. 4.

2003 In the United States alone, 75 refineries were closed between 1988-2003 and no new refineries were constructed (
Cooper, Mark. 2003-10. “Spring Break in the US Oil Industry: Price Spike, Excess Profits and Excuses.” Consumer Federation of America.

2002 In 2002, 58 firms were engaged in refining in the United States, down from 189 firms in 1981 (source).

2001-05-21 Public Citizen, Record Oil Company Profits Underscore Market Consolidation, May 31, 2001; Fortune 500, July 18, 2001; Business Week First Quarter Results, May 21, 2001

2000 Between 1985 and 2000, average refinery utilization increased from 78 to over 92 percent (source).

1998 A wave of mergers, acquisitions, joint venture alliances, and selective divestitures started in 1998. The aim was cutting costs, gaining economies of scale, increasing returns on investment, and boosting profitability (source). Exxon and Mobil merged allowing both companies a larger share of the oil and gas market (horizontal merging).

1990s “The 1990s were widely viewed by the industry as a period of unprecedented economic volatility and hardship, characterized by poor profit margins as a result of substantial excess capacity, the increasing cost of compliance with environmental regulations, and unfavorable crude oil price trends. At the same time, the refining industry in the United States has been dramatically changed by corporate restructuring and consolidation (source).”

Webliography and Bibliography

There are major challenges in locating reliable sources of useful, comprehensible information on the oil industry. The following sources are not necessarily neutral. Wikipedia entries on concepts and organizations related to the oil industry constantly include warnings to readers that the entries may not be neutral and indeed reflect advertisement more than unbiased, information based on reliable sources. Citations often lack references.**

Statistics Canada. 2011. Petroleum products — Refined petroleum products, refinery production by type. Statistics Canada Energy Statistics Handbook.

Cooper, Mark. 2003-10. “Spring Break in the US Oil Industry: Price Spike, Excess Profits and Excuses.” Consumer Federation of America.

Peterson, D. J.; Mahnovski, Sergej. New forces at work in refining: industry views of critical business and operations trends, Issue 1707. National Energy Technology Laboratory United States Department of Energy. RAND: Science and Technology.

Canadian Centre for Energy. “About Energy: Oil & Natural Gas: Oil: What is crude oil?” **

Gary, James H.; Handwerk, Glenn E. 2001. Petroleum refining: technology and economics. Gary, James H.; Handwerk, Glenn E. 2001. Petroleum refining: technology and economics. Taylor & Francis. CRC Press. 2001 – Technology & Engineering New York:Marcel Dekker. 441 pages.

“Continuing the high standards set by earlier editions, Petroleum Refining, Fourth Edition summarizes recent developments in oil refining processes, addressing topics ranging from basic applications to the implementation of viable operations that meet environmental and economic requirements. The authors maintain the clear, systematic style that made previous editions so popular. This edition reviews petroleum-refining technology and refining processes, incorporates recent statistics on utility data, investment, and operating costs, and considers environmental factors, the place of reformulated fuels in product distribution, and uses for heavier crude oils and those with higher sulfur and metal (Review).”

Notes: Introduction: profitable products of refineries: transportation fuels gasoline, diesel, turbine (jet) fuels, light heating oils No 1. and No. 2
less profitable: lubricating oils, refrigeration and transformer oils, petrochemical feedstock; conversion of crude oil into transportation fuels economically practical represents only 5% of total crude charged to US refineries.

Laureshen, Catherine J. 2006. “From Oil Sands Bitumen to Petrochemical Feedstock.” Senior Research Manager, Alberta Energy Research Institute
Originally printed in: Oil & Gas Processing Review . 2006.

