For Investors: KMI Or EPD -- Motley Fool -- February 18, 2023

Link here.

************************
Quips

Link here.

*************************
Amazon

Some months ago when Amazon announced it was closing some fulfillment centers and cutting back on plans for others, there was a lot of talk about the viability of Amazon's business plan.

How about this:

Let's parse that statement:

• this is only about data centers;
• it's only about one small state on the East Coast;
• it's $40 billion;
• it's over the next fifteen years;

AP has more.

Amazon is not on my 40-30-20-5-5 bucket list but maybe it should be. 

**************************
Time to Boogie

Masks: Still An Issue -- February 18, 2023

Not one reader in a thousand will remember this post: how Dr Fauci fooled America. That was such a controversial op-ed by MSN (Microsoft-NBC) that the linked page no longer exists (?), MSN pulled it; and, it's understandable why it was pulled. Is it possible that its authors asked that the op-ed be pulled after the death threats?

So, the update?

Here's the original story, still up at Newsweeek. by Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya. 

This LinkedIn exchange provides some insight. 

I have flip-flopped on this issue so many times, all I can say is that at the moment, I'm agnostic, and not tithing to any sect. 

Emotions were high: more at the Berkshire Eagle.

Fifty percent of office workers in the US still refuse to return to the office.

Depending on the venue, upwards of 10% of Americans still wear masks. 

The CDC continues to recommend that young children in some settings still wear masks.

"Natural immunity" was the cornerstone of the Kulldorff-Bhattacharya thesis. Now this, from yesterday.

****************************
Time For A Musical Interlude

I prefer the studio version without the backup singers.

Could Oil Go Negative Again? Several Things Should Worry Oil Investors -- February 18, 2023

Little things that should worry us:

• Weekly EIA petroleum report, last week:
• US crude oil in storage increased by a record-setting 16 million bbls
• US crude oil in storage is now 8% greater than its five-year average
• the price of WTI is established at Cushing, OK:
• there are indications that supplies at Cushing could surge;
• the #1 US crude oil export terminal, Corpus Christi, is near its max
• CC is near its max and there are projections that the Permian will break all-time production records this summer
• the amount of crude oil in US storage is now at 31.2 days -- a two-year-record (will link and post later)
• the Europeans are adapting to the war
• the Chinese re-opening is nowhere near as robust as "we all" predicted
• American office workers are still dragging their feet over whether to return to the office
• Devon cut its dividend; DVN is not buying back much in the way of shares; and, DVN shares are flat / negative y/y -- DVN was the darling of Wall Street Permian investors
• Chevron is going to add 100,000 bopd out off Venezuela starting next month; that's a small amount but it's my understanding that is must be routed to US refineries

SJT: San Juan Trust -- did anyone see this?

• SJT more than doubled its "dividend" month-over-month; from 11 cents to 25 cents:
• SJT more than tripled its "dividend" year-over-year; from 8 cents to 25 cents:

*******************************
US Crude Oil In Storage: Days of Supply

Link here.

Getting Ready For The Coronation -- February 18, 2023

I mentioned that I fell in love with Portland, OR, a week or so ago, and part of that experience had to do with Starbucks. See this post. 

It boggles the mind but people are willing to spend upwards of $10 for a cup of coffee ... 

... me, I refuse to spend more than $5.00 for a 10-cent-cup of coffee. LOL.

**************************
Royalty

I finally finished that essay in current issue of The New Yorker.

From the essay:

When the King is at Sandringham, he sometimes invites [the 90-year-old] Glenconner over for dinner, sending a car to pick her up. She’d been at Sandringham not long before we met at Holkham Hall, and there had been talk of Lady Susan Hussey’s resignation. Lady Susan’s daughter, Lady Katherine Brooke, was recently appointed by Camilla as one of six Queen’s companions, a newly created designation for a modernizing monarchy: there will be no more ladies-in-waiting. [Very, very refreshing, by the way.]

There had also been discussion of King Charles’s coronation, which will take place in May, on a scale much reduced from that of Queen Elizabeth. There will reportedly be only two thousand guests, as opposed to the eight thousand who were at Westminster Abbey seventy years ago. Competition for seats at the Abbey is inevitable, with not every titled grandee guaranteed a spot. Glenconner said, “I think the dukes will all come, because they are part of the ceremony—they give their liege, or whatever it is. But I think the other peers and peeresses will have to ballot.”

