Wells Coming Off Confidential List Wednesday, The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

• 23736, drl, BR, Bryce 41-5TFH,Westberg, no production data,
• 24902, 1,949, KOG, Smokey 3-17-20-14H, Pembroke, t1/14; cum --
• 25761, 1,810, MRO, Kathryn Kukla 14-34H, Murphy Creek, t12/13; cum 7K 12/13;

Active rigs:

	2/19/2014	02/19/2013	02/19/2012	02/19/2011	02/19/2009
Active Rigs	186	182	199	171	61

RBN Energy:  condensate splitters along the Gulf Coast; not much of a market for naphtha except perhaps as export.

 The Los Angeles Times

The response to this op-ed from one individual: things change, get over it. The op-ed: the "Tonight Show" is gone; OXY is going. LA needs a new game plan. I was unaware of this:

Websense left San Diego two weeks ago and took their 600 jobs to - are your ready?- Texas.  

Also two week ago Charles Scwab moved their entire financial company from San Francisco to Colorado. Even those in Bay Area are alarmed by Scwab moving. Whenever you mention to some that California is losing high-paying jobs by the thousands every month they say "but we have Google, Apple and Facebook." 

But what they don't realise is that those companies are not expanding here, they are bullding and hiring in Texas, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada.  According to the WSJ, California was #1 in poverty rates and #50 in small business start-ups in 2013.  We are quickly becoming a state of protected illegal peasants and low-wage jobs.  

Our governor?  Clueless.

Later this year Virgin will be testing space flight for regular people in New Mexico.  The company that developed the rockets and business plan did it in eastern Kern County in the Mojave desert.  They were hoping to blast off from there, but moved to New Mexico when California regulators made it impossible to remain.  Virgin has already hired 300 people. 

The Wall Street Journal

Inside Target, CEO struggles to contain giant cybertheft.  

Inside Target, Executives settled around a square table inside a Target Corp. conference room here earlier this month and munched on store-brand snacks as they chewed over something far less appetizing.

Opinion surveys commissioned by the company found that the massive cybertheft that waylaid Target late last year had knocked confidence and trust in the 51-year-old retailer to an all-time low.

Some of the executives were frustrated. Target was having trouble shaking the fallout from a key decision by the CEO that made the crisis appear even worse than it already was. The initial evidence had indicated that credit and debit card numbers of about 40 million Target customers had been stolen.

But the retailer had learned later that hackers gained access to partial names and physical or email addresses for as many as 70 million people—a breach that some top executives counseled against disclosing because it was unclear what kind of fraud danger it posed.

Nevertheless, Mr. Steinhafel insisted on making the bigger number public, sparking news reports that as many as 110 million Target customers had been affected. At the meeting, Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Jones groused about the huge number. The public "keeps hearing that equals one third of all Americans," he said. "That's hammering us." Mr. Steinhafel says he has no regrets about the aggressive disclosure and other costly decisions in the wake of the crisis. "Target won't be defined by the breach, but how we handle the breach," he says.

The phrase in bold above might explain why we have learned in dribs and drabs from Target what happened. At first they denied private information was taken, and then admitted that private information had been taken. And it only got worse. Later we learned that the CEO made the decision ten years not to go to chip technology (too expensive). Had Target taken the lead in chip technology ten years ago, it would have set the entire US retail market on a better security trajectory. And just this past week there were reports that federal agencies (FBI?) warned Target that it was, indeed, a Target.

The numbers were bad enough but it was the way Target handled the problem at the outset that was the problem, at least for us. I won't go through that again. Suffice it to say, my wife and I minimize our visits to Target, which used to be our favorite retailer, and never, never use a credit card there. The good news: we're spending less money each month. 

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Raising the minimum wage will result in fewer jobs; more poverty. That's the CBO analysis. The White House disagrees. I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's an interesting debate. For investors, at the end of the day, the minimum wage, like flaring in the Bakken, is a red herring. Employers will adjust. The most interesting argument that seems to be missing when discussing the minimum wage is the effect of ObamaCare. ObamaCare gave employers the green light to cost-shift their employees and retirees to private insurance and off the corporate healthcare program. That's worth ten times -- maybe more -- whatever becomes of the minimum wage. All I know is that raising the minimum wage will result in McDonald's putting in self-ordering kiosks which will result in the need for fewer employees. If one can order health insurance off the web, or check in at the airport at a kiosk, surely one can order a hamburger, French fries, and a Coke off a stand-alone Surface or iPad.

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The next big debate: student debt. 

The nation's sharp rise in student debt is being driven largely by Americans with poor credit.

Overall student debt rose 12% to $1.08 trillion in 2013, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a report released Tuesday.

Student debt is the second-largest form of household credit, after mortgages.

Student debt has risen rapidly since the recession, as many Americans enrolled in school to escape a weak labor market. Also, other funding sources—such as home equity and household savings—diminished after the housing crash, forcing a greater share of students to borrow.

