California's Central Valley Bullet Train Update -- May 26, 2024

Locator: 47181THECOMICPAGE.

• tag: bullet train, Tulare Lakebed, Corcoran,

Updates:

Link here. May 5, 2024, so, it's a fairly recent update.

At the link, some great photos and narrative:

The California High Speed Rail Authority shared an update on the Fresno River Viaduct in Madera County last week, proudly saying it was one of the 'first completed high-speed rail structures.'

The tweet did not get the reaction officials were hoping for with Elon Musk and Dogecoin creator Billy Markus piling in to mock the project.

The Viaduct has taken nine years to build and has cost taxpayers $11 billion as part of the state's long-delayed, bullet-train plan attempting to link San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Commenting on photos showing the bridge stopping at only 1,600ft long with either end floating unconnected in the air, Markus tweeted: 'This is the most remarkable human achievement ever.'

Sharing the rail authority's tweet he added: '1600 feet of high speed rail after 9 years and 11 billion dollars it takes about 5 minutes to walk 1600 feet so a high speed rail for that is a really big deal.'

He added: 'Wow so impressive, can’t wait until year 2400 for this to finish for 700 quadrillion dollars.'

Musk then chimed in, adding a crying face emoji.

The high speed railway project has been beset by delays and setbacks. So far $11billion of taxpayer money has been sunk into the scheme which aims to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. The figure includes work on controversial Fresno bridge and a section which runs from Bakersfield to Merced, which is about 80 miles from the Bay Area.

It will take an estimated $100billion more to finish the project and link San Francisco to Los Angeles with many calling for the project to be scrapped.

 The floating viaduct:

What's really cool about this: the disconnect between engineer thinking and banking CEO thinking:

• engineers could / couldn't care less about the cost; it's the engineering feat that marvels
• the banking CEO: are you kidding me? $11 billion for a bridge to nowhere.

See Wes Anderson's Asteroid City for more on this.

*********************************
Re-Posting

One of my better posts on the Bullet Train, California

Locator: 44699CA.

Locator: 44461BT. 

Updates

May 20, 2023: California to open relief valves to mitigate Lake Tulare flooding. 

The intertie functions like a gated alley connecting two much larger streets. On one side lies a stretch of the Kern River called the Buena Vista Channel, and on the other is the California Aqueduct, a simple name for a complex system of tunnels and pipelines that transports water from Northern California and the Sierra to the state's arid central and southern expanses.

Original Post

I don't know if folks remember this, but if you do, hold that thought. This was the huge Red River flood of Grand Forks back in 1997. Photo link here.

Fast forward.

Out in California, The Los Angeles Times reports on something similar facing Tulare, California, central valley, northwest of Los Angeles, northwest of Bakersfield. Tulare Lake is back. See also the blog of June 24, 2017.

This story may or may not be behind a paywall. I was able to access it without difficulty.

The flooding has only recently begun and is expected to last at least two more years, assuming I read the article correctly, which seems correct because the state is working on a plan to raise the existing earth dikes another 3.5 feet.

What the flood plain looks like on the map:

Why this story is of interest? Not so much what was reported but what was not reported.

The California Bullet Train.

Link here.

The map from the state of California:

Going back to the earlier map:

Note: this is the easy part of the bullet-train-rail -- flat. No tunnels. No mountains. No major river crossings. Just absolutely flat.

And flooded.

The good news: they can put 12-foot dikes on either side / both sides of the rails.

The bullet train is tracked (no pun intended) here.

***************************
Current Cost / Funding Status

Link here.

 

Electric Grid In The Netherlands Has Reached Its Limit -- Could New EV Sales Be Suspended? December 21, 2023

Locator: 46373EVS.

This story posted yesterday in the Netherlands Times:

Map of the area affected is pretty much all the Dutch provinces that border the North Sea, or perhaps as much as one-third of the Netherlands, stretching from The Hague to Groningen. Amsterdam is on the main road between these two cities / provinces.

From the article:

How bad is it? Link to Reuters story earlier this year:

The map:

ASML: is the only company in the world that currently produces extreme ultraviolet (EUV) orthography machines, which are used to produce cutting-edge semiconductor chips that companies like Apple rely upon.

The company is located in Veldhoven, Netherlands, a suburb on the southwest side of Eindhoven.

From wiki:

And more:

ASML, from Investopedia:

A Huge, Huge Miss On My Part -- A Reader Bails Me Out -- November 22, 2019

I was so caught up in the anti-Greta rant I completely missed the bigger story.

