Graphics Have Been Added To The Update On An EOG Mandaree Well -- July 31, 2017

Link here.

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European Refinery Shut Down Due To Explosion/Fire

Updates

August 1, 2017: this is Europe's largest refinery; earliest re-start, late August, 2017; Shell has also declared force majeure on supplies of solvents from Pernis, several of the company's customers said Tuesday.

Original Post 

Data points from Oil & Gas Journal:

• a Shell refinery in the Netherlands (Rotterdam)
• 400,00 bopd capacity
• power outage over the weekend --> explosion --> fire --> decision to shut down entire operation
• power failure occurred in a high-voltage power station

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Amazon

Updates

August 16, 2017: nope, I was right the first time. I guess I wasn't so dense. President Trump is upset that consumers don't pay taxes when ordering from Amazon. That's a bit of a lie. Third-party sellers do not collect taxes on their sales in (some/most/all) cases. But Amazon itself does charge state sales tax; collects that tax; and, reimburses the states on items that Amazon sells. Like many things, Trump is making a mountain out of a mole hill. South Carolina is suing Amazon for $12 million in back taxes for the first three months in 2016. Trump tweeted this early in the morning on August 16, 2017:

Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!

Trump's fascination with this issue is becoming tiresome.
 

Original Post

 

I finally get it. Wow, am I dense. I completely misunderstood President Trump when he said Amazon did not pay any taxes. I thought he was talking about charging taxes on products they sold. I'm not the only one. Brick-and-mortar retailers complain that Amazon has an advantage by not paying taxes, obfuscating the issue by suggesting that retailers have to charge sales tax at point of sale in most states whereas alleging that Amazon does not.

The whole thing is an apple-and-oranges issue.

Amazon collects state sales tax at point of sale on the products they sell (that is not always true for third party sellers selling through the Amazon site -- that's yet another issue).

The issue Trump has problem with: Bezos is the richest or second richest man in the world, and yet his main company, Amazon, as a whole, "generally" does not pay federal corporate income taxes because it "always" shows a loss.

I probably don't articulate it as well as I wish I could but I think it can be understood what I'm trying to say. The "light went on" when listening to an analyst talking about Amazon and the FANG stocks and Apple on CNBC this morning.