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Saturday, August 24, 2024

Revenge Of The Thinking Woman -- Are JD's Days Numbered? How Does RFK, Jr Impact Events? 75 Days To Get His Groove Back -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48448ARCHIVES.

Matt doesn't often change his banner headlines -- often staying unchanged for days, if not weeks (or so it seems).

But on a most quiet night of the week -- when folks aren't watching -- we get this:


National polls: meaningless when it comes to the presidential election. It all comes down to three or five or seven or nine or eleven states, but having said that, national polls are starting to show Kamala Harris with a widening lead.

Question: why did Kamala Harris feel it safe to not pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro.

See this article written before she picked Walz.  

Note: in that article, three top contenders for the VP were mentioned. Walz was not in the top three, and, in fact, not even mentioned. 

This suggests to me that the Harris team felt comfortable that she would win in Pennsylvania and did not need Shapiro's help. Nationally, he might have been a "negative" for Harris.

Wow, Harris had a strong bench from which to pick her VP. Walz certainly was an interesting choice. My hunch: the bench was too strong. There was a huge risk that she would be overshadowed by guys like Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom. She certainly won't be overshadowed by Walz. 

But I digress. Back to the original question: why did Kamala Harris feel it safe to not pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro? As stated above: because her team was confident she would take Pennsylvania even without Shapiro.

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Three Themes

Three themes:

  • the economy 
  • the southern surge
  • abortion or as some report, women’s reproductive rights or women’s reproductive health

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Cladistics

In progress. Will be posted elsewhere.


Generative AI -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48447AI.

With regard to AI, there are two camps:

  • AI is all hype;
  • AI is very real.

I'm in the second camp.

Link here.

Top 25 by market cap, link here:


Nvidia revenue, by quarter. Link here.

Know What Else Is Soaring? The Price Of US Postage Stamps -- But At Least We Now Know Why -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48446EVS. 

Tag: USPS

In round numbers, the price of a first-class US "Forever" stamp is trending towards one dollar.

But I digress.

Canoo.

Link here.


Earlier in the year:


Lucid.

Link here.

Like "The Fed," NASA Is Calling This "Transitory" -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48445ARCHIVES.

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The Book Page

The three books this week:

  • When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, Michael J. Benton, c. 2003. 
  • Dinosaurs Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution in Paleontology, Michael J. Benton, c. 2019.
  • Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History, Peter D. Ward, c. 2004.

Some questions, areas to be explored:

  • clade vs phylum
  • the relationship between amphibians and reptiles, and between reptiles and mammals at the juncture of the Permian - Triassic periods
  • the length of time over which the entire dinosaur megafauna died: maybe within hours

  • the Permian - Triassic extinction was fast, but not that fast -- maybe 100,000 years
    • the cause of the P-T extinction -- the greatest extinction event ever
  • the Triassic was "red"; the Jurassic was "yellow." Why?
  • along the way, we'll learn about buckyballs (buckerminster fullerenes) and GSSPs.

From wiki:

A Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), sometimes referred to as a golden spike, is an internationally agreed upon reference point on a stratigraphic section which defines the lower boundary of a stage on the geologic time scale
The effort to define GSSPs is conducted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, a part of the International Union of Geological Sciences.
Most, but not all, GSSPs are based on paleontological changes. Hence GSSPs are usually described in terms of transitions between different faunal stages, though far more faunal stages have been described than GSSPs.
The GSSP definition effort commenced in 1977. As of 2024, 79 of the 101 stages that need a GSSP have a ratified GSSP.

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Planning For Retirement

Thinking it important enough for his two older daughters to start learning about personal finance, their father has the four of us (the two older daughters, him, and me) meet weekly in a video conference to talk about personal finance. The primary source material is same source material that the Harvard Business School uses. 

The first chapter was an introductory chapter; the second chapter discussed the importance of learning about personal finance. Somewhere in there was a sidebar with Stephen Covey and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I had taken the formal Covey course some years ago under the auspices of the USAF. I have found myself referring to Covey quite often over the years.