As the mere eldest daughter of an earl, Glenconner is unlikely to make the cut if rank is the sole factor. But as a family friend—and especially as a rare living link to the coronation of 1953—she hopes to be invited. She is not taking any chances at being overlooked. “They have to be reminded,” she told me. “Which I did.” Finding herself next to King Charles, she had made full use of the opportunity. “I am going to be a bit cheeky now,” she informed His Majesty, putting in her request right then. Why ever not? There was nothing to be gained by waiting.

DeBrett's is the authority.

• the ranks of peerage:
• duke
• marquess
• earl
• viscount
• baron
• life peer
  

**************************
Reminiscing

There was no time in my life that was "better" than my two years in England, specifically north Yorkshire. 

It was off and on for two years, 2002 - 2004, the longest stretch at a time, six weeks. I think about those weeks more than any other time in my life. 

***********************
Also From "Getting Ready For The Coronation"

From "Lady in Waiting":

In “Whatever Next?,” Glenconner revisits her marriage, painting a fuller, and far less breezy, portrait of her late husband.

“He was often a wonderful companion, a beloved father,” she writes. “He was also an incredibly selfish, damaged, and occasionally dangerous man. . . . I lived with domestic violence and abuse for most of my marriage.”

From the start, her husband screamed at her, spit at her, shoved her, and threw things at her. He had numerous affairs with women, and once spiked her drink with what she suspects was LSD, in an attempt to loosen her up in the bedroom.

“How strange and typical of Colin that, rather than being tender, he decided he could just drug me into doing what he liked,” she writes. One day in the late seventies, in [on his private island] Mustique, he lost his temper and beat her savagely with a shark-vertebrae walking stick.

“I was utterly terrified, convinced he might actually kill me,” she says. The attack was never repeated, but thereafter she and Tennant lived ever more separate lives, though they remained married, fifty-four years in total.

For thirty-four of them, Glenconner herself had a married lover, whose wife knew of their arrangement and had a lover of her own. (Glenconner does not name her lover in her books, and has said that she never will.) “There was no question of any of us leaving our marriages,” she writes. “It simply wasn’t done.”

I love the Brits.  Harry will have a problem with Meghan.

Starbucks -- February 18, 2023

Gift cards: let's see -- there's Amazon, Apple, Spotify, McDonald's, Walmart -- and the winner, winner, chicken dinner is --

This is a most interesting newsletter with regard to Starbucks.

Link here.

The reader noted the same thing I did some weeks ago: coffee this past week doubled in price at Starbucks. At least that's how the writer sees it and how many of the Starbucks' fan base would see it.

I'll archive this article. It's likely to disappear.

In addition, based on this one article, I will add SBUX to my bucket of stocks from which I buy for my 40-30-20-5-5  “new money" allocation. It will go in the "40" bucket. Something in that bucket will have to be removed.

Starbucks:

• is able to keep selling ten-cent coffee for $3.00 a cup
• outpaced inflation
  
• maintains margins in the high 20's (percent)
• continues to increase its dividend
• doubles the cost of coffee in one week (see above)
• is aggressively closing stores that need to be closed, particularly in Seattle, Portland
• has figured out how to manage the "bathroom issue" -- and did that quietly -- which I knew they would eventually do

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 

Better Than FlightRadar24? February 18, 2023

Apparently ADS-B Exchange has better coverage, and includes more military planes. 

I don't know if the Exchange tracks weather balloons and/or aeronautical science experiments.

I used that site for the first time last night and found it much more useful for my needs than FlightRadar24. And much, much easier to find aircraft for which I was looking.

Link here.

By the way, trolling here, the GOP speaks out of both sides of their collective mouth, demanding the president shoot down UFO's and then condemning him when he did.

The president, on the other hand: put taxpayer's money where his mouth was/is, and, oh, by the way -- scored four out of four, though it apparently took the USAF five shots.

I'm still looking for someone in the GOP who has big ideas for the country, like the ones JFK and LBJ had: "man on the moon" and "wildflowers along Texas highways."

What A Twit -- February 18, 2023

I can't imagine a binary male who uses pronouns him/her and who self-identifies as a jock carries tampons in his pocket (or his man-purse).

But, apparently Tiger "the twit" Woods does. 

No links; story everywhere. Google woods twit tampon.

Have You Ever Wondered What You're Missing By Not Being Invested In A Hedge Fund? February 18, 2023

Top five eholdings, link here:

Top five purchases, 4Q22:

It appears I have my own "hedge fund."

By the way, there is one ticker symbol in both charts above that I will be adding to my 40-30-20-5-5 "new money" allotment starting in March, 2023.

Re-Posting: DE Dividend -- 4Q22

I assume I have already posted it but I don't recall. Whatever.

The Emperor Wears No Clothes -- February 18, 2023

Updates

February 19, 2023: link here. I'm not sure for what the manufacturers are asking. Certainly the car companies don't expect the government pay for charging stations, do they?

Original Post  

Disclaimer: In a long note like this there will be typographical and content errors. 

Three points:

• ZeroHedge seems to miss the point that Mercedes is a luxury brand, aimed for the rich and elite. (Speaking of which, Tiger Woods is a doofus but we'll get back to that later.)
  
• ZeroHedge seems to imply Mercedes makes no entry-level vehicle. Wrong.
• Price increases: F is worse than Mercedes.

So, let's begin. This should be fun.

From a reader, link here:

1. Price of 2019 Ford F-150 Raptor: starts at $54,450 (back in 2019): $54,450.

2. Price of 2022 Ford F-150 Raptor: $70,555.

3. Price of 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor: $109, 145.

a. ZeroHedge compared 2019 models to 2022 models:

• Germany luxury sedan: 43% increase 2022 over 2019.
• F-150 Raptor, for the working man:  (70555-54450)/54450 = 30%.
• F-150 Raptor, for the working man: (109,145-54450)/54450 = a 100% increase, more than doubled in price;

b. but actually it's worse:

• F-150 Raptor, y/y (2023-over-2022): (109145-70555)/70555 = 52%
• So, Mercedes, with their high-end luxury car aimed for the rich who can easily afford it, raised prices by 43% over three years (2022 over 2019), using ZeroHedge figures.
• Ford, with their F-150 Raptor with the target audience being the everyday cowpoke, raised prices by 100% in one year. 

******************************
Now Let's Look At "Entry-Level"
Since ZeroHedge Brought It Up

4. ZeroHedge implies Mercedes is for the rich only. ZeroHedge implies Mercedes has no "entry-level" car. 

a. Mercedes 2023: $37,500.

b. Mercedes 2022: $36,400.

5. But this is where ZeroHedge really gets it wrong. Does anyone think that Mercedes builds cars for anyone other than the rich? No, Mercedes is a luxury brand that caters to not only the wealthy, but also the elite. 

6. On the other hand, Ford markets their F-150 -- as the number one vehicle sold in the US -- to the nine-to-five minimum wage cowhand. Ford does not market their pickups as a luxury brand catering to only the wealthy and the elite.

7. ZeroHedge, one assumes, if they were trying to make a point chose the most expensive sedan to showcase. It came in at $76,590 (2022). The Ford F-150 Raptor comes in at $109,145 (2023).  

8. And we haven't even gotten to the much more expensive EVs; Ford says it will make only EVs starting about 2030 -- needs to be fact-checked.

9. It is also interesting that ZeroHedge chose 2019 and 2022 Mercedes models to compare. Again, ZeroHedge was looking at maximum effect.

10. Energy costs in Germany far exceed those in the US: Mercedes is apparently finding efficiencies to bring down the price of their cars despite high energy costs. The US has least expensive energy in the western world and look at the prices on their F-150s. Price-gouging or unable to find the German efficiencies.

Parting shot: another look at Mercedes entry-level sedans, for only $40,000. The 2023 Honda Civic won't be much less expensive.

Tell Me Again How Nukes Are The Answer To Renewable Energy -- February 18, 2023

Updates

Later, 7:16 p.m. CT: link here.

Original Post 

Link here.

*************************
Ready To Hit The Slopes
Or
Perhaps Ready To Apply For A Nuclear Engineering Job

In Denver, Colorado, for a weekend of skiing.