Laureshen, C. J.; Clark, P. D.; Du Plessis, M. P. 2005. “Adding Value to Alberta’s Oil Sands.” Alberta Energy Research Institute/Alberta Economic Development

Abstract:

“A rapidly expanding oil sands industry and a dwindling supply of feedstock for Alberta’s ethane-based petrochemical industry have stimulated interest in evaluating bitumen for producing a broad slate of refined products, including petrochemicals. Two industry/government studies evaluated different process schemes for integrating oil sands, refining, and petrochemical operations and convert heavy gas oils into both refined products and petrochemicals. Since market demand for fuels and refined products far exceeds that for petrochemicals, the performance characteristics of the heavy oil conversion processes are important to optimize the volume ratios of the products to meet market volume demands. The paper reviews different heavy oil processing technologies focusing on olefin to fuel product ratios and flexibility to change these ratios. The review includes conventional noncatalytic thermal (steam) cracking, as well as catalytic processes. These technologies are at different stages of commercial development for production of fuels and olefins, and must be evaluated and adapted to meet Alberta’s aromatic bitumen-derived heavy gas oils. Work is underway in an industry/government study towards developing an integrated process for the combined production of refined fuels and petrochemical feedstocks. In addition, two workshops were held in February 2005 to address the business and regulatory gaps that needed to be addressed before such a process can be commercialized; the results from the workshops will also be discussed in the paper (Laureshen, Clark and Du Plessis 2005:15).“

“Introduction: Alberta has an enviable position as a North American energy hub, providing oil and gas to United States markets through an extensive
pipeline network. In addition to conventional oil and gas, Alberta has large reserves of coal and coal bed methane, as well as the massive oil sands deposits that underlie 140,800 square kilometres of the province. The oil sands have outstripped conventional oil reservoirs as the primary source of oil in the province. According to the Alberta Department of Energy, production of bitumen and synthetic crude oil was close to 158,987.3 million m3/d (one million BPD) in 2003, as opposed to 100,162 m3/d (630,000 BPD) of conventional oil production. If all new projects, and expansions to existing projects currently planned, take place as scheduled, Alberta’s bitumen production is expected to triple by the year 2030. However, the continued expansion of Alberta’s oil sands faces significant challenges. Diluent availability is already a problem, water use is facing restrictions, and natural gas is becoming more costly and less available. A further problem is the ability of Canadian and U. . . . (Laureshen, Clark and Du Plessis 2005:15).“

Who’s Who?
“The Canadian Centre for Energy Information (Centre for Energy) is a non-profit organization created in 2002 to meet an urgent need for information on all aspects of the Canadian energy system from oil, natural gas, coal, thermal, and hydroelectric power through to nuclear, solar, wind, and other sources of energy. More recently, the Centre for Energy has taken steps to broaden its reach to encompass energy end use in Canada (“About: Centre for Energy’s web page)” Wikipedia editors cautioned that the Wikipedia article on the Centre “may be written like an advertisement with promotional content that was not written from a neutral point of view (October 2009). Wikipedia editors expressed concerns that citations provided no reliable references or sources (October 2009).**

Catherine J Laureshen “is a Senior Research Manager, responsible for the upgrading and university research programmes of the Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI). Prior to joining AERI, she taught in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary, and was a member of the In Situ Combustion Research Group. Dr Laureshen is an active member of the Petroleum Society of the Canadian Institue of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), sitting on the national board and chairing the publications board. She is the Technical Chair for the 2006 Canadian International Petroleum Conference and will be the Conference Chair in 2007. Dr Laureshen is also a member of the Canadian Heavy Oil Association (CHOA), the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA). She has a PhD in mechanical engineering, with a specialisation in fluid dynamics.”

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) is an association of non-profit consumer organizations that was established in 1968 to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy, and education. Today, nearly 300 of these groups participate in the federation and govern it through their representatives on the organization’s Board of Directors (CFA about).

1927 German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote his most important book entitled Sein und Zeit Being and Time. It strongly influenced existentialism, hermeneutics and deconstruction. Heidegger’s Dasein is uniquely characterised by the openness of its way of Being. Google books

“With the ‘cogito sum’ Descartes had claimed that he was putting philosophy on a new and firm footing. But what he left undetermined when he began in this ‘radical’ way, was the kind of Being which belongs to the res cogitans, or—more precisely—the meaning of the Being of the ‘sum’. (Heidegger 1962: 46).”

1853 American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891) wrote the short story entitled “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” which first appeared in two parts in Putnam’s Magazine. His character is

1849 Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813-1855) book entitled The Sickness Unto Death was published. In it he described soul sickness and the relational self:

“The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self (Kierkegaard 1849) [Through a process of becoming. . .] “By relating itself to its own self and by willing to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the Power which constituted it.”

