Market, Energy, Political Page, Part 4, T+61 -- April 30, 2018

Just plain wrong: if the Iranians are desperate to save the deal, it tells you how bad the deal really is. And remember, the deal was made by Obama. Scott Adams has a great periscope on the Iran deal. From CNBC:

• French President Emmanuel Macron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone on Sunday and agreed to work save the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement
• Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were in Washington last week, tyring (sic) to persuade President Trump not to pull out of the Iran deal.
• Trump sees three defects in the agreement, and he's repeatedly threatened to tear up the 2015 accord. 

Things heating up in the Mideast. That's what the pundits say. How does one really know? Check the spot price of WTI. It's up 19 cents. Ho-hum.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here. If this is important to you, go to the source.

Disclaimer: I make a lot of simple arithmetic errors. I often see things that do not exist; I read quickly and miss important points. Sometimes it takes me days (maybe even weeks) to see where I was wrong.

Honduran caravan: already off the Drudge Report banner. Short-lived. If anyone has ever been through TSA at Chicago's O'Hare, one knows the ICE will manage the southern border just fine. But had it been me, I would have removed ICE from along the San Diego-Tijuana border; let Jerry Brown manage it. A few hundred additional Central Americans in southern California would hardly be a problem.

Wow, wow, wow! How many times have I discussed this on the blog. No matter how much or how little oil the Saudi's produce, their reserves have never changed. Until now. An international independent auditor says:

... the oil reserves of Saudi Aramco has more than confirmed the official figures released by Riyadh for three decades, putting the number at 270 billion barrels.

The figure may come as something of a surprise because for thirty years, Aramco has been reporting unchanged reserves of about 261 billion barrels despite active production. Yet barrels are not the only factor considered in an oil company’s valuation as Bloomberg Gadfly’s Liam Denning noted in an analysis earlier this year, even though they are an important indicator of the company’s long-term viability and profitability.

Comment: 270 is a nice round number. Easy to remember. But the number would have been more believable had the reserves come in at 274.3 billion bbls or maybe even 269.75 billion bbls.

Uruguay not invited to the dance: Uruguay's first oil auction in seven years failed to attract any bids.

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The "studio version" is available, but I wanted to "see" Emmylou. The video is of poor quality, but until I find a better version, here it is:

Save The Last Dance For Me, Emmylou Harris

I have no idea if there is any connection between New Mexico and Emmylou Harris but whenever I see her, she reminds me of New Mexico. Linda Ronstadt? Arizona, of course.

From wiki:

Harris is from a career military family. Her father, Walter Harris (1921-1993), was a Marine Corps officer, and her mother, Eugenia (1921-2014), was a wartime military wife. Her father was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war.

Hmmm. 1952. Sixty-six years later.