Forget about pollution.

Forget about CO2 emissions.

Look at this story in terms of economic growth in this country. Folks are laser-focused on quarterly GDP of various countries around the world, and miss the long-term story. A reader sent me this. First, a re-posting of an earlier story:

Across China, a whopping 148GW of coal-fired plants are either being built or are about to begin construction, according to a report from Global Energy Monitor, a non-profit group that monitors coal stations. Putting that number in context, the current capacity of the entire EU coal fleet is 149GW, or the same as what China is about to add.

I pride myself in taking a deeper look when given numbers I can't get my arms around, but in this case I blew it. I never thought about what 148GW of coal-fired plants meant. Yes, I saw that was the "current capacity of the entire EU coal fleet" but I blew that off -- thinking that the EU coal fleet had significantly declined over the past decade.

But a reader put this in perspective:

I have found, over the years, that simply providing raw numbers is not so impactful as charts and/or relative context. 

So ... 150 Gigawatts... If one took a massive, single 1,000 Megawatt coal fired plant ... then took 150 of them ... one would arrive at that 150 Gw figure.

That is, if each state in the US - right now - started building THREE massive coal plants, the Chinese equivalent would be realized.

(The Navajo-operated Four Corners plant - now shutting down - is rated at ~2,000 Mw).

For further context/comparison, take the two (2) massive offshore wind projects proposed off New York state - Empire and Sunrise. At an effective output of just over 800 Megawatts (1,700 namplate at 48% capacity factor), these $10 BILLION boondoggles will not even equal the output of a single, 1,000 new Chinese coal plant.

Pure insanity.

 My first thought: the off-shore wind lobby is certainly very, very powerful.

But I digress.

Forget about the pollution. Forget about the CO2 emissions (FWIW -- nothing). What catches my eye: how big China is (and will be going forward). This puts in perspective how big that population is, and what the economy will need from the rest of the world in terms of food and consumer goods.

Those numbers above -- three massive coal plants in each of the 50 US states -- that simply blows me away.

And, those offshore wind projects -- yeah ... insanity.

A huge thank you to my readers for keeping me on track.

**********************************

A Very Clever Christmas Gift / Stocking Stuffer

This is perfect for .... every age group. Seriously.



It will be interesting to see how this product does over the holidays.

I remember when I was in college a representative from 3M (makers of Scotch tape). He talked about how the company brainstormed uses for adhesive, everything from Post-It notes to adhesives used in those huge green interstate signs. This seems to be another example -- 2 x 2 photo stickies.

Takeaway For ObamaCare According to Washington Post -- Shop Around (Note: Only One Insurer In Most Of Arizona) -- November 1, 2016

From The Washington Post:

Monthly insurance premiums for popular plans on HealthCare.gov are rising by 25 percent on average next year, according to government data. But the increases will be more dramatic in certain parts of the country, the numbers show.
Take somebody living in Phoenix, where the cost of the premium for a benchmark plan is growing by a whopping 145 percent to $507 a month in 2017 when compared to this year, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks how premiums are changing in some major cities.
In Birmingham, Ala., health care premiums for a similar plan are climbing by 71 percent next year to $492 a month. And in Oklahoma City they are growing by 67 percent.

Premium rate rise in major cities in these states:

• Arizona: 145%, to $507/person -- $2,000 for a family of four; with high deductible; high co-pay
• Alabama: 71%, to $492 / person -- ditto
• Oklahoma: 67% 

Personally, I don't see a lot of difference between $507 and $492, but then again, maybe that's just me.

Premium rates will generally be greater in rural areas than in major urban areas according to the linked article.

*****************************

Movie Review

IDMB movie review of Leonardo Di Caprio's global warming movie -- hoping to win a Nobel Peace Prize, no doubt:

Basically DeCaprio was told by Al Gore (who has made a hundred millions of dollars by preaching global warming after he retired from political life, gained a bunch of weight and had nothing to do) that anthropological global warming is real, and from that point onward DeCaprio was convinced. LOL!

Then DeCaprio presents the ole “97% of scientists” lie that has traveled around the world. In reality 66% of scientists have no opinion about AGW — Those opinions were conveniently thrown out of the messaged John Cook study. Then DeCaprio presents cherry picked anecdotal evidence, without ever questioning whether it’s a case of Texas Sharpshooting. Why didn’t he present the Vostok Station / Greenland ice core data to put the last 100 years IN PERSPECTIVE versus the last 5,000 years, 11,000 years and 420,000 years?

