Labor Day Sales

Donations to Red Cross. A good thing? or bad? Over the previous few weeks I have seen many negative stories regarding the Red Cross and its efforts to help the victims of the recent hurricanes, Harvey and Irma. I have always thought the Red Cross was the first responders and the go to people to help the victims. I still feel that way but, I have seen many stories that have somewhat changed my mind on their efforts and whether to donate cash to the organization, or items alone. Two recent stories that have caught media attention involved situations in Houston, Texas. Volunteers had been working around the clock to help those in need. Many restaurants had sent food and coffee for these volunteers were hungry and thirsty. When the American Red Cross found out about these donations, they quickly intervened and would not let the volunteers eat or drink the items because they weren't donated by them. This concerned me. How could they turn away these people from eating and drinking. T

In this weeks blog, I wanted to write about the effect that hurricanes can have on the gas and oil industry. Not just that the prices will go up because production is limited, but the price gouging aspect of it. To me, its very unethical for oil companies to raise the price of oil before a storm even hits. They paid a much smaller rate on that oil in their reserve than what their next shipment of oil would have been. As Hurricane Harvey hit the state of Texas last week, I noticed gas prices had sky-rocketed days before the shortage of gas arrived, even in states like Alabama where I live. I think we all understand that when oil production is ceased, the price will go up, but I think we all expect that price raise should occur after the oil they have now is used up. In Texas, some spots were over 5.00 per gallon. In Alabama,  I have seen such places that have raised gas prices to 2.65 without having a new shipment of oil. Gas was prices under 1.86 the day before Harvey made landfall whe