Themes -- 2022

Locator: 3320022A.

Briefly:

• mRNA
  
• Ukraine
• crypto
• diesel
• coal 
• LNG
• WTI
• US policy: "no more drilling"
• Prince MBS: "Saudi first"
  

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2022

December 4, 2022, added:

• Apple: re-shoring; leaving China
  

European de-industrialization:

• October 9, 2022 -- where this theme will be followed.

This was originally posted July 14, 2022, link here, but somehow the link was broken / lost. Nothing new here, just some housekeeping. 

For the blog:

• a new "2022 Themes": "not the future" -- things we're not going to see despite "group think"
  

Bullish:

• the way WTI has performed in past thirty days has been absolutely perfect for investors
• will explain later
• Buffett has it figured out
• see RBN Energy below
  

Gasoline demand: wow!

• stand-alone post here.
• possible explanation? I don't buy it (no pun intended) 
• to be clear, I don't "accept" the possible explanation 

Diesel: with regard to US energy, this might be the big story for 2022;

Coal:

• Germany:
• solar farm removed for coal mine
• village to be destroyed for coal mine;
• India:
  

Dire:

• before twitter went down this a.m., everything pointed to deteriorating conditions:
• energy situation in Europe;
• war in Ukraine;
• US economy;
• Tesla: Karpathy departs; gives no reason; amicable separation apparently;
• Tesla's head of AI is out; at The Verge;
• Karpathy is Tesla's AI
  
• Tesla without AI is just another car company -- Elon Musk
  
• PEMEX: link at twitter;
  

Wages:

• inflation: 9.1%
• real hourly wages: down 4.1%

Wages? What inflationary pressure. Link here:  real hourly earnings hit a new all-time low.

Crypto:

• third miner files for bankruptcy: Celsius
• big question: how does this affect two miners coming to MonDak?
• minor (pun intended): three bankruptcies; is this the end for crypto, or is this simply good miners pushing out bad miners? 
• worse news: depositors will lose their entire holdings.
• FTX: fails; $32 billion lost (literally) overnight.
  

LNG:

• COP to take 30% stake in Sempra's Port Arthur LNG project; link here; and, press release here;

Aluminum cans:

• as if we didn't have enough to worry about -- California's recycling program crumbles
• beer industry will struggle without aluminum cans
• affects small brewers
• almost reads like a press release from glass bottle suppliers;
• I don't see a problem
• I won't drink from a can if given a choice, and I never buy beer in a can; always bottles;
• more on this later

OXY: Buffett is nearing the "magic" 20% mark

• at 20%, everything changes
• OXY's net income expected to exceed $10 billion this year
• link here.
• at 20%, the threshold that would let it record its proportionate share of Occidental's earnings with its own results, known as the equity method of accounting.
• also owns $10 billion of Occidental preferred stock that throws off $800 million of annual dividends, and has warrants to buy another 83.9 million common shares for $5 billion.
• Berkshire uses the equity method for its 26.6% stake in Kraft Heinz Co
• OXY's share price has doubled this year
• in 2010, Berkshire bought the BNSF railroad for $26.5 billion after earlier accumulating a 22.6% stake.

Climate:

• link here at twitter;
• if accurate, it changes everything;
• stand-alone here.