And if he’s such a big fan of anecdotal evidence over temperature data then why didn’t he mention that Greenland used to be green? That 20,000 years ago New York was covered by a mile thick glacier? Why didn’t DeCaprio interview Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, who is not part of “Big Oil” and doesn’t buy into AGW?

Because DeCaprio suffers from confirmation bias. The rest of this propaganda piece (I mean movie) continues under the ASSUMPTION that humans are causing the planet to warm and we all need to agree to tax ourselves more. No thanks.

The movie, by the way, bombed. 

1Q16 GDP Forecast Sinks To 0.6% -- In Light Of Today's Consumer Spending Report -- March 29, 2016

Economy. The Wall Street Journal is reporting:

Consumer Spending Inches Up 0.1%; Inflation Below Fed Target for 46th Month A modest increase in Americans’ outlays points to an uninspired start for the new year’s economy.

The U.S. economy is looking soft as the first quarter draws to a close.

Consumer outlays rose modestly in February, ticking up by a seasonally adjusted 0.1% for the third consecutive month. Incomes have been rising faster, but Americans seem to be saving rather than spending. The personal-saving rate hit 5.4% last month, matching its highest level since the end of 2012.

Early-year fluctuations in financial markets may have contributed to consumers’ caution.

The weakness in consumer spending damped hopes for a pickup from the fourth quarter’s 1.4% growth rate for gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy.

Forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers on Monday estimated GDP growth at a 1% pace in the first three months of 2016, down from an earlier prediction of 1.5%. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow model predicted growth at a 0.6% pace in the first quarter, marked down from an earlier estimate of 1.4% growth.

GDPNow:

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2016 is 0.6 percent on March 28, down from 1.4 percent on March 24.

After this morning's personal income and outlays release from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the forecast for first-quarter real consumer spending growth fell from 2.5 percent to 1.8 percent. The forecast for the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth declined from –0.26 percentage points to –0.52 percentage points following this morning's advance report on international trade in goods from the U.S. Census Bureau.

My hunch is everyone is contributing to their IRA before the April 18th deadline. Or paying their ObamaCare premiums. 

 ************************************

Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

	3/29/2016	03/29/2015	03/29/2014	03/29/2013	03/29/2012
Active Rigs	31	97	194	188	206

RBN Energy: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: U.S. Crude Oil Production Declines and Eventual Rebound.

U.S. crude oil production is finally falling in response to the collapse in oil prices that started in mid-2014. Output is now poised to drop below 9 MMb/d--700 Mb/d off its April 2015 peak—and the rate of decline is accelerating. That raises all-important questions of how low will production go, which shale basins will be hit the hardest, and the most important question of all - how much will oil prices need to rise to reverse those declines?  Understanding the factors necessary to answer these questions is the focus of RBN’s latest Drill Down report that we highlight in today’s blog. The bottom line?  All production economics is local.

In June 2014, just as oil prices were about to fall off a cliff, the U.S. was producing 8.7 MMb/d of oil and the Cushing, OK spot price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was $106/Bbl. Do the math; about $900 million/day of oil was being produced every 24 hours. Even as oil prices plummeted over the next few months (to less than $50/Bbl by January 2015), production kept rising, propelled in large part by the momentum of ever-growing drilling and completion that marked the previous few years. In fact, U.S. production didn’t peak until April 2015, at 9.7 MMb/d. Fast forward almost another year to now. As we said, production is down to about 9.0 MMb/d (but still 300 Mb/d higher than when prices started free-falling), and oil prices, while up from their recent lows in the mid-$20s, are hovering around $40/Bbl--$60-plus dollars lower than they were 21 months ago. The daily value of production is well under $400 million, and most industry participants are hurting, some of them badly.

Being reported everywhere: house prices in January, 2016, rose faster than wages. The details are even worse than the headline:

U.S. home prices climbed at more than double the rate of incomes in January, a trend that could ultimately create affordability challenges for buyers. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.7 percent from a year earlier, a slight increase from the 5.6 percent annual increase in December.

******************************

FBI: Out Of Its League

Hackers shut down the largest healthcare provider in the Washington, DC, area. The FBI says it is aware of the situation and is investigating. This is a huge story; helps put the Apple-FBI stand-off in perspective. The interesting thing is that this story is not being widely reported. Fox News is reporting:

MedStar Health has reportedly been hit with a virus that has forced it to shut down significant parts of its IT operation.

