HPQ: watch the ticker today. Says HP AI rolling out more slowly than forecast.
HP's OmniBook X 14 -- you can do better -- Verge. Link here. August 15, 2024. QCOM's Snapdragon. The writer still prefers his company-provided 13-inch MacBook Air. Both are similarly priced. The Air has the new M2 and M3 chips. [HP: even steals the Apple "book" name. It gets tedious.]
From the linked Verge article:
The freshman class of Windows Copilot Plus PCs has its battery champ, and it’s even a few hundred dollars cheaper than Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop. But it’s also business-class boring, with a middling screen and subpar trackpad.
HP’s new OmniBook X 14 is one of the first laptops with Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor. Like most of the ones we’ve seen so far, it’s a thin and light machine aimed at productivity tasks and stuffed with AI fluff. It starts at $1,150, with a 14-inch LCD screen, 12-core processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD — with an optional upgrade to a 1TB drive for $1,200, though it’s often on sale for less. [GPU: Qualcomm Adreno.]
Most of the other Windows laptops we’ve seen with these new Arm chips have bright, beautiful screens and other creature comforts. The OmniBook, on the other hand, is a near-clone of the HP EliteBook Ultra, a machine built for high-volume office deployment, and it shows.
The US, for the first time, reaches $35 trillion in debt.
Story buried on business pages if reported at all.
Not talked about on CNBC.
Why not? Why is "nobody" talking about the US debt? Why does no one seem worried about US debt?
Question of the day.
************************ Corollary
Is US spending "doing anything" for quality of life? Since 1951?
************************ Maybe This Is Where We Need To Start
And then there's the "brand name." Certainly the "US brand" is worth a few trillion dollars. One wonders if the total worth of the United States includes the dozen or so old Apple computers stored in the garage and never used any more. Certainly they have some resale value. No?
After last week's employment situation report from the US Bureau of
Labor Statistics and this morning's wholesale trade report from the US
Census Bureau, an increase in the nowcast of second-quarter real gross
private domestic investment growth from 2.7 percent to 4.2 percent was
offset by a decrease in the nowcast of second-quarter real personal
consumption expenditures growth from 2.1 percent to 1.8 percent, while
the nowcast of the contribution of the change in real net exports to
second-quarter real GDP growth increased from 0.31 percentage points to
0.35 percentage points.
You had me at "the nowcast of second-quarter real gross
private domestic investment growth from 2.7 percent to 4.2 percent."
And that's why I added to my BRK-B position today.
******************************** From 1941
This was posted on YouTube earlier today, about nine hours ago.
Danish, I believe.
Think what was going on in 1941.
Two items:
start at 52 seconds; the instrumental introduction is way too long; and,
see if you recognize the bars starting about 2:18.
Isn't that just the most beautiful / pleasant-sounding lyrics. I could listen to it all night.
Best TV ad right now: "Taco Night" -- OTR. Exactly my kind of night, except I also have a huge pool. LOL.
How did BUD get it so wrong?
By the way, watch "Cheers," season one episode 16:
************************ USAF Overseas
When we were stationed overseas -- Germany, England, Germany again, and then Turkey -- and especially in Turkey we were entertained weekly with really great stuff -- by our own active duty personnel -- it was really quite remarkable. I had not thought about that in a long time until I saw this tonight (from the link above):
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2018 is 3.9 percent
on October 17, down from 4.0 percent on October 15.
On October 16, the
nowcast of third-quarter real government expenditures growth fell from
2.1 percent to 1.3 percent after the U.S. Department of the Treasury and
its Bureau of the Fiscal Service released the Monthly Treasury
Statement during the afternoon of the previous day.
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2018 is 1.9 percent on March 14, down from 2.5 percent on March 9.
After yesterday's Consumer Price Index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and this morning's retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth fell from 2.2 percent to 1.4 percent.
Easy come, easy go.
******************************
The Literary Page
Updates
March 29, 2018: another source for the Crusades -- Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World, Karen Armstrong, c. 1988, 1991, and 2001 -- with preface written in light of the events on "9-11."
Original Post
The word of the day: Betjemanian, as in, "He also had, from early on, a Betjemanian love of Englishness." -- The New Yorker, March 12, 2018, page 72. From wiki:
Sir John Betjeman (pronounced, "betch-man'), CBE (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".
He was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1972 until his death.
He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
If I had but one period of my life to re-live and re-live, it would be my years in northern England. I must have walked hundreds of miles in northern Yorkshire over those several years, regardless of the season or the weather.
