The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 2, T+62 -- May 1, 2018; North Dakota #1 In Wheat, But Minneapolis Took The Profits

The Bakken vs Texas: The Houston Chronicle has a great op-ed regarding the Bakken -- "North Dakota struck oil, but Houston took the profits." A huge "thank you" to the reader who sent me the link. My reply:

The writer/op-ed probably captured the Bakken vs Texas exactly right. The question is whether "it" could have been any different. I really don't think so. 

And, oh, by the way, this story has not yet played out. There are still many more chapters to be written.

By the way, in the print media, the gravitas of an article is defined by a) where it is published; and, b) the length of the article. This is a very, very long op-ed.

One more thing: the reader made a great analogy regarding oil, North Dakota, and Texas: the very same thing occurred with regard to farming  -- North Dakota leads the nation in so many varieties of wheat production but Minneapolis took the profits: farming (wheat), North Dakota, and the Minneapolis milling industry.

Brilliant. And that's why I love to blog. Everyone comes up with "stuff" I never even thought of.

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Trump and Korea

Scott Adams: When Scott Adams is good, he is very, very good. When he is bad ...

Scott really, really has a great commentary today over on Twitter -- and it's very short -- a 4-minute monologue regarding "where" Trump wants the Korean-US summit to be held.

Trump has floated the idea of holding the summit on the DMZ. Scott explains why. Brilliant.

Bottom line: Scott says Trump would never float the idea of a summit on the DMZ unless the deal was already done.

• if the summit is held in Switzerland: they are still negoiating
• if the summit is held in the DMZ: they are ready to celebrate that the deal has been done

Scott says Trump is not going to show up to negotiate; he is going to a Korean summit to celebrate.

That's why it is taking so long to decide where the summit will be held: we don't know whether we are talking about negotiations or a celebration. 

Think about it, would Trump even float the idea of a summit at the DMZ if it was not all about a celebration? Wink, wink.

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Statoil: EPS of 45 cents vs 40 cents forecast; improved almost 30% from year earlier. Revenues surged and handily beat forecasts.

British Columbia. Blogging about the Trans Mountain pipeline project and the tiff between Alberta and British Columbia brought a fair amount of input/insight from one reader. It's really more than I can put on the blog -- it would open up too many discussions beyond the Bakken ... I have enough trouble as it is without getting even more distracted. Having said that, I have a better appreciation of the situation on the ground:

• "the BC culture" is very, very different from "the Alberta culture"
• Alberta: the Bakken; the Permian, west Texas,
• British Columbia: London's Chelsea or Kensington districts

• Comment: that's not going to change, and it really makes the  Trans Mountain pipeline project unlikely. 

Ford: April sales. Data here.

• Ford unit sales -4.7% to 204,651 to match the forecast from Edmunds. Retail sales were down 2.6% Y/Y during the month to 137,049 units
• passenger car sales -15% to 42,373 units
• SUV sales -4.6% to 69,940 units
• truck sales +0.9% to 92,338 units. F-Series sales +3.5% to 73,104 units
• the company ended the month with dealer stock of 579,699 units or 68 days' supply vs. 66 days' supply at the end of March

Someone made this comment at this link:

Simply masks the fact that F has written its end as a manufacturer by abandoning autos.

They'll morph into a non-manufacturer, marketing all imports and mostly Chinese made autos in 15 years or so.

After that, as Chinese nameplates angle to capture the middleman profit, F will disappear.

This is what happened to all mass market US electronics companies and will happen to all US large manufacturers in every industry.

F had to decide whether to retain engineering and manufacturing skill or turn into a financial engineering company, and they chose the latter. It's exactly the decision the country made as a whole back in the 90s, and here we are careening toward bankruptcy and a nation of musicians, social justice warriors, and paper pushers, with a mass of unemployed working class.