Excellent Article On Ford And Why The CEO Resigned -- May 23, 2017

Over at Business Insider. The article provides insight about Ford's decision to accept Mark Field's decision to retire. It also provides insight on the relationship between Ford and Silicon Valley. In addition, we get insight into where the phenomenon of driverless vehicles is headed (essentially nowhere for quite some time). There's even a bit of Apple, Uber, and Lyft in the article. And, finally, for me, some investment ideas.

Archived. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.

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

Food Stamps

"Historically," about 24 million Americans on "food stamps."

At the height of the recent Bush-Obama recession, 46 million Americans were on "food stamps."

Today, with full employment and markets at new highs, 44 million American remain on "food stamps."

The numbers (in millions) are +/- a few million, but the point is made. From an OMB budget briefing.

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

The Road To Egypt

From Joshua Hammer's essay, "Egypt: The New Dictatorship," in the current issue of The New York Review of Books.

In the norther Sinai Peninsula, an Islamic State-affiliated group called Sinai Province has launched an alarming number of attacks on security forces in recent months.

International peacekeepers describe the fighting in Sinai as starting to resemble the conflict in Afghanistan, with a commmitted army of religious fundamentalists, rocket and sniper attacks on foreign military observers, and defections by government troops angered by the state's persecution of Islamists.

Some Egyptian intelligence officials believe that Jihadists, facing pressure in other parts of the Middle East, are intent on opening a new front in Egypt. Man of the six hundred Egyptians believed to have fought with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have apparently abandoned the conflict in recent months and drifted home. With its erratic security forces, proximity to other jihadist battlefields, large Christian minority, repression of Islamists, and large population of Muslims unmoored and angered by the authoritarian rule of [General Abdel Fattah el-] Sisi, Egyp may present a rich opportunity for jihad.  

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

The Map Page

The "Nine-dash Line." From The New York Review of Books, "Recreating China's Imagined Empire, Ian Johnson, April 20, 2017.

Between 2013 and 2015 China built more than three thousand acres of new land in the South China Sea by occupying and expanding shoals and reefs just off the coast of the Philippines into islands big enough to support radar stations, runways, and docks for its growing navy. In the Spratlys alone it built 1.1 square miles (or about seven hundred acres) of new land; all the original islands and reefs in that island chain only covered two square miles.

Had I never blogged about the Bakken, I most likely would have never had a "feel" for 1.1 square miles. 

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

Landslide

It appears that the Pacific Coast Highway - at least some of it is going to be closed for quite some time. I assume Governor Brown will ask for federal money to help open/repair the road.

Video here.