1843 Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813-1855) book entitled Fear and Trembling was published.

1781 German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his book entitled Critique of Pure Reason. Tsutomu Ben Yagi (2009) argued that,

“For Kant, being self-conscious implies having experience and recognising that as one’s own (ibid.: 152-153). Based on his analysis, Kant thus arrived at the transcendental unity of apperception as the highest function of the mind which unites one’s experience under one subsisting subject. Though Kant’s exposition is quite different from that of Descartes’, he still maintains the idea that formal deduction provides legitimate knowledge for us (ibid.: 13-14, 25-26).”

1641 1641 René Descartes published his treatise entitled Meditations on First Philosophy in Latin “Meditationes de prima philosophia, in qua Dei existentia et animæ immortalitas demonstratur.” He began work on the Meditations in 1639. Descartes argued that our essence lies the state of being conscious. We are thinking beings res cogitans (Meditation 2). Extended objects/things res extensa (books, plants) are not conscious. It is argued that Descartes failed to fully explain the fundamentally characteristic of res cogitans.

René Descartes’s diagram illustrating dualism. According to Descartes, the pineal gland (shown here behind the eyes) transmitted messages from the eyes to the muscles mechanically. The pineal gland became the bridge material/physical (body) and the non-material/immaterial/non-physical substance/world/universe (mind). Through the pineal gland stimuli/inputs passed via sensory organs to the epiphysis in the brain and from there to the mind.

Selected Webliography and Bibliography

Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and Time. (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.) San Francisco: Harper.

Heidegger, M. (1982). The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. (A. Hofstadter, Trans.).
Bloomington: Indiana UP.

Heidegger, M. (2000). Introduction to Metaphysics. (G. Fried & R. Polt, Trans.). New
Haven: Yale UP

Lorentzen, Jamie. 2010. Sober Cannibals, Drunken Christians: Melville, Kierkegaard, and Tragic Optimism in Polarized Worlds

Yagi, Tsutomu B. 2009. “Beyond Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Self and Heidegger’s Dasein.” Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy. University College Dublin.

“Tsutomu Ben Yagi’s paper ‘Beyond Subjectivity: Kierkegaard’s Self and Heidegger’s Dasein’ (2009) considers the departure made from classical notions of subjectivity by these thinkers. He argues that their temporalisation and finitisation of subjectivity leads away from a metaphysical understanding of subjectivity and moves towards a more existential understanding that breaks most successfully from the history of metaphysics with Heidegger.”

Filed under: consciousness, Philosophy, Religion, self-realization Tagged: Dasein, existence, finitude, sense of self ]]> http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-relationship-of-self-to-the-power-that-created-it/feed/ 0 oceanflynn Descartes mind and body http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/regrets-for-my-old-dressing-gown/ http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/regrets-for-my-old-dressing-gown/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:23:34 +0000 Maureen Flynn-Burhoe http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/?p=1957 ]]> Anthropologist, ethnographer Grant McCracken, coined the term “Diderot effect” (1988:128) in his book entitled Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities (1988). When Diderot replaced his old, shabby but comfortable dressing gown with a newer more elegant and eventually ‘imperious” scarlet robe, he changed not just a piece of clothing but by trading up he unsettled, interrupted and changed his established consumer patterns and began moving towards upward mobility. His old shabby study left unchanged exerted an inertia. McCracken calls these newly acquired items like the new gown, bridging goods. With the acquisition of a new fridge, sofa, rug, etc the consumption mechanism seeks to rebalance itself. Diderot redecoration project left him feeling compelled to acquire new things even though they made him less comfortable.

McCracken used Diderot’s brilliant description of this behavioural phenomenon to enhance understanding of connections between cultural anthropology and consumer behavior.

Our possessions tend to have an internal consistency that follows from their cultural meaning. The inertia exerted by familiar possessions preserves that inner meaning. Familiar objects and sets of objects contribute to conserving one’s self-concepts and self-definition so that the consumer maintains a consistent, unchanging pattern of consumption. Diderot unities then insulate this consumer from marketing influences.

However the radical Diderot effect can lead to a consumer surrounding himself with new sets of objects that bear no relationship to his concept of the self and the world can alienate him from himself (McCracken 1988:128).

