July 15, 2014 -- Main Street / Wall Street; Miscellanous News From The Bakken And Elsewhere; OPEN BORDERS A Resounding Success --WND

Main Street

This is kind of interesting -- the linked article below -- the opening sentence says it all: "... overall retail sales increased far less than economists expected" and then the writer spends the rest of the article trying to tell us things are actually going quite well...

USA Today is reporting:

Overall retail sales increased 0.2% in June, far less than economists expected. But sales excluding autos, gasoline, building materials and food services jumped a better-than-expected 0.6%. Economists say that closely watched measure feeds more directly into economic growth.

Sales of general merchandise, clothing, sporting goods and non-store retail items all rose solidly. Also encouraging: retail sales for April and May were revised upward.
Still, sales so far this year are up 3.8% at an annual pace vs. 4.2% in all of 2013.
"It's just modest growth," Greg Daco, chief U.S. economist of Oxford Economics says of Tuesday's data. "It's not the breakout report."

Many economists expected consumers to spend more freely this year, driving a stronger recovery. Consumer spending makes up nearly 70% of the economy. Higher household wealth — a result of a roaring stock market and rising home prices — and sharply reduced consumer debt were expected to fuel the increased outlays.

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Wall Street

Triangle Petroleum announces pricing of $450 mln offering of senior notes; increased from previously announced $350 mln due to high demand: aggregate principal amount of 6.75% senior unsecured notes due 2022. The Notes were sold at par. The size of the offering was increased to $450 mln from the previously announced $350 mln due to high demand.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you've read here or think you may have read here. 

Occidental Petro names Marshall D. Smith as Chief Financial Officer of California Resources: Following its separation from Occidental, California Resources Corporation will be an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company focused on high-growth, high-return conventional and unconventional assets exclusively in California.

Dominion's subsidiary, Dominion Virginia Power, to install Northern Virginia's largest solar energy project to date at Prologis Concorde Distribution Center: Dominion Virginia Power will install more than 3,000 solar panels capable of generating more than 800 kilowatts of electricity -- enough to power nearly 200 homes -- at the Prologis (PLD) Concorde Distribution Center in Sterling, Va. The panels will be installed on the rooftops of two adjacent buildings on its campus and will cover nearly 102,000 square feet.

Trading at new highs: BK, CSX, INTC, KOG, MSFT, WLL.

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Hoping The Stars Align

Philly.com is reporting:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is set to rule this summer on Dominion's application to export up to 770 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from Maryland, the closest export outlet for producers in Pennsylvania's booming Marcellus Shale region.

"Thanks to technological advances, the U.S. has enough natural gas to meet not only America's consumer demand, but also to export some supply in the form of LNG without significant impacts on domestic prices," Diane Leopold, president of Dominion Energy, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee panel in May.

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Chinese Economy Expanding

At least their economy expanded... more than one can say about the US economy, 1Q14. Reuters is reporting:

Asian stocks held stubbornly steady on Wednesday after China reported economic growth that was just ahead of market expectations, drawing a sigh of relief from investors rather than outright applause. China's economy expanded by 2.0 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter, taking annual growth to 7.5 percent. "

The US economy "collapsed" (their word, not mine) in 1Q14.

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Developing Mexico's New Shale Oil Fields

The Dallas Morning Herald is reporting:

Pemex officials believe shale has the potential to provide Mexico with more oil and gas than the country has produced since it first struck oil in the early 20th century. “Mexico has the sixth largest gas shale fields in the world. And you’re all welcome to come join the exploration opportunities,” Emilio Lozoya, Pemex chief executive officer, told an energy conference in Houston in March.

Developing those resources would require up to $1.2 trillion in capital spending, according to an analysis earlier this year by Goldman Sachs. By way of comparison, the world’s four largest publicly traded oil companies spent less than $180 billion worldwide last year.

The hope at the highest echelons of Mexican politics and business is that development of the energy reserves will not only boost government revenue but expand the country’s industrial and manufacturing economy far beyond anything envisioned 20 years ago, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted.

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ObamaCare: A Washington Success -- Paul Krugman

The Weekly Standard is reporting:

In March 2010, Obamacare was about to be voted upon by the House of Representatives, and the Democrats were in the process of deciding whether to ignore public opinion at their peril.  At that time, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that Obamacare would cost $938 billion over a decade and would reduce the number of uninsured people by 19 million as of 2014 (with a reduction of 1 million prior to 2014 and 18 million in 2014 alone).  Unimpressed, the American people overwhelmingly opposed the intrusive overhaul — with 20 of 21 polls taken that month showing it to be unpopular, most of them by double digits. The Democrats willfully passed Obamacare anyway and lost 63 House seats that November. 

Two years later, the Supreme Court declared Obamacare’s coercive Medicaid expansion to be unconstitutional as written, and the CBO adjusted its projection for the number of uninsured accordingly. 

The CBO projected that Obamacare would reduce the number of uninsured by 14 million as of 2014 (2 million before 2014 and 12 million in 2014 alone), at a 10-year cost of $1.677 trillion — or $739 billion more than the 2010 projection.  (This February, the CBO projected that Obamacare’s 10-year cost would eclipse $2 trillion.)

The op-ed goes on, and then this:

Yet Paul Krugman says that “health reform is — gasp! — working.”  Only in Washington could something that fails to hit even half of its original target be considered a gasp-inducing success. 

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OPEN BORDERS Policy a Resounding Success -- WND

Of the tens of thousands of communities across the United States, only a handful of communities -- perhaps a dozen or less -- are protesting the relocation of immigrants streaming across the border. The vast majority of US communities have not reacted and are probably ready and waiting with OPEN ARMS to accept these future US citizens. WND is reporting only eleven cities that have concerns (and in one city it's just the "south side").

It appears that this is a two-step program:

• OPEN BORDERS: entering the US
• OPEN ARMS: relocation  

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"Most Expensive Music Video Produced At The Time" -- Fleetwood Mac, Opus Collection

Gypsy, Fleetwood Mac

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Pulling A Bergdahl

Whenever Hamas and Israel have reached this point in the past, the US has stepped in and convinced Israel it was in its best interests to "stop." This time the US is silent.

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Never Mind

By the way, all those kids streaming across the border under the president's OPEN BORDERS policy has little, if anything, to do with Central American violence. Another inconvenient truth. 

Runaway/Crime Story, Del Shannon