North Dakota's Financial Update -- August 20, 2015

Shale Plays Media is reporting:

Despite the precipitous drop in oil prices, North Dakota has increased savings by $3 billion over the past 12 months.

Bakken.com recently conducted an analysis of over 80 North Dakota funds and calculated the most recent balances to be in excess of $18.5 billion (see infographic).

This represents a 22 percent increase from $15.5 billion in 2014 and a 125 percent increase from $8 billion in 2011.

So how has North Dakota continued to substantially increase savings when oil and gas prices have fallen so dramatically? With no meaningful public debt, North Dakota is one of only 15 states that hold the S&P AAA credit rating.

In 2014 the total amount of oil extraction and production taxes collected was in excess of $3.2 billion. In addition to receiving tax revenue from oil and gas, the state owns over one million acres of land that generates income from royalties and leasing activities.

Even with lower oil prices, North Dakota has continued to produce over 1.2 million barrels of oil per day and still continues to collect a considerable amount of revenue from the petroleum industry.

From the linked site, the graphic (I'm not sure what "finincial" is):

 

***************************************

Moving Oreo Production to Mexico

I missed this. 

I gave up Oreos about six years ago. Created havoc with black carbs getting stuck in my teeth before retiring for the night. 

It matters not that it appears that the manufacturing plant for Oreos will move from the southwest side of Chicago to Mexico.

Southwest Chicago is fairly specific. Mexico is pretty general; it's a big country.

Whatever. 

In These Times is reporting:

Why give Oreos up? Because this week, Irene Rosenfeld, the head of Mondolez (the food conglomerate based in Illinois that has Nabisco in its portfolio), a woman touted for breaking the glass ceiling upon becoming the head of Kraft Foods and then its spin off, announced that rather than invest $130 million in modernizing the plant in Chicago, where Oreos have been lovingly produced for the past 100 years, she will instead move the jobs to a new factory in Mexico. The result: a loss of 600 well-paying and community-sustaining jobs on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

Is giving up Oreos a foolish and futile gesture? Of course, I know that other Chicago-born companies have made similar moves. I, like many Chicagoans felt a loss when Frango Mints were no longer hand made on the top floor of Marshall Field’s—and felt worse when Marshall Field’s ceased to exist at all. I was saddened when Klaus Suchard chose to take Brach candy production from Chicago, and in so doing ended Chicago’s title as candy capital of the world. I even regretted the loss of the city’s steel mills and stockyards, despite the cleaner air that their exodus brought.

I don't know what all the hand-wringing is about. Moving these jobs to Mexico,

• might keep more Mexicans in Mexico than coming to the US
• might further reduce the carbon footprint of the US as we move "manufacturing" jobs down south

And so it goes.