Selected Bibliography

McCracken, Grant Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolic Character of Consumer Goods and Activities. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1988 ISBN 0-253-31526-3; pp. 118–129.

Diderot, Denis (1875-77) (in French). Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre [Regrets on My Old Dressing Gown]. Paris: Garnier. Wikisource. [scan]

Pantzar, Mika “Domestication of Everyday Life Technology: Dynamic Views on the Social Histories of Artifacts” in Design Issues, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 52–65
unity of consumption patterns, consumer researchers, striving for conformity, “Diderot effect”, Domestication of Everyday Life,

Diderot. 1875. “Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, or A warning to those who have more taste than fortune (1769).” Oeuvres Complètes, Vol IV. Paris, Garnier Fréres, 1875; Trans for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor; CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2005.

---

In the end Diderot was willing to give up all of his new acquisitions except his Vernet and the love of his life.

Joseph Vernet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789). 1759. “Shipwreck.” Oil on canvas. 96 x 134.5 cm. Groeninge Museum. Bruges.

Oh holy prophet! Raise you hands to the heavens and pray for a friend in peril. Say to God: If you see in your eternal decrees that riches are corrupting the heart of Denis, don’t spare the masterpieces he idolizes. Destroy them and return him to his original poverty. And I, on my side, will say to the heavens: Oh God! I resign myself to the prayer of the holy prophet and to your will. I abandon everything to you. Take back everything, everything except the Vernet! It’s not the artist, it is you who made it. Respect your own work and that of friendship.

See that lighthouse, see the adjacent tower that rises to the right. See the old tree that the winds have torn. How beautiful that masse is. Above that obscure masse, see the rocks covered in verdure. It is thus that your powerful hand formed them. It is thus that your beneficent hand has carpeted them. See that uneven terrace that descends from the foot of the rocks to the sea. It is the very image of the degradation you have permitted time to exercise on those things of the world that are the most solid. Would your sun have lighted it otherwise? God, if you annihilate that work of art it will be said that you are a jealous God. Have pity on the unfortunates spread out on these banks. Is it not enough for you to have shown them the depths of the abyss? Did you save them only to destroy them? Listen to the prayer of this man who thanks you. Aid in the efforts of he who gathers together the sad remains of his fortune. Close your ear to the imprecations of this madman. Alas, he promised himself such advantageous returns, he had contemplated rest and retirement. He was on his last voyage. A hundred times along the way he calculated on his fingers the size of his fortune and had arranged for its use. And now all of his hopes have vanished; he has barely enough to cover his naked limbs. Be touched by the tenderness of these two spouses. Look at the terror that you have inspired in that woman. She offers you thanks for the evil you did not do her. Nevertheless, her child, too young to know to what peril you exposed it, he, his father and his mother, takes care of the faithful companion of his voyage: he is attaching the collar of his dog. Spare the innocent. Look at that mother freshly escaped from the waters with her spouse: it is not for herself that she is trembling, it is for her child. See how she squeezes it to her breast, how she kisses it. O God, recognize the waters you have created. Recognize them, both when your breath moves them and when your hand calms them. Recognize the black clouds that you gathered and that it pleased you to scatter. Already they are separating, they are moving away; already the light of the day star is reborn on the face of the waters. I foresee calm on that red horizon. How far it is, the horizon! It doesn’t end with the sea. The sky descends beneath it and seems to turn around the globe. Finish lighting up the sky; finish rendering tranquility to the sea. Allow those seamen to put their shipwrecked boat back to sea. Assist in their labor, give them strength and leave me this painting. leave it to me, like the rod with which you will punish the vain. It is already the case that it is no longer i that people visit, that people come to listen to: it is Vernet they come to admire in my house. The painter has humiliated the philosopher.

Oh my friend, the beautiful Vernet I own! The subject is the end of a storm without a harmful catastrophe. The seas are still agitated, the sky covered in clouds; the sailors are busy on their sunken boat, the inhabitants come running from the nearby mountains. How much spirit this painter has! He needed but a small number of principal figures to render all the circumstances of the moment he chose. How true this scene is! With what lightness, ease and vigor it is all painted. I want to keep this testimony of his friendship. I want my son-in-law to transmit it to his children, his children to theirs, and these latter to those that will be born of them.

