Idle Rambling On A Tuesday Night -- September 17, 2019

Remember how quaint this article seemed when it first appeared?

Link here. From Investor's Business Daily:

The U.S. topped Saudi Arabia in oil exports in June as Riyadh complied with OPEC's production cut deal and shale production surged.

Crude oil prices fell.

Already the No. 1 producer of oil, the U.S. exported nearly 9 million barrels per day of crude and oil products in June, beating Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Saudi Arabia then retook the U.S. as top producer in July and August as hurricanes forced halts to production and shipments. But the U.S. could reclaim the title of top oil exporter later this year. The IEA said crude exports alone could rise 33% from June levels to as much as 4 million barrels a day as new export infrastructure comes online in Q4.

LOL.

When was that? September 12, 2019.

LOL.

I remember making a big deal out of the US "briefly" being the #1 global exporter of oil and petroleum products. I don't want to forget that second part, "... and petroleum products."

I got a lot of push back / blow back for being so inappropriately exuberant about the US "briefly" being ...

That was September 12, 2019.

Then, September 13, 2019. Force majeure declared by Sempra ...

And, then September 14, 2019, 4:00 a.m. local time, 10 - 20 Iranian drones and/or cruise missiles knock out of half of Saudi's production, or something like that ...

So, even before Iran took out 5.7 million Saudi Arabian bopd, the US was #1. It will be interesting to see what the next few months be.

By the way, WTI spiked but never got anywhere close to where some thought it might go, and now it's dropping back to pre-attack levels.

Underlying theme: has Saudi Arabia become irrelevant?

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LGBT

It's funny how things happen.

We haven't been to McDonald's in a long, long time, but Sophia wanted to go today. We went.

PlayPlace was empty except for a four-year named Laura. She was sitting alone in a booth; we assumed correctly that her adult was ordering at the counter.

We sat down in the booth with her; Sophia had a fast friend.

Moments later, Ron joined us. He was of my generation, maybe ten years older. The girls played.

He, like me, was the Uber-driver for his grandchildren.

But within minutes Ron was telling me about Laura's sibling, her 17-year-old transgender grandson, Jim.

Jim was born anatomically a female and raised as a girl. Sometime in late elementary school she said she felt like a boy. Since then it's been "hell" for the family but things are getting better, and now that Jim has turned 17 he is starting male hormone therapy. Such therapy is not allowed, apparently in Texas, even with parental consent until age 17.

I mentioned to Ron that I was a retired pediatrician and one of the first patients I ever saw in training was an eight-year-old who came to me because her mother thought something was wrong. Same story. Eight-year born anatomically as a female, raised as a girl, but something didn't seem right. We requested chromosome studies and it turns out "she" was actually XY -- genetically a boy.

Ron and I had a long, very interesting conversation. On top of all this, Ron is probably one of the richest, most successful men in the local area, but now he's an Uber-driver for his grandchildren and sharing French fries with his four-year-old granddaughter in PlayPlace.

[Note: names have been changed.]