Notes From All Over -- The "I'm Not Afraid Of My Syrup Any More" Edition -- Part 1 -- June 23, 2020

Topical. Why I love to blog. No sooner do I post a note about Aunt Jemima syrup and "reader #1" sends me this: 

Bakken update: neither well coming off confidential list today were reported as completed; two more DUCs. Link here.

WTI: $41.19.

Two headlines over at oilprice today:

• India scrambles to keep up with soaring fuel demand;
• can China's insatiable appetite for gas save the LNG industry?

OPEC basket, link here: down a bit to $38.96. Saudi can't survive on oil below $80. Period. Dot. Saudi is scrambling to find cash wherever it can.

• shaking down sheiks; 
• moving oil revenue into equity markets;
• reviving tourist industry with $4 billion investment; tourist industry killed by Covid;
• a trillion-dollar IPO that is looking more problematic every day; especially that guaranteed $75-billion annual dividend
• but all of that is nibbling on the margins; they need oil at $53 to just "clear the current accounts," whatever that means. Needs $80-oil to meet austere budget. 

US winners, losers:

• billion-dollar investment firm announced plans to leave downtown Seattle; will move to Phoenix; Phoenix, I think, is one of the most under-reported, understood financial centers in the US
• financial centers in the US: NYC, Boston, San Diego, Phoenix
• tech centers: Silicon Valley (CA); Austin (TX); not sure about Seattle any more; 
• Chicago: a legacy city; is it a growing city? I don't know;

Myth: the death of car ownership. See this link. There are so many story lines in this article, I will have to come back to this later.

Myth: herd immunity. I get the feeling that folks don't understand "where we are" with regard to herd immunity. The fastest way to get to herd immunity is the Stockholm strategy, and even Sweden is nowhere close to herd immunity:

Of the 215 countries, localities, regions, whatever, that worldodometers track, Sweden ranked #11 yesterday in number of new Corona-related deaths. So, how's that herd immunity working out for Sweden. Again, Sweden's strategy is the best way to get to herd immunity:

• deaths/per capita: 
• Sweden ranks #7 as of yesterday; 507 deaths/million population
• US: #9 at 370
• tests per capita (per million):
• Sweden: 38,192
• US: 87,664
• total cases per capita (per million):
• Sweden: 6,004 (0.6% of the population)
• US: 7,217 (0.7% of the population)
• Total tests:
• Sweden: 385,659
• USA: 29 million
• total cases of Covid / number of Covid tests administered (percentage)
• Sweden: 16%
• US: 8%
• Comments:
• I've not seen anyone yet, including Dr Fauci, tell us the percent of folks that need to test positive before we have "herd immunity," but in general, it's agreed, we need at least 80% of a population to test positive before we can start talking about herd immunity. I'll explain it later. Coming up against a hard commercial break.
• If it's agreed that we need at least 80% of a population to test positive before we can start talking about herd immunity, then we've got a long way to go
• only 0.07% of the Swedish and/or American population has tested positive (at most)
• less than 10% of the US population has been tested; in fact, it's much worse than that -- I'll explain that later, also;
• bottom line: herd immunity? Nowhere close. 
• UNLESS.

Myth: the myth of surging Covid-19 cases. Link here. But again, we're not being given the hospitalization rate; the death rate. To read herd immunity we need to see this surge in the number of cases. My concern: folks don't understand the concept of herd immunity.