Saturday, May 27, 2017

Back To United Van Lines -- May 27, 2017

For background to this story, see this post from February 8, 2017.

That was a few months ago. Now this story from Fox News yesterday
Connecticut's population is falling: Its net domestic out-migration was nearly 30,000 from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, it lost slightly more than 8,000 people, leaving its population at 3.6 million.
Indeed, recent national moving company surveys underscore the trend, showing more people leaving Connecticut than moving in. In 2016, the state also saw a population decline for the third consecutive year.

One of the companies, United Van Lines, reported that of all their Connecticut customers, 60 percent were leaving compared to 40 percent who were moving there. Only three other states had higher rates of people moving out – New York, New Jersey and Illinois. One out of five of those leaving said they were retiring.
But solutions are in the works:
Some state legislators suggest legalizing marijuana as a new tax source, as well as new tolls and a new casino. Other legislators and economic analysts say one remedy is to start taxing services, such as dog grooming.

Back To Obesity -- May 27, 2017

Denmark and Bacon. From Michael Booth's The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia, c. 2014, p. 26:
The Danes are the world's leading pork butcher, slaughtering more than 28 million pigs a year. The Danish pork industry accounts for around a fifth of all the world's pork exports, half of domestic agricultural exports, and more than 5 percent of the country's total exports. Yet the weird thing is, you can travel the length and breadth of the country and never see a single sow because they are all kept hidden form view in intensive rearing sheds.
From page 67:
The Danes also appear to be addicted to sugar, consuming more candy per capita than anyone else in the world (15 pounds per year). They are also, perhaps less surprising, the largest consumers of processed pork products in the world ... the Danes eat 143 pounds each of pork per year.
That naturally led me back to this post on CNBC's segment on America's concern with obesity and gluten and linking it to pasta.

With all that sugar consumption and all that pork consumption, where do the Danes stand (or sit) with regard to obesity and national rankings. This would be a good post for NY's governor Andrew Cuomo and NY's former mayor Mike Bloomberg and current mayor Bill deBlasio to read. To recap:

If you look at 192 countries around the world, pasta-eating countries are nowhere near the top:
1. Cook Islands -- in fact the South Pacific islands -- the ones that are sinking due to rising sea levels -- or maybe due to something else -- comprise the top five or six spots
2. the Middle Eastern countries of Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia pretty much round out the top 20, and all of those have obesity rates higher than the US
3. finally, we get to the US, at #19 on the list, followed by the Caribbean, UK and former colonies, Mexico, Chile, more south Pacific islands, and so forth
4. Finally, after going through most of the "recognizable" names in the rest of the world, Europe, South America, and Asia, we finally get to Italy -- the pasta-eating capital of the world ; coming in at #90
5. second from the bottom, the country where little pasta (or any real food for that matter) is eaten, North Korea, or known more prosaically as the Democrate People's Republic of Korea, #191 in a list of 192 countries.
One would imagine that Denmark -- with all that candy consumption, all that pork consumption -- would rank among the top ten, along with the US, Canada, and the UK. Nope. Denmark is not among the top ten OECD countries.

In the top 20 of all global nations? Nope.

Top 50? Nope.

In the top 100? Nope.

Denmark is #107 (the list is only 192 countries long) and is nestled between Namibia and Switzerland, the home of chocolate. 30%+ of the US population is obese; most of the rest of the OECD countries report 24% of their population as obese.

Denmark 19%.

So, it looks like candy, bacon, and pasta are not the problem when it comes to obesity. Must be something else. Global warming?

About That Cut In OPEC Production --- May 27, 2017

Updates

June 4, 2017: Saudis just blowing smoke -- Bloomberg. Nice update of the three Motiva refineries: Port Arthur in Texas (Saudi Aramcco); Norco, Convent in Louisiana (Shell). The Shell refineries take very little Saudi Arabian oil; Port Arthur takes 238,000 bopd from Saudi Arabia (21% of all Saudi crude sales to the US. To the other two refineries, only 33,000 bopd sourced from Saudi Arabia.
Crude loading during June in Saudi Arabia will arrive off the U.S. coast between mid-July and mid-August. By then, refinery runs will already be at their seasonal peak and attention will be starting to turn towards the fall slowdown, which typically gets under way around the end of July. This may allow the Saudis to claim a seasonal downturn as evidence of cuts.
Bloomberg tanker tracking data shows Saudi crude exports to the U.S. in May at around 840,000 barrels a day. That is a drop of 160,000 barrels from April. Significant? Perhaps, but it only takes them back to where they were in January, the first month of the output deal.
May 28, 2017: perhaps the graph below explains why the Vienna meeting was a bust for OPEC. LOL.  
 
Original Post
 
Note how much higher OPEC production is today -- after the production cuts -- than it was in 2014, prior to the production cuts. I guess it's how one defines "production cuts."

Thought experiment: overlay this chart with US shale production during same period of time.