The Market And Energy Page, T+38 -- February 28, 2018

PentagonAmazon: ya gotta love it. From nextgov.com --

In early February, a small Virginia-based company—REAN Cloud—that partners with Amazon Web Services announced a nearly $1 billion deal to provide cloud computing services for the Defense Department.

The contract caught many industry players by surprise, in part due to the $950 million value and partly because it was awarded without a traditional government procurement. This deal may be a harbinger for how the Defense Department plans to purchase certain technologies moving forward.

Using buying powers quietly imbued by Congress over the past three years, U.S. Transportation Command made the award to REAN Cloud under an other transaction production contract based on a prototype project last year to migrate military applications to Amazon Web Services GovCloud region. The contract is a type of other transaction authority, commonly called an OT or OTA.

Led by the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, which acts as a liaison between the Pentagon and industry, the Defense Department is targeting non-traditional suppliers to rapidly provide cutting-edge commercial technologies that address national security and military challenges.

Boston: if I had all the money in the world, I would have two (town) homes in eastern Massachusetts. One in downtown Boston and one along the North Shore (think Gloucester) or at the end of Cape Cod (think Provincetown). I'll have to settle for the next best thing, I guess. LOL. I'm going to subscribe to the digital edition of the Boston Globe. I would like the print edition but they don't mail their newspaper to subscribers as far as I can tell. We loved the Boston Globe when we visited Massachusetts, and among the on-line newspapers, both my wife and I think it is the best.

BostonAmazon: speaking of Boston, some big things are happening. Headline story in the Boston Globe today: "Amazon set to bring at least 2,000 more jobs to the Seaport. In an effort separate from the company's search for a second headquarters, Amazon is poised to lease a massive new office space in Boston's Seaport District and hire at least 2,000 employees in the city over the next few years." Warren Buffett, in his treacly interview with Becky Quick admitted that he "missed" buying shares in Amazon and now he felt it was too late. Color me "not impressed." Amazon's upside is incredibly better than what I see in Wells Fargo. Oh, that's right -- I'm reminded: Amazon doesn't pay dividends. And Buffett loves dividends -- as long as they are not from his company.

Logan Airport: from the Boston Globe today, "How Logan Airport bounced back from the snowstorm that crippled JFK."

Crime and Corrections: the Boston Globe notes that on the just-released "best states" list compiled by US News, Massachusetts dropped from 1st last year to 8th this year, and the Boston Globe had a very, very good article regarding the survey/ranking. I agree with the Tufts professor who said, "garbage in, garbage out." He noted that US News changed the weighting of the criteria on which the states were based. Topping the list was ... Iowa. North Dakota was number 4. North Dakota would have moved higher on the list, possibly to #1, had its "crime and corrections" been rated better. As it was, here's the "crime and corrections" rating for selected states (the lower the number, the better the state scored): the state ranked #1 for "crime and corrections" / best in the country was Maine. North Dakota was ranked among Maryland (think Baltimore) and Texas and not much better than Florida). Other selected states, "crime and corrections":

The best:

• Maine: 1
• New Jersey: 3
• Massachusetts: 5 
• New York: 10
• Minnesota: 11
• Iowa: 15

In the middle:

• North Dakota: 23 (20 spots below New Jersey; 13 spots below New York; in same group as Baltimore) and not much better than Florida
• Maryland (think Baltimore): 26
• Texas: 27 

The bottom:

• Florida: 31 (didn't they just have a school shooting recently? like the worse in US history?) 
• California: 32
• Montana: 36
• South Dakota: 40
• Nevada: 44
• Missouri (think St Louis): 45

This is what's wrong with the criteria:

• no one cares about the fiscal stability of a state when they are deciding where to live
• the eight criteria that Americans would like to see in their state
• beaches for sun-bathing, and swimming
• longer summers, shorter winters, less snow
• malls
• winter downhill skiing
• low tax rates
• McMansions for the price of bungalows
• abundant, uncongested freeways and highways; roller-skating asphalt trails along the ocean
• inexpensive gasoline; cheaper liquor

Use those eight criteria and I can guarantee you the rankings will change.

Most glaring, of course, was "crime and corrections." "Tough on crime" states fared much worse. Sanctuary states scored better. Remember, this was a US News survey/ranking.