The third week was about budgeting and record keeping. Although it was only supposed to be one week long with one video conference it proved so interesting, the chapter was stretched to two weeks and two "zoom" meetings.

This week, there will be yet another week on budgeting and record keeping, a continuation of the discussion, but this week, the homework will require coming up with a budget and exploring the various tools available for budgeting and record keeping. 

There must a gazillion ways to budget, including "do nothing and hope for the best" (DNAH) method. Dave Ramsay famously had his envelopes.

Over the years, I've used many different budgeting methods, but for quite some time now, I don't do any formal budgeting. Budgeting is pretty much ingrained in my everyday life, and so I was skeptical that going through the process [again] was unnecessary. But it was "homework" and I felt I needed to play along if I wanted to be part of the foursome. 

It turns out that the exercise was incredibly beneficial. I came up with a notional budget and came up with a lot of observations and comments I can share with the two granddaughters. 

One granddaughter has one more semester of college before graduating (December, 2025), She has a job lined up and begins working next year (2025).

The other granddaughter starts college this next month (September, 2024). 

More later.

Surging Gas Output Again Testing Bakken's Takeaway Capacity -- Energy Intelligence Group -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48444B.

Director's Cut, June, 2024, data.

  • crude oil production: 1,175,567 bopd
  • natural gas production: 3,472,710 MCF/day
  • ratio, ng/oil: 2.95

Link here.



From the linked article:
Gas-to-oil ratios in the Bakken Shale are setting new records, with the North Dakota basin's production only expected to get gassier — setting the stage for another round of takeaway capacity challenges.

In June, North Dakota’s production averaged 2.95 standard cubic feet of gas per barrel of oil, state Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said during a webinar last week.

“That’s the highest we’ve had in development history here for the Bakken and the Three Forks. We’re going to see ups and downs with this trend, but the general consensus is that we’re going to see this continue to move up,” Kringstad said. “Natural gas is entrained in that Bakken oil. … As those wells age, that pressure depletes. We see more and more gas released downhole.”

EIA's drilling production report, link here

Mano-a-mano, crude oil production, new wells:

  • Permian: 1,400 bopd per rig
  • Bakken: 1,747 bopd per rig (advantage: 24.79%)

Mano-a-mano, natural gas production, new wells:

  • Permian: 2,547 MCF/d
  • Bakken: 2,663 MCF/d (advantage: 4.55%)

BRK Only $30 Billion From Joining The $1-Trillion Club -- August 24, 2024

Locator: 48442BRK.

Link here

Looks like it's time to consider a new ETF: the TDC ETF -- the trillion-dollar-club ETF.

I assume the ETF (or an equivalent) already exists. 

Seriously, that's a fairly diversified ETF:

  • consumer electronics
  • global big cap
  • US big cap conglomerate
  • Big Pharma
  • chip foundry
  • tech

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Schwab Quarterly Chartbook

My wife and I attended a Schwab quarterly chartbook briefing last week, hosted by our Schwab broker.
75 slides of charts -- the kind Liz Ann Sonders prepares. Fortunately, the speaker only went through ten slides or so.

About twenty-four of us in attendance. 

By invite only.

Demographics:

  • generally retirees over 65 years of age; most approaching 75, I assume
  • as many women and men; I assume many of the women were widows
  • a few of the men, like me, brought spouses; no trophy wives.

Presentation:

  • absolutely covered everything: all equities -- all bonds -- some REITS -- everything

Audience interest:

  • and what was the audience interested in? Bonds.

Takeaway:

  • majority of audience, it seems, were absolutely missing the forest for the trees.
    • when you get an hour, almost one-on-one with "a Liz Sonders" and you spend your time on corporate vs municipal bonds, what an opportunity lost
  • yes, I get it -- 60/40
  • but, wow, too many folks living in the past
  • happy with locked-in returns of 4%; quibbling over 4.1% vs 4.3%.
  • my hunch: a lot of these folks were not so much 60/40 as 10/90 (equities / bonds)