It Only Took Five Years (And Trillions In Stimulus) -- December 23, 2014; North Dakota Remains #1 In Job Creation

North Dakota is #1 in job creation -- story over at Bakken.com:

Boosted by an oil and gas boom, North Dakota’s jobs total grew by 4.8 percent between December 2013 and November of this year, the largest increase of any state. Texas’s employment growth ranked second at 3.7 percent, and Utah was third at 3.4 percent.  

But this I found most interesting, going into the 7th year of the North Dakota Bakken boom:

North Dakota’s unemployment rate remained constant despite its job growth because of a huge influx of new workers.

They keep coming.

And they wouldn't keep coming to North Dakota if the rest of the US economy was growing at ... say ... 5%. Or would they? $110,000 annual salary in North Dakota vs $25,000 elsewhere? Maybe.

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Tweeting about 11:40 a.m. Pacific Time: small earthquake measuring 2.6 struck the Huntington Beach, CA, area at 11:32 am PT. No injuries or damage reported. My brother-in-law/wife live in Huntington Beach. And yes, they are drilling for oil in the Huntington Beach area; that's probably the reason, though folks still have time to blame George W.

Coal industry happy with EPA decision -- fly ash is a non-hazardous waste; will let states, rather than federal government regulate disposal. This is incredibly important in the Bakken. Flatbed trucks are seen daily hauling fly ash out to drilling sites. The Dickinson Press is reporting:

As environmentalists decried the decision, North Dakota’s lignite coal industry welcomed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision Friday to classify coal ash as non-hazardous waste.

A hazardous waste designation would have cost each of the state’s eight coal-fired power plants millions of dollars in operational changes and could have been the “final nail in the coffin” for some facilities, said Jason Bohrer, president of the Bismarck-based Lignite Energy Council. 

The EPA began assessing the health risks and storage of coal ash after a dam failed at a Tennessee plant in December 2008, spilling 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash that flooded more than 300 acres, polluted rivers, destroyed homes and forced the evacuation of a nearby neighborhood.

On Friday, the agency classified coal ash in the same category as garbage and sludge from wastewater treatment plants, while also requiring regular safety inspections for coal ash impoundments and landfills and monitoring of nearby groundwater for signs of toxic elements such as mercury, cadmium and arsenic found.

The same environmenalists made no mention of 38 golden eagles killed by slicers and dicers in two counties in Wyoming; previously reported.

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The next big thing. Regular readers know my fascination with Netflix (I've never invested in Netflix; never have, never will). Now this story today from Yahoo!Finance:

Giving someone a plastic gift card for a digital streaming-video service might seem as odd as sending a virtual fruitcake. 

Yet Netflix gift cards, available for the first time in recent months, have emerged as a hot holiday item, with spot shortages striking the handful of retail stores Netflix Inc. is using to distribute them. 

In Manhattan, the cards seem to have been sold out for the past several days at Staples Inc. and GameStop Corp. locations, the only chains in the borough that carried them.

When asked about the Netflix cards Monday, a saleswoman at a GameStop in downtown Manhattan asked, “What is it with this epidemic?”

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The GDP Story

I love the lede. Yahoo!Finance is reporting:

This is what’s supposed to happen after a recession. It’s just five years later than expected.

The economy (measured by GDP) grew 5%, adjusted for inflation, from July through September, after 4.6% growth in the prior quarter, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. One three-month period of turbocharged growth might be a fluke, but two is fairly convincing. The recovery that’s been limping along since mid-2009 finally seems to be hitting its stride.

Revised 3Q14 GDP up to 5%.

GDP best in a decade: NY Times. This is an incredible story. It's time to start thinking about repealing that 3-term Presidential limit. Hillary might do as well for the economy, but it's Elizabeth Warren that could get the Dow to 20,000. Seriously, however one looks at it, a GDP of 5% is quite incredible. However, if I understand it correctly, that's the growth rate. If the economy is so far down, growing so slowly, I don't suppose it takes a lot to make the percent growth increase. Economists will say it better than I can. But the mainstream media spin puts us in a great Christmas -- repeat, Christmas mood.

Stocks rally; Dow over 18,000; new record.

How Warren Buffett crushed the S&P in 2014. Bullish on America.

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What Joe Cocker stole from Ringo.

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Energy Stories 

From Yahoo!In-Play: natural gas futures tank; drop 33 cents to $3.14.

From Yaho!In-Play: Chesapeake sells assets to Southwestern Energy; Chesapeake announces $1 billion stock buyback plan.

Natural gas glut isn't deterring Southwestern Energy.

WONDERVIEW, Ark. — Across the giant Fayetteville shale gas field here, country roads that were clogged by truck traffic just a few years ago are empty again. Once aglow at night from the bright lights twinkling on drilling rigs, the roads are now dark under the starry Arkansas sky.

Virtually all of the few remaining rig and frack crews belong to one survivor: Southwestern Energy, a stubborn believer in the future profitability of natural gas.

“I’d rather have the gas to myself with no one following,” Steven Mueller, Southwestern’s chief executive, said last month as he watched his rig hands pull pipe and mud from a new natural gas well here in northern Arkansas.

Mr. Mueller hardly needs to look back. With the price of natural gas plunging along with oil in recent weeks, virtually no one is following his lead outside of Southwestern. Twelve of the 13 rigs still drilling among the chicken farms and cattle ranches are Southwestern’s. The 45 other rigs — once operated by giants like Chesapeake Energy, BHP Billiton and Exxon Mobil’s XTO Energy a few years ago, when natural gas prices were more than twice as high — are gone.

 
Bakken banks outperform rest of banks in North Dakota and Montana.

CLR to have only 11 rigs in the Bakken.

Oil prices likely to stay low as Saudi Arabia tries to "smoke out" US.

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Military Retiree Shops Commissary For First Time In Years 

Amazed At Innovations ... Like Digital Pricing

First time back in a military commissary in quite some time. Broccoli 79 cents/lb vs $1.79/lb at Albertson's in south LA. Yoplait 10 for $5 vs 10 for $7 at Albertson's in south LA. Bananas 59 cents/lb vs  89 cents/lb at Albertson's in south LA. Pretty much tells the story. Oh, a gift box of brand-name chocolate at $29.99 in the "real world," priced at $19.99 at the commissary -- not a sale price; regular price.

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One Pawn At A Time 

The chess game continues, one pawn at a time, including perhaps one en passant. The AP is reporting:

Russia and four other ex-Soviet nations on Tuesday completed the creation of a new economic alliance intended to bolster their integration, but the ambitious grouping immediately showed signs of fracture as the leader of Belarus sharply criticized Moscow.