Fast And Furious: Inflation Drops Month-Over-Month -- October 13, 2021

Updates

October 13, 2021: it's a bit early to tell for sure, but it appears the airlines are holding the line, requiring their employees to be vaccinated. most (?) airlines requiring vaccinations; Southwest Airlines still only "encouraging" vaccinations. Needs to be fact-checked, but that's what I think I saw on the news tonight.

Original Post

CPI: a very, very, very good report though Steve Liesman calls it a mixed bag

• 0.2 vs 0.3% estimated, ex-food and energy
• food: up 0.9%
• most sectors showing some relief

Snowfall:

• I-90 west of Rapid City closed due to snow; that was last night; not sure of status today; map here;
  
• Wyoming: blizzard conditions likely today -- Wednesday, October 14, 2021;
• seven-day forecast: 
• Baker, MT: 10 inches of snow possible;
• Glendive, MT: 5 inches
  

Not to worry: we may yet experience an "indigenous people's summer." Used to happen all the time in the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing up in Williston, though we called it something else then.

E&Ps, link here;

• bottomed one year ago;
• past year, market, price of shares:
  
• CLR: up 301%
• OXY: up 205%
• Ovintiv: up 304%
• Antero: up 421%
• PDC: up 295%
• Denbury: up 317%
• some did even better;

Most ridiculous soundbite this year?

• billionaires moving their money in $600 increments to defeat taxes -- Janet Yellen; can't make this stuff up; link here. It's on tape. 
• makes Joe Biden look like an Einstein on the economy
  

Joe Biden's press secretary, link here: let's go Brandon --

• premature shift to renewables is not causing energy crisis
• southwest employees did not sick out over vax mandates
• covid vax prevents spread
• brandon knew about the french spat over subs
• afghanistan withdrawal was a success

Jobs / JOLTS:

• record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in August, led by food and retail industries;
• as bad as it was, not as bad as forecast;
• employment vacancies fell to 10.4 million in August, a drop of almost 700,000 from July's upwardly revised 11.1 million
• the decline was well short of market expectations for 10.96 million job postings
• the number of those quitting hit a new series high going back to December, 2002

AirBNB:

• hmmm? Investor's Business Daily;
• more later, if I remember
• quote here
• disclaimer: I have never invested in ABNB; no plans; posted for other reasons
  

Inflation:

• apparently just transitory; not to worry;
• likely to drop to 5.35 annual rate when numbers come out for last month -- WSJ;
• was 5.4% in June;
• economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimate the Labor Department will report the consumer-price index—which measures what consumers pay for goods and services—rose a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in September from August. That is the same pace as in August and down markedly from June’s 0.9% pace

Ports:

• Teamsters looking to work 24/7; to work around the clock -- WSJ;
• CNBC says White House will help key West Coast ports stay open 24/7;
  

Southwest Airlines:

• fifth day of bad weather; and, here; the point-to-point model works for decades and all of a sudden it doesn't?
• pilots warn of fatigue;

Kaiser Permanente:

• staff tired; overwhelmingly call for strike -- during worst pandemic in US history; okay;

Social security:

• could see 6% boost in COLA; would be most in forty years -- WSJ;
• later: it's official, a 5.9% COLA increase January 1, 2022 -- whoo-hoo.
  

Southern Surge:

• time for the blog to update "southern surge" home page;
  
• middle class migrants fly to Mexico and then cross border illegally, WSJ;
• the new surge? Brazilians;
  

Time to go:

• Walgreens closes five more stores in San Francisco: cites organized retail theft;

Market:

• Delta: great quarter; first profitable post-pandemic; first among US airlines; beats
  
• EPS: 30 cents vs 17 cents
• $9.15 billion vs $8.4 billion
  
• guidance: modest 4Q21 loss due to fuel costs;
• time to add a fuel surcharge
  
• Blackrock: beats -- a blowout quarter
  
• EPS: $5.05 vs. $4.94; not a big difference but goes from a "4-handle" to a "5-handle"
  
• revenue: $10.95 billion vs 9.35 billion; rose despite waiver of some fees
  
• outstanding quarter in almost all segments
• card spending up significantly
• sees "long transition" out of Covid -- will take much longer than expected
• working hard to transition to "green" revolution; led the way on banks deserting fossil fuel investment;
  
• JP Morgan 3Q21 results -- beats
  
• EPS: $3.74 vs $3.00
• $30.44 billion vs $29.76 billion
• credit card spend: up 25%
• first state to have branches in all lower 48 states: growing branches rather than trend to shrink branch numbers;

UN tires of Greta?

• UN refuses to advance Greta's lawsuit; back to square one.

Jon:

• how the NFL learned months ago they had a problem;

Fossil fuel investment, coal is dead! Long live coal:

• everyone's getting out of shale except smaller players -- WSJ;
• coal is untouchable;
• China backpedals on climate commitments; link to Irina Slav;
• coal: US utilities are burning more of this fossil fuel this year; making a run at 2018 levels in the next one to two years; sharp upturn in use of coal: US EIA;

Energy crisis:

• Russia's Gazprom now dipping into storage to meet Europe's demand for natural gas; link to Tsvetana Paraskova; 

Emissions:

• Germany: spending $36 billion / year on renewables yet their emissions haven't gone down since 2009;
• USA emissions have fallen; mainly due to fracking; link here;

UK grid on the brink, link to ZeroHedge via Oilprice:

• new UK law to mandate home EV chargers to switch off during peak hours;
• soon: all hours will be peak hours;

And, finally, how could we not mention Covid?

• rising Covid-19 numbers returning to pre-vaccine levels in Minnesota; hospitalizations reach a high for this year year; link here;
• are they playing professional and college football in Minnesota? Asking for a friend.
• Minnesota has a test positivity rate of 8.3% -- highest in the vaccine era
• a level of hospitalizations not seen since first jabs administered in mid-December, 2020
• more than 75% of eligible Minnesotans age 12 and over have received the vaccine
• nine of ten newly reported deaths: seniors -- despite a vaccination rate above 93% in that age group
• Minnesota: 7th worst among US states
• hard-hit states, like Florida, Louisiana: rates have dropped to among the lowest in the nation
• all this data consistent with my thoughts on the matter;
• but no one seems to be asking the right question(s) though the Minnesota, Florida, Louisiana experience probably answering some of those unanswered questions 
• unbiased data here;
• link for graph below:
  

Anyway, enough of this: time to make some French toast and bacon. Yes, bacon. I think bacon is 60% higher this year than last year but I'm eating 60% less so it's a wash.  

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The Wave

Olivia, October, 2021

$10,000 fine for entering this area without a permit. Enforced.