The biggest promoter of education (and student loans): it's not rocket science. But not to worry: sometime over the next decade, the government will solve this problem also. LOL. My advice to those with huge student debt load: pay off just enough to keep out of trouble, but don't let it interfere with your life's plans. It's just a matter of time before the government finds a way to write off that debt for you. It will probably be the issue for the 2020 or 2024 presidential campaign.

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Well, this is interesting. Arkansas could scuttle ObamaCare? Maybe I'm misreading the story.  It never quits, does it?

The Arkansas House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to pass legislation to continue a state program that used Medicaid dollars to enroll low-income residents in private health insurance, throwing the future of the nationally watched program into doubt.

Arkansas last fall became the first state to begin offering a "private option" for low-income residents instead of enrolling them in Medicaid—the result of a compromise between state Republicans and Democrats about how to implement a key provision in the Affordable Care Act.

The private option was designed to appeal to conservative lawmakers who wanted to cut the number of uninsured people in the state and use federal dollars to do so, but believed the private sector could provide care more efficiently than Medicaid.

Too confusing for me, but something tells me this is not good. For someone.

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The Supreme Court will hear whether EPA has gone too far. Let's hope the court doesn't blow it this time.

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The Journal has a long, long article on Obamacare. This is the lede:  

The federal law upended existing health-insurance arrangements for millions of people. Companies worry about the expense of providing new policies, some hospitals aren't seeing the influx of new patients they expected to balance new costs and entrepreneurs say they may hire more part-time workers to avoid offering more coverage.

The law's true impact will play out over years. It will depend in part on whether backers overcome serious early setbacks, including crippling glitches in the new online insurance marketplaces and many states' rejection of the Medicaid expansion. But another obstacle the law faces is pushback from some consumers and industry over the higher costs, complex rules and mandatory requirements it imposes.

There is so much with regard to Obamacare one could devote an entire blog to the subject.  But the concepts and unintended consequences are pretty straightforward. It's not rocket science. The $12,000 annual deductible for a traditional husband-wife couple pretty much says it all. Oh, and the 30-hour work week.

40 hours at $8/hr = $320/week, minimum wage. 30 hours at $10.10 = $303/week, new minimum wage, Obamacare rules. And the employer will cost-shift the employee's health care premium.

It's no wonder that folks working for a minimum wage are panicking: on top of everything else, their hours are going to be cut. Maybe that explains all the interest in the minimum wage all of a sudden.

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Wow, this is interesting. Big day for news. Turkey -- a country that a lot of folks would consider pretty modern (considering), and pretty democratic (considering), and pretty progressive (considering) and now this: Turkey, the government, will now restrict web access. The new law will give the president sweeping powers to block websites and monitor user activity....wow. One does not need to read any further.

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And this is just the front section today.

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GM secures aluminum for trucks. It looks like Government Motors was caught off-guard by their former CEO yesterday when he called faor an acceleration in fuel standards for trucks.

General Motors Co. is accelerating efforts to field a largely aluminum-bodied pickup truck by late 2018, under pressure from federal fuel efficiency standards and archrival Ford Motor Co. according to people familiar with the matter.

The No. 1 U.S. auto maker recently locked-in supply contracts with Alcoa Inc. and Novelis Inc., which are now working to increase their aluminum sheet production to supply the next-generation GM pickup, the people said. Aluminum sheet for automotive bodies is in such high demand that companies need to order it years in advance.he push to develop what the industry calls an "aluminum intensive" large pickup marks an apparent change of direction for GM, which has pursued smaller and lighter weight steel-bodied trucks.

Before Ford's debut last month of its 2015 F-150, with a body made almost entirely of aluminum, GM executives questioned whether such a vehicle could be cost competitive or appealing to U.S. customers.

Instead, GM developed two small pickups, the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, to meet rising demand for better fuel economy. Those two vehicles are due to arrive on the market as 2015 models this year.

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Assistance for laid-off workers gets downsized.

As unemployment remains stubbornly high, one of the main tools companies use to help some laid-off workers find new jobs is shrinking. Outplacement used to be a way to help upper-level employees—usually managers and above—through a job loss and guide them toward new work. But where companies once paid outside firms for months of face-to-face coaching, job leads, office space and workshops, laid-off workers today get less help.

This caught me by surprise. DOE approves loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors in Georgia.

The Los Angeles Times

Really? The president will sign an executive order streamlining imports, exports. I wonder if that includes road salt for New Jersey?  Nope, too much to hope for. This is simply an executive order for a website that will operate just like Obamacare. LOL. Too much to hope for. An empty suit. The lede:

President Obama plans to sign an order Wednesday that officials say will cut the waiting time on permits to import and export goods "from days to minutes."

Currently, businesses submit information to dozens of government agencies, often on paper forms, and must then wait for days before moving goods across U.S. borders.

The changes to the International Trade Data System will let businesses send the required information electronically through a single portal before importing or exporting cargo, a White House official said Wednesday morning.‎

Obama's order will direct government agencies to complete work on the new system by December 2016, at the end of his term, the official said.

Yes, this will get mired in bureaucracy; won't happen in my investing lifetime. LOL.