Anticipation And Insanitiy -- What A Week! November 14, 2021

Anticipation:

• $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill passed
• December, 2020: $1 trillion
• January, 2021: $1.9 trillion
• November, 2021: $1.5 trillion
• all yet to really get into the US economy
  
• Americans getting used to non-transitory inflation
• or is it transitory? down to 2% by end of 2022? see USB link below;
• supply chain issues: fewer headlines
• Covid epidemic (panic) --> Covid pandemic (global lockdown) --> Covid endemic (yawn)
• Rivian IPO
• the rich get richer: Amazon bought $200 million of Rivian stock at its IPO price of $78/share
• now owns a total of 158,363,834 shares of Rivian; works out to $20 billion by end of last week;
• Rivian built twelve cars in 3Q21; must be really nice cars (or were they pick-up trucks?)
  
• much more at this link;
  
• Apple's one-minute sales (link pending)
• American businesses are betting big on the future: UBS, optimistic; link here;
• Deere: strike over?
• oil in a trading range
• streaming wars
• GE splits into three companies
• JNJ splits into two companies
• Bitcoin soaring; uses immense amounts of energy
• coal is now seen as a transitional fuel (John Kerry signs off on Chinese, Indian position)
• North Dakota co-op sets corn shipment record;
• buybacks: Berkshire, $7.6 billion purchase of its own shares in 3Q21;

Insanity:

• Brandon: killed the Keystone; now...
• Schumer: can't handle the high price of gasoline in his state; calls for opening the SPR; link here to Reuters; law of unintended consequences --
• 50/50 chance: will bring gasoline prices down in the short term (winter, yawn)
• 100% chance: it will result in higher prices in mid-term (spring, let's go Brandon)
• bring it on: watch $80-oil go to $100-oil next spring when "we" don't even have the SPR to turn to;
• meanwhile, Brandon's spokesperson: "Our view is that the rise in gasoline prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy options." -- Psaki. In other words, "They need to stay home, and eat cake."
  
• go, saki, go!

******************************
Someone Is Being Played

Previously posted, link to Irina Slav. 

One of two things is going on. Either we're being played (most likely) or President Biden is being played and there are two competing factions in the White House with regard to the "high price" of gasoline: one faction, reality-based and concerned about the mid-term elections; the other faction, ideological and want to see higher-gasoline prices to assist the EV industry.

******************************
A Geologic Mystery

Four links:

• BBC: the strange race to track down a missing billion years. September 1, 2021.
• Scishow: is the mystery of earth's 1.2 billion missing years solved?
• Wiki: the Great Unconformity.
• Eos: erasing a billion years of geologic time across the globe, February 5, 2018.

**************************"
AirPods Are Out; Wired Headpohones Are In

Link here to The WSJ.

Humble ‘retro’ corded headphones are making an unexpected return, for both aesthetic and practical reasonsAirPods have become too widespread to be cool. 

So, perhaps inevitably, contrarian trendsetters are reviving some ancient technology: corded headphones. Fashionable young celebrities including Bella Hadid, Lily-Rose Depp and Zoë Kravitz have been photographed strutting around town with blatantly corded headphones. 

An Instagram account called @wireditgirls has sprung up to document these cords in the wild. And TikTokers record videos that offer both practical reasons and more philosophical justifications for plugging back in. 

On the practical level, price is crucial. While AirPods range from $129 for the most basic 2nd-generation model to $179 for the new 3rd-gen release to $549 for the AirPods Max, Apple corded headphones go for just $19, and those from other brands can cost even less. 

For disorganized types, corded headphones are easier to keep track of and needn’t be charged. 

Plus, some folks have vague, pseudo-scientific objections to “radiation” that they associate with wireless pods. Biz Sherbert, a cultural specialist at youth culture-focused creative agency the Digital Fairy, narrated a TikTok video on corded headphones. 

“It seems that people are very concerned about the potential Bluetooth radiation that comes from AirPods,” she concluded based on the video’s comments. (While Bluetooth headphones do emit non-ionizing radiation, the Food and Drug Administration currently deems it to be harmless to humans.)