If only you saw the beauty of the whole of this piece, how everything there is harmonious, how the effects work together, how everything is brought out without effort or affectation. How those mountains on the right are wrapped in vapor. How beautiful those rocks and superimposed edifices are. How picturesque that tree is and the lighting on that terrace. How the light there fades away, how its figures are laid out: true, active, natural, living. How interesting they are, the force with which they are painted. The purity with which they are drawn, how they stand out from the background. The enormous breadth of that space, the verisimilitude of those waters. Those clouds, the sky, that horizon! Here the background is deprived of light, while the foreground is lit up, unlike the usual technique. Come see my Vernet, but don’t take it from me!

Filed under: Cultural Anthropology Tagged: consumer behaviour, consumption, Diderot, self-definition, sense of self, Vernet ]]> http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/regrets-for-my-old-dressing-gown/feed/ 0 oceanflynn Shipwrec-vernet http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/divergent-theories-efficient-markets-vs-behavioral-finance/ http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/divergent-theories-efficient-markets-vs-behavioral-finance/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:08:45 +0000 Maureen Flynn-Burhoe http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/?p=1908 ]]> IN PROCESS

Journalists acted as cheerleaders for buying stocks [...] The market values journalists advice more then of analysts, and journalists advice are believed to contain more new information compared to analysts advice [...] The lesson for investors is this: If either journalists or analysts come with a “sell” recommendation the stock drops significantly right away and continues to yield abnormal negative return. If an analyst issues “buy’s” there is only a slight chance that the stock will show abnormal positive return and more likely that the return will be negative. But if journalists issue “buy’s” it offers investors a short time of positive and significant abnormal positive returns, before the returns disappear and become severely negative. This is what Lidén calls a classic overreaction. “…it is obvious that analysts and journalists were fooled by the over-optimism from the positive information, but they were not from negative information. In turn, this is due to positive information being more intricate to interpret.”
25(source 2005).”

“The British financial journalism had been molded in the hands of people like J.R. McCulloch the editor of the Scotsman and the first real economist to write regularly in a newspaper. The influence of McCulloch is evident as he edited such works as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in The Works of David Ricardo (source). Today magazines like The Economist and The Financial Times rely on McCulloch’s heritage while the American Barron‘s and the Wall Street Journal have for long been more finance oriented sources based on Alsanger’s foundation. In general this could be described as Speculators vs. Economic theory. This difference is important when retrieving, analyzing and valuing information from different sources on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Different cultural background and general rivalry has for example led many US financial journalist still today to consider The Economist the most overrated journal in the world!
(source 2005).”

2005 “Publishers such as Pearson (Financial Times, Economist) and Dow Jones (WSJ) are striving to become journalistic brand names that integrate news content and media around the basic product which paper is. The environment of the 90s has been called paradoxical concerning these two publishing giants. On one hand they are forced to adopt multimedia strategies, particularly developing a range of non-print products. On the other hand they have to do so while maintaining a historical focus on financial news, with clear growth limitations when considered nationally (source 2005).”

2005-1995 This “decade has been described by some scholars as the decade of popular capitalism, materialized in the growth of the “citizen investor” and of the globalization – primarily corporate and financial (Arrese and Medina (2002). The success of electronic financial media has forced economic dailies to stop identifying with just the traditional newspaper.”

2005 An example of the opposite opinion would be how Michael Bloomberg the Governor of New York City starts up his day. Bloomberg is a former stockbroker and owns one of the worlds most powerful finance quotation and informational media bearing his name. Remarkably enough Mr. Bloomberg says he gathers information the old-fashioned way starting with printed media. Among these are The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and The New York Times but he seldom goes to a story inside. He reads The Economist from cover-to-cover, never misses Fortune and usually reads Business Week. As for TV news, “I never watch TV, even my own [news channel].”

