Headlines Over At X -- Plastic Straws And Gulf Of America -- February 10, 2025

Locator: 48533X.

Breaking:

Trump pardons ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Absolutely outstanding press conference two weeks after the initial call. Two bad 99% of Americans won't hear that press conference. At best, they might get a 30-second sound bite on the evening news and then an "explanation" by the news reader reading something written by some unknown "news" writer behind the scenes.

Trump is truly amazing. Does Trump ever sleep? 

Fox, Live, Now, Raw: amazing. 

***************************
Democratic Leadership

Schumer. Truly a breath of fresh air listening to John Thune.

Jeffries. Wow, wow, wow. I don't think folks get it yet. Certainly not the journalists covering the US House. But Jeffries is a) a doppelgänger of Barack Obama; and, b) is clearly channeling Barack when he speaks form the floor.

Both Schumer and Jeffries are one-trick ponies: Trump is cutting taxes for the rich. So far, Trump hasn't said a thing about taxes, unless I've missed something.

 ******************************
Headlines Over At X

Straws: President Trump has just signed an executive order directing the US government to go back to plastic straws. This will be a huge help to the US military.

Brilliant, brilliant: President Trump says Nippon Steel has agreed to invest in US Steel instead of buying the company outright. 

Tariffs: President Trump removed the exceptions and exemptions Monday from this 2018 tariffs on steel. Now, all aluminum products / steel products coming into US face tariffs, at least that's how I understand it. Could be wrong. Often am. 

Later, yup there it is: 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum for all countries. Let's make America great again. Tariffs should be in effect by May, 2025. But, and there's a big but ... not a full 25% higher -- tariffs on steel and aluminum were already at 10%.

Berkshire is losing money on it $9 billion stake in Kraft Heinz; impairment is possible. Link to Barron's. 

Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B is now in the red on its big investment in Kraft Heinz KHC and might have to take a noncash write-down on it in the coming quarters. Berkshire got its 27% stake in the big food company—some 325.6 million shares—when H.J. Heinz merged with Kraft Foods in 2015 to form Kraft Heinz.

Energy Transfer to supply natural gas directly to CloudBursts AI data center, 0.43 bcf/d; will generate up to 1.2 GW of direct or behind the meter electric power. Link to Dan Tsubouchi over at X. Reminder: whenever you see "1 GW" of power capacity -- that's the average power capacity of a single nuclear reactor in the US.

Gulf of America: Google maps now shows "Gulf of America." I just checked: that is absolutely true. Bounded on four sides: Florida, Texas, Mexico, and Cuba. I'm lovin' it.

Facebook: just closed the day higher for the 15th trading day in a row continuing the longest win streak in its history. Link to Evan over at X.

Tulsi: her nomination has just passed its final procedural vote in the US Senate. Odds she is confirmed are now up to 98%. Link to Polymarket over at X.

McDonald's App Economy Insights posted, over at X. Net profit, 32% margin. Operating profit, 45% margin. Gross profit, 58% margin. I'm lovin' it.

Palantir closed at all-time highs today.

RFK, Jr.?; US Senator Susan Collins will vote for RFK, Jr. Odds the latter will be confirmed just went to 100%.

Posted without comment: