Tuesday, July 28, 2015 -- Part II -- Ford Posts Best Quarter In Its History

This week is the big week for earnings reports from the energy sector. NOV already reported this morning (beat by 13 cents) and SM and RRC will report after the market close. The one I'm really interested in is Hess tomorrow. I don't invest in Hess but it, along with a handful of others, is a bellwether for the Bakken.

This is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

Ford, from The Wall Street Journal:

Ford Motor Co. said steady demand for pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles pushed North American second-quarter profit to record levels, helping offset softer conditions in China and continued losses in Europe.

The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker said Tuesday it earned $1.9 billion in net profits during the quarter, a 44% increase compared with the same three-month period a year ago. The auto maker’s operating earnings of 47 cents per share solidly outpaced analyst expectations even as it saw revenue decline slightly to $37.3 billion due to the negative impact of foreign exchange.

Higher vehicle prices, aided by new products and consumer’s deciding to buy bigger vehicles amid low gas prices, helped the company’s core U.S. operation recover after a sluggish performance over the first three months of the year. Although the wider Chinese industry is weakening, Ford posted a record-high 4.6% market share in China and reported a slight profit in the Asia-Pacific region.

I wrote Don, after seeing these numbers:

Pretty incredible. I remember 6 - 12 months ago, pundits wondering if Ford's switch to aluminum was going to kill them, changing horses right in the middle of the production line / production year. 

44% increase year-over-year even better than Apples 38% yoy increase or whatever it was. Cheap, cheap oil (manufacturing costs) / cheap, cheap gasoline for its customers --- people like big SUVs and big pickup trucks.

More from TWSJ:

The results come less than a week after crosstown competitor General Motors Co. said demand for big trucks also supercharged its quarterly results. The U.S. rivals are striving to consistently maintain 10% operating margins in North America, and both companies surpassed that benchmark in the second quarter. 

With the surge in big gas guzzlers (SUVs and big pick-up trucks), the tea leaves suggest the US will hit an all-time gasoline demand record in August, 2015, this year, next month.

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Paglia: How Bill Clinton Is Like Bill Cosby

From Salon:

Right from the start, when the Bill Cosby scandal surfaced, I knew it was not going to bode well for Hillary’s campaign, because young women today have a much lower threshold for tolerance of these matters. The horrible truth is that the feminist establishment in the U.S., led by Gloria Steinem, did in fact apply a double standard to Bill Clinton’s behavior because he was a Democrat. The Democratic president and administration supported abortion rights, and therefore it didn’t matter what his personal behavior was.

But we’re living in a different time right now, and young women have absolutely no memory of Bill Clinton. It’s like ancient history for them; there’s no reservoir of accumulated good will. And the actual facts of the matter are that Bill Clinton was a serial abuser of working-class women–he had exploited that power differential even in Arkansas.  And then in the case of Monica Lewinsky–I mean, the failure on the part of Gloria Steinem and company to protect her was an absolute disgrace in feminist history! What bigger power differential could there be than between the president of the United States and this poor innocent girl? Not only an intern but clearly a girl who had a kind of pleading, open look to her–somebody who was looking for a father figure.

I was enraged!  My publicly stated opinion at the time was that I don’t care what public figures do in their private life. It’s a very sophisticated style among the French, and generally in Europe, where the heads of state tend to have mistresses on the side. So what? That doesn’t bother me at all!  But the point is, they are sophisticated affairs that the European politicians have, while the Clinton episode was a disgrace.

With regard to Paglia, back in 2010, I posted a note recommending her landmark book.

For those interested in the evoluton of western philosophy and Greek tragedy, there are two books that must be side-by-side in your personal library:

Sexual Personae, Camille Pagula, c. 1990
The Wooden Horse, Keld Zeruneith, c. 2007

Both are large books, best read once through to get an overview, and then to go back and read the portions that interest you most.

Paglia's book is a landmark book that covers the "art and decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson." To fully appreciate Sexual Personae one must be quite familiar with western literature.

The Wooden Horse is a comprehensive review of the evolution of human thought from Homer to Socrates. It really is very, very good. I think The Wooden Horse is a more scholarly book, but that is subject to debate.  The author is much more linear in his approach and thus easier to follow than Paglia's work.