“Early this morning, MedStar Health's IT system was affected by a virus that prevents certain users from logging-in to our system,” explained the company, in a post on its Facebook page. “MedStar acted quickly with a decision to take down all system interfaces to prevent the virus from spreading throughout the organization. We are working with our IT and Cyber-security partners to fully assess and address the situation.”

“Currently, all of our clinical facilities remain open and functioning. We have no evidence that information has been compromised,” it added. “The organization has moved to back-up systems paper transactions where necessary."

The health group, which runs 10 hospitals, the MedStar Health Research Institute and the MedStar Medical Group, describes itself as the largest healthcare provider in the Maryland and Washington, D.C. region.

The FBI told FoxNews.com that it is aware of the incident. The Bureau is "looking into the nature and scope of the matter," it explained, in an emailed statement.

 One wonders whom the FBI will call this time to help them with this one?

************************************

Just Saying

Speaking of the Apple-FBI spat, does anyone find it interesting that the "problem was solved" exactly one day before the issue was to be taken to court. After all these weeks trying to unlock that iPhone, the FBI says "they got the information they needed" just hours before they were to be in court facing the judge.

I always find it amazing how these things work out.

************************************

Say What?

The Weekly Standard is reporting:

Three years ago, on the eve of Obamacare’s implementation, the Congressional Budget Office projected that President Obama's centerpiece legislation would result in an average of 201 million people having private health insurance in any given month of 2016. Now that 2016 is here, the CBO says that just 177 million people, on average, will have private health insurance in any given month of this year—a shortfall of 24 million people.

Indeed, based on the CBO's own numbers, it seems possible that Obamacare has actually reduced the number of people with private health insurance. In 2013, the CBO projected that, without Obamacare, 186 million people would be covered by private health insurance in 2016—160 million on employer-based plans, 26 million on individually purchased plans.

The CBO now says that, with Obamacare, 177 million people will be covered by private health insurance in 2016—155 million on employer-based plans, 12 million on plans bought through Obamacare's government-run exchanges, and 9 million on other individually purchased plans (plus a rounding error of 1 million).

In other words, it would appear that a net 9 million people have lost their private health plans, thanks to Obamacare—with a net 5 million people having lost employer-based plans and a net 4 million people having lost individually purchased plans.

A 25 Percent Increase In Health Care Premiums; Don't Fret, It Could Be Worse -- 33 Percent; 54% In Minnesota; Reality Bites; It's Just Beginning -- July 3, 2015

It turns out those early predictions are turning out to be correct. (A huge "thank you" to a reader for sending me the link.)

Three to six months ago there was talk that ObamaCare premiums were going to be significantly higher in 2016.

Then, in the past couple of weeks, there was some chatter suggesting 2016 healthcare premium increases would not be all that significant. That surprised me because the tea leaves and common sense suggested just the opposite. Even President Obama, I believe, in a recent speech said the 2016 premium increases would not be that severe. Of course, he also told us we could keep our same health plan if we liked it.

Reality bites. Pundits can talk about what-if's all day, but it's already starting. Look at these premium increases already approved in the state of Oregon. The New York Times is reporting:

The Oregon insurance commissioner, Laura N. Cali, has just approved 2016 rate increases for companies that cover more than 220,000 people. Moda Health Plan, which has the largest enrollment in the state, received a 25 percent increase, and the second-largest plan, LifeWise, received a 33 percent increase.

Jesse Ellis O’Brien, a health advocate at the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, said: “Rate increases will be bigger in 2016 than they have been for years and years and will have a profound effect on consumers here. Some may start wondering if insurance is affordable or if it’s worth the money.”

Minnesota? How about a 50% increase?

Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — market leaders in many states — are seeking rate increases that average 23 percent in Illinois, 25 percent in North Carolina, 31 percent in Oklahoma, 36 percent in Tennessee and 54 percent in Minnesota, according to documents posted online by the federal government and state insurance commissioners and interviews with insurance executives.

The more you read, the worse it gets:

“Healthier people chose to keep their plans,” said Amy L. Bowen, a spokeswoman for the Geisinger Health Plan in Pennsylvania, and people buying insurance on the exchange were therefore sicker than expected. Geisinger, often praised as a national model of coordinated care, has requested an increase of 40 percent in rates for its health maintenance organization.

Wow. All that money individuals are saving on gasoline will go toward health care premiums. Do you think employers are looking to hire more employees with healthcare cares increasing by 50%? The best news in the article above:

“People are getting services they needed for a very long time,” Ms. Williams, a spokesperson for one health care insurer, said. “There was a pent-up demand. Over the next three years, I hope, rates will start to stabilize.”

