Monday, The Morning After

Active rigs:

	2/3/2014	02/03/2013	02/03/2012	02/03/2011	02/03/2010
Active Rigs	192	187	202	167	92

RBN Energy: the Jones Act, cont'd:

Two companies that own Jones Act tankers went through bankruptcy in recent years as the charter business declined following the Great Recession. They are Overseas Shipping Group (OSG) that own two US flag tankers and manage another ten and the smaller US Shipping Corp that owns three Jones Act tankers. These days the surge in US crude production has created strong demand for Jones Act tankers and record charter rates for owners. Now tankers once dedicated to the Alaska trade between Valdez and the West Coast are being considered for crude shuttle duty around the Lower 48.  Today we continue our review of US Flag fleet owners.

The Wall Street Journal

Wouldn't this be interesting, if this starts to get reported by mainstream media other than The Wall Street Journal: the jobs report for January could very well show the US unemployment rate fellagain -- this time perhaps in part because federal jobless benefits have ended.

A year after Massachusetts set out to stop sheltering homeless families in motels, the population has surged. State data in late January showed 2,081 families in motels, near an all-time peak.

New farm bill likely to legalize cultivation of hemp -- needed desperately by the rope industry.

Super Bowl ad winners: RadioShack, Bud, Chrysler -- the Dylan-Chrysler ad was the best, but I have to admit -- "the 80's called. They want their store back" for RadioShack was very, very good. Actually quite remarkable. That one will play a lot over the next few months.

Samsung Electronics' mobile OS stumbles. Its efforts to roll out its own smartphone operating system is faltering as some major wireless carriers withdraw support. Just how many operating systems can developers handle?

Oil boom a boon to barges: the oil boom is giving a boost to barge operators as inland and coast waterways increasingly are used to get US and Canadian crude to refineries. Regular readers, through RBN Energy, are already well familiar with this story.

The canary at the Cleveland hub: United Continental plans to cut operations this spring at its loss-making Cleveland hub by about 36% based on seats offered, leading to a reduction of 470 jobs.

Heard on the street: investors shopping for natural gas should try the store -- an alternative play: gas-storage operators. Besides offering warehousing services for gas, storage is a tool for arbitrage. Gas can usually be bought cheaply in spring and sold for a profit in winter. Storage also is valuable when there are sudden dislocations in supply and demand -- during a polar vortex, for example.

The Los Angeles Times

Of course, the lead story will be the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, at age 46. Couldn't handle his heroin.

Peyton Manning's Super Bowl dream goes bad in a snap. Was it just me or did Peyton look really cold in close-ups? Elsewhere, Pete Carroll's Seahawks go all 'USC' on Broncos in 43-8 Super Bowl rout.

ObamaCare puts more people in Medi-Cal -- and some aren't happy. Who aren't happy? People who don't think of themselves as poor. By the way, Medi-Cal appears to be more confusing that ObamaCare -- at least according to the LA Times story.

The New York Times

This was reported elsewhere earlier last week: unexpectedly robust revenues from taxes and other sources are filling state coffers, prompting battles over what to do with newfound money.

I had the same thought -- op-ed in The NY Times -- talking about "fat cats"-- limit the earnings of top-paid federal contractors -- and Obama just raised the minimum wage for federal contractors. I thought this was an unusual group to support.

The NY Times runs a front page story criticizing ObamaCare.

Four to eight inches of snow forecast for New Yorkers today. Call it global warming.

Drug overdose? I'm beginning to wonder how one can call it an overdose if it's the prescribed and accepted dosage based on weight, past usage, tolerance, etc. It's simply a fact that heroin and cocaine do predictable things to arteriolar muscles -- like constriction (cocaine, not heroin, but often the two are administered simultaneously). There was probably an element of atherosclerosis involved also.  Autopsy report should simply say cardio-vascular infarct, due to multiple causes: genetic propensity, atherosclerosis, medication. Our time on earth is a flash. Make of it what we can.