The books for today:
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, edited by Jonathan Riley-Smith, c. 1995
The Sherlock Holmes Book, a DK book, c. 2015
The crusades:
1095 AD
a church council meeting in Clermont, chairman: Pope Urban II
called on Frankish knights to vow to march to the East with two mandates:
free Christians from the yoke of Islamic rule
liberating the tomb of Christ, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem from Muslim control
multiple crusades to the East and also to the west, most notably, Spain
Crusades began in 1107-1108; diverted into a preliminary and disastrous invasion of the Byzantine empire: 1120 - 1125; 1128 - 1129; 1139 - 1140; and 1147 - 1149
the Second Crusade: 1147 - 1149
by then, the movement had extended to Spain, the reconquest of which from the Moors had already been equated with the liberation of Jerusalem by Pope Urban II
the Second Crusade was a fiasco; three further crusades in Spain before 1187, one in northern Europe, and a few expeditions, notably that of 1177, to Palestine, the thirty years that followed were in many ways the lowest point the movement reached before the 15th century
everything changed, however, with the Muslim victory at Hattin, and the loss of Jerusalem and nearly all of Palestine to Saladin in 1187
the Third Crusade: 1189 - 1192; the German Crusade (1197 - 1198) recovered most of the coast, King Henry II of England;
Crusades generated enthusiasm through the 13th century
Children's Crusade: 1212
the Crusade of the Shepherds: 1251
the Fourth Crusade: 1202 - 1204; military forces sailed to the East; diverted to Constantinople, which the crusaders took, together with much of Greece
the Fifth Crusade: 1217 - 1219; ended with the recovery of Jersualem by treaty
the first crusade of King Louis IX of France: 1239 - 1241; 1248 - 1254; inspired by the loss of Jerusalem in 1244
Louis's second crusade: 1269 - 1272
crusading armies invaded Egypt: 1218
Tunisia: 1270
and, it continues, more crusades to Spain, northern Europe, and north Africa: 1187 -
these on-going crusades were fought against political opponents of the papacy in Italy -- endemic between 1255 and 1378
The last great Muslim offensive: the siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks in early September, 1683, with the Muslim encampments ringing the city and a spider's web of trenches pressing on the fortifications. The advance of the Ottomans into the heart of Europe precipitated the last great crusade league, which went on to recover large parts of the Balkans for Christendom.
The crusades affected everything -- religious thought, politics, economy, society -- even generating its own literature.
King Henry II: 1154 - 1189 (planned the Third Crusade but died in 1189 and his son King Richard I, the Lion-Hearted, led the crusade instead)
King Richard I: 1189 - 1199
King Richard II: 1377 - 1399
King Richard III: 1483 - 1485
Crusading is not easy to define: p. 8.
30-second elevator speech:
the "crusades" may have begun with the pope concerned about the Muslims in the Holy Land but over time, the "crusades" turned into a papal fight against all opponents stretching from Spain to Asia and as far north as the Baltic states; from 1095 - 1683; wow, 1100 - 1700
Chapter 5: Songs.
the great epic traditions of Germany and France: Chanson de Roland; the oldest epic in French; almost certainly dates from about the time of the First Crusade; versions in both French and Occitan, the literary language of southern France
Roland, a duke of the march of Brittany, 778, perished in what may have been a minor skirmish in the Pyreness; but the minor skirmish, over time, took on tones of an epic: by the 11th century there had been a striking change of scale: the account of events in the Chanson de Roland turns the incident into a major confrontation between Charlemagne's empire and the forces of Islam, culminating in Charlemagne's successful conquest of all of Spain and the enforced conversion of the citizens of Saragossa (it's possible that the skirmish in the Pyrenees, 778, never even involved Muslims)
If I were to come back to this book. I would begin with Chapter 5.
******************
The Sherlock Holmes Book
A fun, little book whose audience would be 14-year-olds who love Sherlock Holmes. And also the rest of us.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
b. in Edinburgh, Scottish again, May 22, 1859, just before the US Civil War
strict Jesuit boarding school, Stonyhurst school in Lancashire where he met a fellow student named Moriatry
questioned his religious believes and by the time he left that Jesuit school was an atheist; turned to spiritualism; left that school in 1875
a year of school with the Jesuits in Feldkirch in Austria
returned to Edinburgh University, 1876- 1881: studied medicine
met two professors who would later serve as models for two more characters:
Professor Rutherford: Professor George Edward Challenger, the central character in his famous science-fiction novel, The Lost World (1912)
Dr Joseph Bell: whose method of deducing the history and circumstances of his patients appeared little short of magic; here was the model and inspiration for Sherlock Holmes; his first collection of Sherlock Holmes stories was dedicated "To My Old Teacher Joseph Bell"; Joseph Bell was a father figure for Conan
gradually built up a medical practice but also began writing fiction
"I thought I would try my hand at writing a story in which the hero would treat crime as Dr Bell treated disease and where science would take the place of romance."
he noted that prior to his method, most detective stories had results which were obtained in nearly every case by chance
1887: A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel
1893: on a trip to Switzerlan with his wife Louise, wrote his final Sherlock Holmes, consigning his hero to the watery depths of the Reichenbach Falls, locked in the arms of the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty
physically faithful to his first wife, Louise, but never passionately in love with her; more of a friendship
1897: falls in love with Jean Leckie, a Scottish woman, 14 years his junior
1906: Louise died of tuberculosis
1907: Conan married Jean a year later
1900: serves in the Second Boer War as a medic
This book would be a great gift for an adolescent "in love" with Sherlock Holmes
Europe may be the only continent in the world to depend on imported energy -- EU Council President.
That's almost a direct quote from European council president Herman Van
Rompuy. ("Romper Room Rompuy" is one way to remember these renewable
energy reformists.)
The Parliament is reporting (this page has already disappeared, but you can find the story easily by googling):
European council president Herman Van Rompuy has voiced concern about Europe's "energy dilemma".
Opening
the European business summit in Brussels on Wednesday, he said, "It's
now becoming clear; eventually Europe may well be the only continent in
the world to depend on imported energy.
"Already by 2035 our dependence on oil and gas imports will reach more than 80 per cent.
"This will have an impact on the competitiveness of our companies, and of our economy as a whole."
It should be noted that the Antarctic is a continent. So I doubt Europe
will be the ONLY continent in the universe to depend on imported energy.
I say all that to post this graphic from Platts via Twitter:
I did not read the story at the link in the Twitter graphic. I was simply amazed to see how much natural gas Germany imports from Russia. Germany imports more NG from Russia than the UK and France do combined.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2017 is 3.4 percent on November 17, up from 3.2 percent on November 15.
The forecast of real GDP growth increased 0.3 percentage points to 3.5 percent after yesterday's industrial production release from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The forecast of real residential investment growth declined from 4.6 percent to 2.2 percent after this morning's new residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Holy cow! Making American great. Jobs report today. ADP employment report to be reported later. Forecast: US added 185,000 jobs in August. Actual: holy cow! 237,000 jobs added in August. Steve Liesman, CNBC seems awestruck, blown away. Doesn't understand where jobs are coming from. Talking head: "can't last forever." [I believe I heard that same quote last month.] In addition, the July number was revised higher, up 23,000 to 201,000. And now they are saying the initial August figures tend to be on the light side and are generally revised upward. Wow. And in a very long CNBC segment, Trump administration not mentioned. In fact, Steve Liesman specifically said he did not want to talk politics.
GDP. Making America great. Latest forecast: 3.4 percent — August 25, 2017.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2017 is 3.4 percent on August 25, down from 3.8 percent on August 16.
The forecast of third-quarter real GDP growth fell 0.3 percentage points to 3.5 percent after the Federal Reserve Board's industrial production report on August 17 and the forecast of third-quarter real residential investment growth fell from 3.4 percent to –0.4 percent following the housing market data releases on August 23 and 24. The forecast of third-quarter real nonresidential equipment investment growth increased from 6.4 percent to 8.1 percent after this morning's durable manufacturing report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Harvey effect on GDP: talking head on CNBC says Harvey will not affect national data.
GDP: revised 2Q17 estimate -- was 2.6; estimate of 2.7 or 2.8 percent. Actual -- 3%!. Wow. Steve Liesman admits that positive business attitude from Trump administration "could account" for some of this. Did CNBC say that 3% in the 2Q is the best for that quarter in two years? I thought I heard that but I was making waffles and might have misheard.
10-year Treasuries: 2.1149
Oh-oh: Norway's Arctic oil ambitions suffer as most promising well is a dud. From Reuters:
Norway's hope of discovering a large oilfield in the Barents Sea has
suffered a major setback after the far north Arctic's most promising
reservoir turned out to contain only small amounts of natural gas.
Statoil, the country's top oil and gas producer, has stepped up
drilling in the Barents Sea this year as the government seeks to attract
more explorers to its Arctic waters to make up for declining North Sea
output.
But Statoil said on Tuesday that after drilling the northernmost
exploration well in the highly anticipated Korpfjell prospect it had
found only non-commercial quantities of gas and no oil.
Korpfjell was the first exploration well drilled in the Norwegian
section of a formerly disputed area between Norway and Russia, where
Statoil and its partners had hoped to make a major discovery.
On the ropes: Russia's Gazprom 2Q17 net income drops 80% y-o-y; misses forecast. From Reuters.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 2.6 percent on July 11, down from 2.7 percent on July 6.
The forecast of second-quarter real GDP growth fell 0.2 percentage points to 2.5 percent after Friday's employment release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The model's estimate of the dynamic factor for June—normalized to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1 and used to forecast the yet-to-be released monthly GDP source data—decreased from 1.08 to 0.34.
The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to second-quarter real GDP growth increased from 0.57 to 0.61 percentage points after this morning's wholesale trade report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
GDPNow: Latest forecast: 3.7 percent — May 26, 2017.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 3.7 percent on May 26, down from 4.1 percent on May 16.
The forecast for second-quarter real residential investment growth fell from 8.3 percent to 3.1 percent after Tuesday's housing related releases from the U.S. Census Bureau and Wednesday's existing-home sales release from the National Association of Realtors.
Wow. And the scuttlebutt is that Americans want to buy real estate, but not enough new, affordable houses are being built to keep up with demand.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 4.1 percent on May 16, up from 3.6 percent on May 12.
The forecast of second-quarter real residential investment growth increased from 6.0 percent to 8.3 percent after this morning's housing starts release from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The forecast of second-quarter real final sales to private domestic purchasers growth increased from 3.3 percent to 3.6 percent after this morning's industrial production (IP) report from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
The model’s estimate of the dynamic factor for April—normalized to have mean 0 and standard deviation 1 and used to forecast the yet-to-be released monthly GDP source data—increased from 0.32 to 0.59 after the report.
The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to second-quarter real GDP growth increased from 1.00 percentage points to 1.20 percentage points after the IP report. Much of the increase was concentrated in motor vehicle and parts dealer inventories as motor vehicle assemblies increased 6.4 percent in April, according to the IP report.
A 4% GDP for 2Q17 is obviously a bridge too far, but if we actually hit 3.6% it might feel like 4% after the past eight years. From GDPNow:
Latest forecast: 3.6 percent — May 12, 2017
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 3.6 percent on May 12, unchanged from May 9.
The forecast for second-quarter real consumer spending inched up from 2.7 percent to 2.8 percent after this morning's retail sales release from the U.S. Census Bureau and this morning's Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The forecast for second-quarter real government spending growth fell from 0.1 percent to -0.4 percent following the Monthly Treasury Statement issued yesterday by the U.S. Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2017 is 2.2 percent on February 15, down from 2.7 percent on February 9.
The forecast for first-quarter real consumer spending growth declined from 3.1 percent to 2.8 percent after the retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Consumer Price Index report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics were released this morning.
The forecast for the contribution of inventory investment to growth fell from -0.20 percentage points to -0.39 percentage points after the industrial production report from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Business Inventories report from the U.S. Census Bureau were released this morning.
The inventory contribution forecast for February 9 was corrected to account for data from the wholesale trade report not incorporated in last Thursday's GDPNow update. The correction did not change the model's GDP growth forecast after rounding.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2016 is 2.5 percent on June 1, down from 2.9 percent on May 31.
After this morning's construction spending release from the U.S. Census Bureau and this morning's Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute for Supply Management, the forecast for real residential investment growth decreased from 7.9 percent to 4.2 percent, the forecast for real nonresidential structures investment growth decreased from -2.8 percent to -6.5 percent, and the forecast for real government spending growth decreased from 1.2 percent to 0.4 percent.
GDP will be updated again tomorrow.
******************************
Outrun Change
Last night I had the opportunity to visit some of my favorite blogs. One of them is Outrun Change.
I do not recall how long Outrun Change has been around, but it seems that it was one of the first blogs I linked. It probably needs to be moved up on my sidebar at the right, along with the other featured linked blogs.
There, done. And for the next few weeks, I've moved "Featured Blogs" up higher on the sidebar.
Outrun Change has seven tabs at the top. Three of them relate to Peak Oil. Really, really good. It's nice to have this history, these archives.
Another tab takes one to a long piece on "improvements in our standard of living and the Price of Everything." It speaks to the choir, but the book review/book report is well worth the read.
Another tab is "Peering Forward." This is the kind of essay that needs to be updated. It would be interesting to see the writer's observations over time with regard to "what comes next." I'm trying to do that at "The Next Big Thing" but it is difficult. Why? Outrun Change suggests it is because things are moving so quickly now.
Right now, if I had to name those who seem to be activist futurists, these names come to mind:
Jeff Bezos -- definitely, succeeding beyond expectations
Tim Cook -- most likely, but is he a futurist, or simply in the right place at the right time?
Mark Zuckerberg -- perhaps; evolving, no longer a revolution
the guys over at Google -- most likely
Barack Obama -- definitely, in the arena of creeping socialism
Vladimir Putin -- definitely, in the arena of "empire building"/ Realpolitik
Elon Musk -- definitely, but living on the edge
Look at that list. Some of those will be right on target; others will flame out, crash and burn.
JCPenney, faced with unexpected light sales in mid-April, slashed
payroll, froze overtime and took other drastic cost-cutting steps in an
attempt to protect its bottom line.
As the end of its first fiscal quarter approached, the mid-priced
department store told store managers to take the emergency measures
because the chain faced “an expense challenge."
“We have an expense challenge for the month of April and are asking
all stores to do their fair share by closely monitoring all expenses."
Employees were stunned when their hours were slashed on such short
notice. The cut in employee hours saved Penney around
800 hours over two weeks — or approximately $8,000 per store.
The emperor has no clothes. I may have to re-look at the rule that does not allow any individual to win multiple Geico Rock awards. Clearly, Barack Obama necessitates a re-look at this rule.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2016 is 1.7 percent
on May 4, down 0.1 percentage point from May 2.
The forecasts for
second-quarter real nonresidential equipment investment growth and the
change in private inventory investment declined following this morning's
M3 report on manufacturers' shipments, inventories, and orders from the
U.S. Census Bureau. While the forecasts for second-quarter real exports
and real imports growth increased following the international trade
report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the expected contribution of net
exports to real GDP growth in the second quarter was virtually
unchanged.
Later, 11:08 p.m. CT: this headline from CNBCif the story below was not clear enough. The headline: "disappointing April retail sales spell bad news for 2Q15 GDP."
April retail sales come in unchanged, below expectations of a 0.2 percent gain.
Remember, this is not a first quarter number. This
is second quarter, and retail sales are a significant component of GDP.
Look for downward revisions for second quarter GDP. [GDPNow -- a Federal Reserve forecast -- already suggests how bad the 2Q15 GDP may come in -- see original post.]
Retail Sales are now flat or down four of the last five months.
April: flat
March: up 1.1 percent
February: down 0.6 percent
January: down 0.8 percent
December: down 0.9 percent
The pull of Easter spending into March was likely
an issue, but what happened to the lower gasoline prices that were
supposed to save consumers money?
Later, 11:31 a.m. CT: in the original post below I noted the 1Q15 GDP was 0.1%. In fact, it was revised upward to 0.2% a month later. However, there are now indications that when the final revision comes out this month/next month, we will find that the US economy actually contracted in 1Q15. Definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted
annual rate) in the second quarter of 2015 was 0.8 percent on May 5,
unchanged from May 1. The nowcast for the second-quarter change in net
exports in 2009 dollars declined from -$14 billion to -$24 billion
following this morning's international trade report from the U.S. Census
Bureau.
The talking heads and the pundits will forecast a 2Q15 GDP of 2.5 to 4.25%. The federal reserve is forecasting ... drum roll ... 0.8%.
For the first time since 2010, all four of the eurozone's largest economies (Germany, France, Italy and Spain) recorded growth.
And for the first time since Q1 of 2011, the currency area grew more rapidly than both the U.S. and U.K. The eurozone economy expanded by 0.4% at the start of the year, marking a pickup from the 0.3% growth recorded in the final quarter of 2014. (Comment: is that even statistically relevant?)
Although Germany's economy slowed more than forecast in Q1 (due to sluggish foreign trade and domestic demand), France marched higher. German GDP rose 0.3% at the start of the year, missing forecasts for 0.5% growth, while France expanded at its fastest pace in nearly two years (+0.6%) due to higher consumer spending.
Germany is still on track to outperform the euro area over the next two years as other countries lag behind on the reforms needed to sustain the recovery.
The only good news about these numbers? The numbers did not fall below zero percent.
