Wednesday's News

The Wall Street Journal

DC votes to raise minimum wage to $11.50 by 2016, and index it to inflation thereafter.  Great news; we will finally see McDonald's move to some better technology. It should be fun.

Talk about tilting at windmills. By the time this is resolved, new policies will be in force. If folks really, really, really want their old policies back, wait until the see the "new, revised, improved premiums." The Journal reports that states are divided on letting insurers extend old health policies. But it's a non-story. The insurers won't do it. Example: the map shows that the North Dakota commissioner will allow it, but BC/BS says that's BS. [WallStreet Cheat Sheet has a similar story; perhaps longer; perhaps more partisan if that's possible.]

the other day, I can't remember if I posted it, it was reported that the Bakken will greatly affect Russia's oil and gas industry (as well as OPEC's). Today we see some evidence of that. The Journal is reporting Russia is cutting its growth forecast for the next two years. Substantially. The Russian economy is expected to grow at its slowest pace in 2013 since Vladimir Putin came to power. The economy ministry also cut its forecasts for 2014 and 2015.

Brazil, too, is falling.  Off-shore oil not panning out so well? Brazil's third-quarter GDP contracted 0.5% on quarterly basis, more than expected, on falling investments and stagnating manufacturing. Just in time for the summer Olympics.

 Taper? Don't hold your bated breath. OECD global inflation rate falls further. The annual rate of inflation across the world's largest economies fell for a third straight month in October, suggesting central banks may have to continue or further stimulus efforts to avert the threat of deflation.

This story has been reported many times on the blog. This particular story was posted/linked earlier, after being sent to me by a reader. This is the first time I noted it in the paper itself. Whatever. Today's WSJ update: oil climbs in price as opening of Keystone XL pipeline draws near. I guess TransCanada is going to call the Keystone XL 2.0 South pipeline its Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline. I think RBN Energy had a slightly different name, CMP?

One of the more confusing features of the Keystone Gulf Coast Pipeline is what to call it – the name seems to change in real time. That is probably due to a desire to disassociate the southern Gulf Coast section of the pipeline from delays in permitting the Canada to US Keystone XL pipeline. Owner and operator TransCanada most recently set up a subsidiary to operate the pipeline called Marketlink LLC and it should now apparently more properly be called the Cushing Marketlink Pipeline so we will go with CMP as an abbreviation.