Not Boating But You May Have Missed This

[Thom]

This is not boating related at all, but I just wanted to point it out to any of you all who might have missed it.

Last night, at a dinner in London, the CEO (don't recall his name) of BP Oil (British Petroleum) announced that as of April 1 his company will no longer make any contribution what so ever to any political party or individual (politician) anywhere in the world. I applaud his decision to withdraw from the cesspool of the funding of politics and I just wish more companys, particularly those based in our country, would do the same. I will tell you this, I have a BP card and I intend to make it the one I use most from now on. This company has just won my wholehearted support for doing this one good thing.

Thom

[SUPERTROLLER]

Now if they drop the price of gasoline a penny per gallon you've got a winning proposition. I've often wondered if all the money spent on advertising and lobbying is really worth anything on the bottom line for a tremendous amount of these companies. Like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Do they really need to advertise or would the money be better spent on keeping costs down for insurance premiums? Wouldn't they get more people likely to buy insurance at a cheaper cost? More people spereads out the cost burden enabling them to lower their rates even further thus luring in more people yet. Same thing for gasoline. Lower prices bring added business and therefore they'd need to advertise less because we all buy the cheapest gas anyway. They would make more money by selling more gallons of gasoline, it would just be at a smaller profit per gallon. As an added thought, how many of you guys have changed your brand of beer because you saw a commercial on T.V.? Save the money and reduce the cost of doing business!