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Saturday, September 9, 2023

Have You All Been Paying Attention To All Those Stories About The Resurgence Of Covid-19? A New Variant? Another Reason Not To Invest Right Now -- September 19, 2023

Locator: 45587COVID.

Link here.

Previously reporrted:

Locator: 45572COVID. 

Several items:

  • non-credible source; like reading something from Vogue; The WSJ Covid-19 expert was a former restaurant critic. She may be proved right, but if so, more luck, than science:

Beth Mole:

Sumathi Reddy:


Buzz:
  • new vaccines / prior infection: will likely prevent/mitigate serious disease;
  • new outbreaks: will be made worse due to governmental complacency and lack of individual responsibility;
  • it appears "herd immunity" was a meme; didn't play a role in management of Covid-19, in 2020; 
  • "masking," per se, makes no sense; "masking" in toto, makes all kinds of sense.
  • role of Covid-19 and "disappearance of "seasonal flu" will become clearer this season (2023 - 2024)

Current and old links:

Politics:

  • the fact that it was the lead story -- why President Trump did not fire Dr Fauci -- speaks volumes about journalists covering this story.
  • mainstream media has never -- to the best of my knowledge -- explained this in language that eighth graders -- their audience -- could understand

Portland Theft -- Nike — Does Anyone Care? September 9, 2023

Locator: 45586China.

China
: the feature article in the current issue of Barron's has to do with China.The thesis: China's growth era is over. Factors: nation's property rout, weak exports, and unfavorable demographics. Peter Zeihan discussed the third factor at length in his 2022 book,

  • Peter Zeihan, The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning, published June 14, 2022

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Iconic Portland Store Announces Permanent Closure

Outside the "Northwest," this may not catch much attention but in Portland, this has to be a very, very big story. Nike and Portland are joined at the hips, as they say. See wiki.

And now Nike has announced it will permanently close its "factory store" in northeast Portland at 2650 NE Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard. Link here.

The store opened in 1984 and became a Portland institution, eventually outgrowing its original home and moving to its current location in 2000. But the outlet went on an indefinite hiatus last year following a prominent rise in shoplifting.
Nike quietly closed the store at some point in October, with no official statement other than a message on the company's website saying "Closed for the next 7 days." Seven days quickly turned into weeks and then months with little word from Nike, although there were indications that the company was working behind the scenes to try to get the doors back open.

A bit of history, back on Novembeer 15, 2022, when the store closed due to theft and safety issues.

Folks might remember, back in March, 2023, Walmart announced it would close all its stores in Portland, for the same reason.

In public discussions, both the city and Nike. said they were interested in working to keep the store open, but a close reading of the published remarks and reading "between the lines," it seemed clear that neither the city nor Nike had much interest in keeping the store open.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with solutions that would have kept the store open. Apparently the community had no interest. Or  no rocket scientists.

My hunch: other big box stores in Portland and other cities across the US will watch closely.

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The Book Page

The Art Of Painting, Albert C. Barnes, c. 1925 -- 1965.
The Art Of Renoir, Albert C. Barnes and Violette de Mazia, c. 1935 -- 1959.

Notes.

Apple -- September 9, 2023

Locator: 45585AAPL.

One link: https://twitter.com/barronsonline/status/1700250336814923956.  

Is Tim Cook at risk to lose his annual bonus?


Does one add to one's Apple position before or after September 12, 2023, a Tuesday?

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The Sports Page

Sophia competed at a Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Dallas. Sophia awarded a solid bronze medal against a very tough field.

Her first match, 0 - 0 at end -- ref's decision -- went to her opponent. Sophia's coach contested / argued with officials -- all matches are video-taped -- despite a pretty long discussion -- unable to turnover the decision.

Sophia then won the next two matches, by "submission." She absolutely overwhelmed her opponent and either the ref calls the match early or the opponent "taps out" and says she's beat. A submission is like a TKO in boxing, I suppose, a better win than just on points.
 
Sophia spent quite some time consoling the first opponent beat by submission. For Sophia, it's more about friendship and the social aspect, rather than the wins.

So, a really, really good day -- two submissions and had the ref gone with a win on her first match, she would have competed for gold/silver medal.

She also just earned her grey belt so she wrestled at a higher class / higher belt than last time. So, some of her opponents are at a higher level than she.

So, a good day.

YouTube link, just a short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/T1UbzPdyXis.

DAPL Update -- US Army Corps Of Engineers -- Preliminary Report -- Reuters -- September 9, 2023

Locator: 45583ND.
Locator: 45583DAPL.

Link here

Another day, another report. 

With all the oil sloshing around, the DAPL looks like low-hanging fruit if Joe Biden wants to weigh in.

From Geoff Simon:

US Tight Oil Production Sets All-Time Record -- EIA -- September 9, 2023

Locator: 45581RECORD.

Link here.

With combination of US tight oil and Guyana/Suriname -- OPEC+ has to be very, very concerned.

We'll post Saudi Arabia's foreign exchangs reserves next. The latest numbers are quite shocking.

GDPNow Reading -- 3Q23 Estimate -- Unchanged -- Still A Remarkable 5.6 -- September 9, 2023

Locator: 45580GDP.

GDPNow from yesterday, September 8, 2023 -- 5.6%.

But look at the discrepancy between the estimates of analysts and that of the Atlanta Fed!

 

The Weekly EIA US Oil Supply "Adjustment" -- September 9, 2023

Locator: 45579OIL.

This started out as clickbait -- not mine, but clickbait over on twitter, but I "fell for it," but was justly rewarded, though the answer is still out there.

It has to do with something the writer of "Focus on Fracking" has noted for a very, very, very long time. In fact I think he brought it to light when the EIA seemed to be purposely "hiding" it. 

It has to do with "unaccounted-for oil" in the US.

After subtracting all the oil that refiners use for the week from the total amount of oil that enters the system, the delta should be zero: total amount of oil "in" should equal total amount of oil "out."

See this "standard" paragraph over at "Focus on Fracking":

Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 16,603,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending August 25th, an average of 173,000 fewer barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries were processing during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that an average of 1,427,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US. 

So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures provided by the EIA for the week ending August 25th appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from oilfield production, and from storage was 287,000 barrels per day less than what our oil refineries reported they used during the week.

To account for that obvious disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just inserted a [ +287,000 ] barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet in order to make the reported data for the daily supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”,

thus suggesting there was an error of that magnitude in the week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed.... 

Apparently the EIA has been aware of this discrepancy for quite some time but has done little to sort it out.

So, today, over at twitter, this clickbait:

I was interested in the second part of that note, the "oil adjustment issue."

Clicking on that link, led to more clickbait:

And then to yet another link. No screenshot, but so far in this post, that is the most important article.

Anyway, that's all prelude to what really caught my attention.

The adjustment in the most recent posting of "Focus on Fracking," as noted was 287,000 bopd. Big, small, who knows, but it was 287,000 bopd.

But just after that posting, the most recent EIA adjustment data was posted.

Wow.

At that link, go to "Table 2, US Petroleum Balance Sheet" and click on the pdf icon to the far right.

Look at that huge jump. From 287,000 bopd last week to the new number this week: 1,198,000 bopd.

To put that in perspective, that's about how much the Bakken produces, about 1.1 million bopd and that's the amount for which the EIA cannot account.

Wow, and I used to worry about balancing / reconciling my checkbook every month when it was off by a penny. LOL.