The Political Page, T+59 -- Trump's Steel Tariffs Starting To Have Desired Effect -- Op-Ed -- July 29, 2018

Updates

Later, 5:26 p.m. CDT: wow, look at this headline and story from CNN. Scott Adams noticed this past week that CNN seems to have changed its "tone." I'm seeing the same thing. This is quite interesting. And, then, of course, the publisher of NY Times requesting a meeting, and then getting a meeting, with President Trump. Trump simply wants credit where credit is due.

Original Post

Trump's steel tariffs: I have no idea who Jan van Eck is nor how reliable he might be but I assume he reports what he sees just as I report what I see.

From oilprice.com. I've archived the entire piece in case the post disappears.

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The Gap Grows

Peak oil? How US shale flipped the script in global oil markets. Over at oilprice.com again. Again, I've archived the entire piece in case the post disappears. Again, this article links to the 2018 global energy review by BP.

But the future played out differently than it seemed it would in the summer of 2008. Unbeknownst to most people, oil producers were experimenting with a marriage between two established oil drilling technologies — horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

The success of this marriage would unlock oil in tight oil and shale oil deposits that had previously been too expensive to recover, and would result in one of the greatest oil booms the world had ever seen. In fact, the “fracking revolution” caused U.S. oil production to turn upward in 2009, and then rise over the next seven years at the fastest rate in U.S. history.

While it is still true that OPEC produced 42.6 percent of the world’s oil in 2017, the majority of new oil production since 2008 has come from the U.S.

As I read that, my thoughts turned to the comments from two readers over at The WSJ:

The shale boys saved Obama from a total economic meltdown - now they shift into high gear. Amazing what creative people combined with private property can do. Meanwhile our "carbon footprint" keeps declining thanks to natural gas and not the government.

The shale drilling did save Obama from a complete economic meltdown - but he spent much of his 8 years fighting the pipelines to deliver the oil, he kept the USA from exporting LNG for 7 out of 8 years - but he worked really, really hard to make sure Iran pumped as much oil as possible ( so much for global warming) - makes one wonder whose side he was on? 

Wiki says the US oil and gas sector makes up 8% of the US GDP.

I've read recently that the oil and gas sector provides a third of Russia's revenues.

I assume, oil and gas contribute nearly 100% to Saudi's revenues.

I think it's important to consider that data when one looks at the graphs below, and when one does that, I think both Saudi Arabia and Russia face huge economic challenges going forward.

A third point: there's nothing to suggest that the graphic won't become even more remarkable when it's re-drawn ten years from now.

I have a bit of difficulty reconciling the above graph with the graph below which has been posted numerous times when it comes to Russia ... and then one looks at the x-axis on the graph above. Over ten years, Russia's production has only increased by one-half million bopd.

I've talked about this on numerous occasions over at "The Big Stories."

By the way, in the graphic at the top, what major continent/region is not even represented? Yup, Europe/the EU. One wonders with all the cutbacks on the continent whether the EU/Europe actually showed a decline. Of course, there's Great Britain and Norway -- but as I've noted a long, long time ago, Europe is truly at a tipping point. The most recent linked story at that site: Europe is importing a record amount of coal (February 22, 2018 -- earlier this year).

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The Apple Page

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Our oldest granddaughter has/had a very, very old iPhone 6. It's a "hand-me-down" from one of the parents, and may in fact be twice handed down before it got to her. It had a cracked  screen and was no longer holding a charge when she brought it to the local Apple store to have the battery replaced and the screen fixed.

When the Apple folks opened the iPhone they noted that the battery was "swollen" and completely distorted. They talked to the store manager and he said to just give Arianna a brand new out-of-the-box iPhone 6 at no charge. Not even charging what they could have for a) fixing the screen; and/or, b) replacing the battery. A brand new out-of-the box iPhone 6 at no charge.

I was quite impressed.

At the strategic level, corporate headquarters is giving local managers a lot of leeway.

At the tactical level, this tells me that boxes of iPhone 6's are still widely available but customers are moving up to newer models. If there was a shortage of iPhone 6's they would not easily give them away.

It will be interesting to see if this is validated in Apple's earnings, due to be reported after the market closes on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. Earnings forecast: $2.18.

If AAPL meets consensus, it will be the second best showing for the 3Q in the last several years: