Idle Musings; Off The Net For Awhile; Going Valentine's Day Shopping

Just a few thoughts.

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The CBR story is on the back burner ... until the next derailment. [Later, 12:43, p.m., right on cue: a crude oil / propane-carrying Norfolk Southern Railway train derails near Pittsburgh, PA. No fire, minimal leakage. Local media event.] [Later: update at The New York Times:

A 120-car Norfolk Southern train carrying heavy Canadian crude oil derailed and spilled in western Pennsylvania on Thursday ....

There were no reports of injury or fire after 21 tank cars came off the track and crashed into a nearby industrial building at a bend by the Kiskiminetas River in the town of Vandergrift. Nineteen of the derailed cars were carrying oil, four of which spilled between 3,000 and 4,000 gallons of oil, Norfolk Southern said. The leaks have since been plugged. Two other derailed tank cars held liquefied petroleum gas.]

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The LSS pricing story is going to be the big story/challenge for the Bakken. 

With the huge turn in the market today, from down over 100 points at the opening to positive territory now, it's hard not to remain optimistic. The consensus in our Starbucks coffee group yesterday -- one financial adviser -- not me -- is that the market will go up 10% this year. The gap will widen between the "haves" (the investors and the "have-nots" (the non-investors).

The "jobs" story hasn't changed for five years, and won't change this year. For investors, long-term joblessness has been baked into their calculations. The Fed will try very hard to "stay the course" but a new Fed chairwoman will not want to be blamed for the losses in November. Inflation is not a short-term concern (except there is NOT enough inflation for growth); jobs are the concern. By the end of the summer, benefits for long-termed unemployed will be reinstated.

It appears this will be the year for oil companies to re-trench a bit: less CAPEX; will concentrate on strengthening their cash flow. I was surprised there were no big M&A stories coming out of the Bakken last year, and will be even more surprised if there is no big M&A Bakken story this year.

Immigration will not be a big story this year.

Eventually, not this year, maybe next year, perhaps going into the 2016 election, the big story will be the huge student loan problem. I look for the government to provide relief in this arena also. If I had a huge student loan, I would pay just enough to keep me out of trouble, but start investing what I could, feeling pretty comfortable that the government will eventually have to step in. 

Obamacare: the future of Obamacare becomes clearer. It will be delayed, and delayed. The word on the street is that the individual mandate will be delayed in the next month or so. Even if it is not, the "word on the street" is what matters. By now, the insurers have missed two months of premiums by those who have not signed up. The insurers will get a huge bailout this year. The health care insurance industry will be in a shambles by October, 2014, as insurers try to figure out how to calculate premiums for 2015. Most of ObamaCare will be delayed, but the rules (no pre-existing clause; no annual cap) will remain in force. Unions will drive Obamacare going into the November, 2014, elections -- i.e, the ENTIRE corporate mandate will be delayed until after the 2016 elections. Americans will continue to muddle through Obamacare: the genie cannot be put back in the bottle. The country will probably return to "business as usual" with regard to health care except for two Obamacare "successes": a) no pre-existing clauses; b) no annual cap. The insurers will simply be pass-through entities as the national government silently becomes the single payer (it will start out as a bailout each year for the first few years, until the next president simply calls it what it is).