2004 Rupert Murdoch, “president of the News Corporation which publishes newspapers such as The Times in the UK and The New York Post, has urged newspaper editors “to embrace the internet saying print news executives sat by and watched as a generation of digital consumers turned away from newspapers…The challenge for each of us in this room is to create an internet presence that is compelling enough that users make it their home page. Just as people traditionally started their day with coffee and a newspaper, in the future I hope that the way they start their day online will be with coffee and our website,” Murdoch said at the annual meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors last April. If quotes of closing price would have been accessible to investors in a similar way back in 17th century surely there would have been no need for papers like the Lloyd’s List.” (source 2005).”

1996 Dan “Dorfman was fired from his 450.000 dollars-a-year job in 1996 after he refused to turn over his confidential sources. Federal investigation was made whether he had personally profited from his reports, either by trading on them or tipping others in exchange for favors. In an investigation made by the WSJ it was found that Dorfman maintained a brokerage account that was managed by one of his frequent sources, a broker who later left the business after being acquitted of fraud charges (source 2005).”

1990s “Dan Dorfman worked as a financial journalist at the Money magazine and as a commentator for the CNBC in the early 90s to become the highest-paid and the most influential business reporter in his time. Dorfman’s expertise was tied to his linguistic skill – not his analytic skills. He was a reporter, not an analyst. Dorfman went on television and mentioned a stock that someone had told him that was a possible
takeover target. The stock moved up and although only briefly, everybody was happy – for a while [. . .] But that evolution seems to be part of the everyday life of the modern journalist. Investment bankers, arbitrageurs, corporate raiders, analysts and people in corporate public relations all try to spin the story to their favor. To analyze how this evolved into a serious problem is the case of one of the most influential US business journalist who “moved market” for years with exclusive stories, but then was found guilty in the court of public opinion for unethical behavior regarding his work (source 2005).”

1980s As the golden age of economic controversy came to pass in the 80s the turmoil left a deep mark on the financial press. Privatization, deregulation of the financial markets, advances in information technology along with increased private share ownership helped to unleash a powerful new figure in the financial media which had mostly been overlook for many decades – the financial analyst. The bull market of
the 80s and again in the late 90s led “the tipster” to become in greater demand then teachers and scholarly journalists. “Now, as in the 1920s, speculation is a game all the family can play for the price of an evening paper.” (source)

1973 The oil crisis in 1973 and the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange system seriously dented the limelight of the Keynesian economic gurus and gave rise to antiKeynesians intellectuals such as the Nobel-winning Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek (source).

1960s and 1970s The standing of the American economic profession rose highest and the leading men of this period became celebrities and gurus (Galbraith, Samuelson and Friedman) and in demand as commentators. Some people hoped that the ideas of a new breed of economists would rid the world from economic and financial crises [. . .] A prime example of this is the successful selling of Milton Friedman’s “supply-side economics” in the Wall Street Journal and the “monetarism” in the Financial Times. Both journals experienced tremendous success at this time where the WSJ climbed to a top position in circulation, toppling such newspapers as the New York Times and the Washington Post. The basis for creating a solid specialized news groups in the 60s was supported by the lack of interest for economic and financial news of the general news media (source).”

The seeds of this craze were planted in 1593. A man by the name of Conrad Guestner imported the first tulip bulb into Holland from Constantinople, in present day Turkey. After a few years, tulip bulbs became a status symbol and a novelty for the rich and famous. Eventually, tulip bulbs became a hot
ticket item in neighboring Germany, as well. Initially, only the true connoisseurs bought tulip bulbs, but the rapidly rising price quickly attracted speculators looking to profit. By 1634, tulip mania had feverishly spread to the Dutch middle class. Pretty soon everybody was dealing in tulip bulbs, looking to make a quick fortune. The majority of the tulip bulb buyers had no intentions of even planting these bulbs! The name of the game was to buy low and sell high, just like in any other market. The whole Dutch nation was caught in a sweeping mania, as people traded in their land, livestock, farms and life savings all to acquire 1 single tulip bulb! (Source: www.stock-market-crash.net; http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/mcculloch.htm)”

Analysts,
financial journalists,
stock recommendations,
efficient
market
theory,
contrarian signal
“dead tree media”

Filed under: Business & Finance, Economics, Economy & Finance, Human Geography, Social History Timeline Tagged: economists, financial analysts ]]> http://oceanflynn.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/divergent-theories-efficient-markets-vs-behavioral-finance/feed/ 0 oceanflynn