The Market, Energy, And Political Page, T+6 -- June 6, 2018

Making America great again: US trade deficit narrows to seven-month low on record exports. And tariffs haven't even begun to kick in yet. What trade war? I'm at my local homeless shelter so I cannot see how CNBC is reporting this. Yes, I know that common sense tells me that once the tariffs kick in, the trade deficit will widen immensely. So, we'll see.

Tariffs: speaking of the "trade war," apparently China has already made some concessions.

Birthday present for the wife, just a suggestion: this is really, really clever. This is the ultimate in customer loyalty. My hunch is that Elon Musk could easily do the same thing -- it would raise a steady stream of cash without a lot of downside. From Bloomberg:

Mercedes-Benz is starting a car-subscription pilot in two U.S. cities, joining brands from Jeep to Porsche in testing alternatives to traditional vehicle ownership.

The app-based service initially available to drivers in Nashville and Philadelphia has three pricing tiers ranging from $1,095 to $2,995 a month.

Subscribers will get access to 30 different models, from C-Class sedans to GLE sport utility vehicles, and can swap cars as often as they like, depending on what tier they choose.

Mercedes is joining a pack of automakers looking to appeal to younger customers by offering access to cars through service more analogous to how Netflix Inc. sells movies or Uber Technologies Inc. dispatches rides. It’s also challenging its biggest German rival head-on: BMW AG launched a subscription pilot -- also in Nashville -- in April that charges as much as $3,700 a month. 

Just last week, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV announced it would launch a servcie starting in 2019 with its Jeep brand.

Autos; this is 100% anecdotal, based on no actual scientific study; and has no "basis in fact," I guess, as they say. But driving around north Texas (Dallas-Ft Worth) two of the most common cars I see: the Nissan Rogue and any number of different Jeep models. Last night when I took our oldest granddaughter to her water polo practice, in a very upscale area, the lot was full of Jeeps, many of which had all their doors removed. I haven't seen many yet with their tops off. I completely missed it, but apparently the 11th annual Jeep's Go Topless Day was May 19th, 2018.

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Notes For The Granddaughters

Big bang or steady state? A nice review. The post appears to be part of a continuum of posts; from that post,one can move forward to newer articles or backward to older articles.