Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- December 31, 2019

Shale: making America great! I find this absolutely fascinating on so many levels -- US exports of petroleum products to Canada and Mexico:

Reality check: while Bezos, Elon, et al are talking about building cities on Mars, China is doing that here on Africa ... now. My hunch: we'll have a city in Africa with ten million Chinese before we have 25 earthlings living on Mars. [But hopefully, the first 25 will include St Greta the Exploited.]

Idle rambling: twenty-four more hours (actually less) for Rocket Man to act. I suggested a few days ago that connecting the dots would perhaps suggest why North Korea did not send the US the "Christmas present" that was promised. Here's one of those dots:

US Embassy in Iraq: Iran taking a page out of their 1979 playbook. Two observations:

• North Korea hoped to be on the front page this Christmas; appears Iran stole NK's thunder;
• in Iraq, this could change everything -- what to watch? price of oil

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Idle Rambling

I'm still fascinated by the changing landscape of the investment world. Absolutely fascinating. 

Schwab, website:

Schwab is the industry leader and largest custodian of Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) assets,¹ providing custodial, operational, practice management, and trading support to more than 7,500 independent RIA firms. For over 30 years, we have worked resolutely with independent advisors to develop proven processes and insights for starting, building, and growing their firms.

Meanwhile, apparently Merrill Lynch is getting out of the business. From RIABiz:

Merrill Lynch retreats from stealth RIA custody business just as major rival Wells Fargo runs for daylight in a bid to keep breakaway advisor assets.

Major banks pursue competing RIA custody strategies after running programs for years out of their vest pockets.

October 24, 2019 — 8:50 PM by By Lisa Shidler Brooke's Note:

At Bank of America, revenues basically never go up. In 2014, the Charlotte, N.C., bank hauled in $86 billion in revenues. In 2018, revenues only reached $91 billion. Nobody expects them to be much better in 2019, maybe up 1%.

That seeming revenue ceiling makes cutting costs mandatory for earnings growth, and that's why -- finally -- the bumbling Merrill Lynch RIA custody unit is getting the ax. At least, RIAs say that's what BofA is telling them. It sure is an ignominious end to a concept that had two good reasons to live. It gave Merrill Lynch a way to retain brokers who would otherwise migrate to Fidelity, Schwab, TD, or other custodians.

It also gave Merrill a head start on a post-apocalyptic future when brokers go extinct -- a time that admittedly never seems to arrive. This BofA move pretty much puts three of top four wirehouses at square one-- or square zero-- in RIA custody. Only Wells Fargo, tentatively, is heading in the opposite direction. (See: Wells Fargo finally gives its 600 hiring managers an RIA channel to sell but still with the Trade-PMR brand) It has a partnership with TradePMR that is retaining Wells Fargo brokers -- perhaps because it is content to accept the slimmer margins of a clearing relationship.

It will be interesting to see where Schwab heads after the merger/buyout of TDAmeritrade.

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Idle Rambling

I hear that the DFW metroplex is the world's largest "center" for Amazon fulfillment/distribution centers. Apparently there are 17 Amazon "distribution centers" in the DFW metroplex. It has an air hub north of Fort Worth, TX, the Alliance Airport; connections with the old Redbird airport south of Dallas; and, operations out of DFW International Airport. That from a life-long logistics professional who stops by Starbucks on a regular basis. Three centers within a bicycle ride of our little hovel: Amazon Fulfillment Center DFW6; Amazon FTW2, and USPS, all three just north of the DFW airport.

The "old" Redbird Airport -- now the Dallas Executive Airport-RBD. Wiki note here. I can't find anything to connect Amazon and the Dallas Executive Airport.

With regard to the Alliance Airport, more here.

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The Book Page

Slogging through The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of An Empire, William Dalrymple, c. 2019.

Page 138 of 397 pages of text.  We've come to the end of the Plassey Revolution. The wiki snapshot:

The Battle of Plassey was a decisive victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies on 23 June 1757, under the leadership of Robert Clive which was possible due to the defection of Mir Jafar Ali Khan.

The battle helped the Company seize control of Bengal. Over the next hundred years, they seized control of the entire Indian subcontinent and Myanmar. 

Absolutely fascinating. 

Plassey? Anglicized form of Palashi, a city in the West Bengal district of India. West Bengal is in the far northeast corner of India.

From page 139:

What the people of England did understand very clearly was the unprecedented amount of money -- or to use the newly Anglicised word, loot -- that Clive was bringing back with him. Not since Cortés had Europe seen an adventurer return with so much treasure from distant conquests.

Loot, etymology: early 19th century (as a verb): from Hindi lūṭ, from Sanskrit luṇṭh - ‘rob’.

It is amazing that a company of maybe a dozen owners/principal shareholders "conquered" India, and no one really knew what was going on.

By the way, this explains the "Plassey" one sees on maps of London, and England in general.