Chesto Over At The Boston Globe; Occasional-Cortex Feeling Their Pain -- Already Backpedaling On Amazon; Regrets Being Responsible For Costing NYC 25,000 Jobs -- March 5, 2019

From Chesto over The Boston Globe:

• Dominion may close Millstone nuclear plant for good a few years from now; long, long story; located in Connecticut; New England's biggest power plant might be forced to close; can't be run economically; the plant plays a role in curbing carbon emissions without requiring an expensive new project to be built; a key component of New England's electricity grid; emergency of cheap natural gas has made it harder for nuclear to compete; competitive pressures prompted Entergy to shut its Vermont Yankee nuke, and its Pilgram reactor in Plymouth goes off line this spring; Exelon was able to "save" Mystic; Exelon could reap as much as $200 million in payments from New England ratepayers annually, over a two-year period that ends in 2024; the wave of plant closures has prompted ISO New England to rethink the way it handles its electricity markets; 
• Purdue Pharma bankruptcy: the company behind OxyContin is preparing a bankruptcy filing as it seeks to limit its liabilities from hundreds of lawsuits; I think I've blogged about Purdue before;
• Dreyfus mutual funds with $63 billion in assets will be renamed as BNY Mellon funds; BNY Mellon will keep the Dreyfus name for its money market funds;
• Instant Pot: the make of Pyrex and Corning War has acquired Instant Pot; Pyrex parent Corelle Brands said it plans to merge with Instant Brands, the Canadian producer of electric multicookers such as the Instant Pot that have taken the Internet by storm.
• Movers and shakers are talking about the 10-year bull market. Nothing lasts forever. Talk of recession no time soon, but possible in 2020; labor shortage hurting growth in Boston; Massachusetts tax receipts lagging but not yet a big deal; the state has $2 billion in its rainy day fund, thanks in part to a capital gains-related windfall last year.
• Chesto noted the tumble that GE took today, back below $10/share; industrial division will have negative cash flow in 2019;
• Target: the retail is on a roll -- sales growth of 5% at stores open at least a year, its strongest same-store growth since 2005; online sales surged 36%; CEO says he is not afraid of Amazon; probably a better way to say it: "we respect Amazon, but we are not afraid of Amazon."

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Odds and Ends

Over at Powerline, I completely missed this one. I read it quickly; I may have misread it, but apparently the US Supreme Court says that a baker can refuse to bake a cake for anyone he/she chooses. 

Also at Powerline, the folly of solar energy -- a Minnesota tale. Hardly worth posting; preaching to the choir.

From one of the best environmental blogs on the net, Montana:

... and Montana, 79 degrees colder than 1910. I can't make this stuff up.

The wildlife photos at this site are simply incredible. Take some time to explore.

Over at ZeroHedge, it is being reported that Occasional-Cortex is backpedaling; says she now regrets costing NYC 25,000 jobs. I think folks forget how hard Long Island City/NYC worked to attract Amazon, and all the celebrating when NYC was announced as the winner. And then the -- to coin a phrase used by another pundit -- pompous little twit scuttled the deal. If her constituents elect her to a second term, they get what they deserve, or is it, they deserve what they get?

We will quit here but the non-Bakken featured blogs linked at the sidebar at the right are simply some of the best blogs out there.