Thursday, August 20, 2015

Job watch: analysts forecast a drop in first-time claims this week. In fact, first-time claims jumped enough to result in the four-week average increasing for the first time in weeks, but Reuters still opines that "labor market is improving." Weekly applications rose 4,000 to 277,000 (expectations had been for applications to slip to 272,000). The four-week average rose for the first time in weeks, to 271,500, up 5,000, which is a pretty healthy jump for a four-week average.

Active rigs:

	8/20/2015	08/20/2014	08/20/2013	08/20/2012	08/20/2011
Active Rigs	75	191	184	199	193

RBN Energy: lack of pipeline throughways constrains Houston's incoming crude flows. (Archived.)

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Isn't Kyoto In Japan?

War on Coal? Japan appears to be sabotaging Obama. Politico is reporting:

Japan is now the planet’s top public financer of overseas coal plants, technology and mining.

Japan poured more than $20 billion into coal projects between 2007 and 2014—roughly a quarter of total international support for coal power. Since 2011, two of Japan’s main public financing arms have backed more than 22 gigawatts of new coal power from Vietnam to India to Chile. They’ve also put about $5 billion into coal mining projects around the world over the same period.

In 2013, by contrast, Obama dropped American support for public financing for new coal plants overseas, except where a plant uses carbon-capture technology or where a developing country has no other choice.

Especially with a major international climate negotiation on the horizon later this year, the divergence in policy has become an open diplomatic wound between the two countries.

Isn't Kyoto in Japan?