Over the next three years! You mean folks can look forward to 30% increases each of the next three years in their healthcare premium?

One last note:

“Because of the Affordable Care Act,” Mr. Obama told supporters in 2013, “insurance companies have to spend at least 80 percent of every dollar that you pay in premiums on your health care — not on overhead, not on profits, but on you.”

In financial statements filed with the government in the last two months, some insurers said that their claims payments totaled not just 80 percent, but more than 100 percent of premiums. And that, they said, is unsustainable.

**********************************

Drought In California

I've been out here for about one week now; it is interesting how quickly we adapt to a water shortage. I don't know if folks outside California caught this statistic but the state used 29% less water in May, 2015, than they did in May, 2013. The governor had mandated a 25% decrease.

The biggest residential cutback, of course, has been outside watering, and things are starting to turn brown. But even there, there are ways to minimize the damage. My wife puts buckets in the shower, and we now collect all waste water from the sinks, watering outside plants with the water from the shower buckets and the sink water.

We use a minimum amount of water for washing dishes, and our frequency and duration of showers has changed dramatically. Although we haven't gone this next step, families with at least two bathrooms have additional options to really decrease water usage/waste from toilet use. One toilet could be reserved for water waste only, and bricks placed in the toilet tank to decrease the amount of water to a minimum.

But a 30% decrease in water usage by residential customers is quite remarkable, and I doubt -- except for outside watering -- not much has changed for most Californians.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015; Active Rigs Hit A New Post-Boom Low -- 83

Quickies

Now that gay marriage is legal, employers are telling their employees they need to be married for their partners to be eligible for health (and other) benefits.

With the incredible Amtrak disaster on the northeast corridor (train traveling from Washington, DC, to NYC via Philadelphia last night) it's time to slow passenger trains to 5 mph across the entire US. Flying down the tracks at 20 mph is criminal. More people were killed in that one "accident," than have been killed in the US by Bakken CBR.

Hawaii's ObamaCare exchange has imploded.

In its first year, Hawaii enrolled only 8,592 individuals – meaning it spent almost $23,899 on its website for each individual enrolled. Currently over 37,000 individuals are enrolled in Hawaii’s exchange - well below the estimated 70,000 enrollees that is required to make the website financially viable. Unfortunately, taxpayers will have to hand out an additional $30 million so that Hawaii can migrate to the federal system.

This is not the first time that a state exchange has failed, and taken millions of dollars in federal funds down with it. Earlier this year, Oregon’s state exchange was officially abolished at an estimated cost of $41 million. Cover Oregon, as it used to be known received $305 million in funds from HHS but failed to produce a workable website months after the 2013 November deadline.

EIA daily "energy cookie":

If ethanol plant yields per bushel of corn in 2014 had remained at 1997 levels (when ethanol made up just 1% of the total U.S. motor gasoline supply), the ethanol industry would have needed to grind an additional 343 million bushels, or 7% more corn, to produce the same volume of fuel. To supply this incremental quantity of corn without withdrawing bushels from other uses would have required 2.2 million additional acres of corn to be cultivated, an area roughly equivalent to half the land area of New Jersey. ---EIA

 Bakken Economy

Airline loadings down in North Dakota except for .... drum roll .... Williston and Bismarck. 

Active rigs:

	5/13/2015	05/13/2014	05/13/2013	05/13/2012	05/13/2011
Active Rigs	83	190	187	209	173

I track active rigs here. I believe this (83) is a new post-boom low.

*************************

The Year of Deals

First Noble buys Rosetta, now Williams Companies buys its subsidiary Williams Partners. Partners surges.

Energy company Williams Companies is buying its subsidiary Williams Partners L.P. in a stock deal worth about $13.8 billion. The deal, expected to close in the third quarter, is expected to generate adjusted profit of about $5.4 billion in 2016. It will pay a third-quarter dividend of 64 cents per share.

Comment: at $60 oil and rising, it's possible the "reset" button was set.

Another comment and reminder: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment or financial decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. This is also not a weather site, but be advised there are warnings of more flash flooding in Texas. This is also not a travel site but rail travel along the northeast corridor may be disrupted this morning. If this information is important to you, go to the source. This is also not a global warming site, but for those updating their Yahoo calendars, this might be a good time to note that it's going to be really, really hot on July 4, 2053, due to global warming. On Venus. Finally, be prepared for another announcement from Goldman Sachs that oil will drop to $20/bbl by the end of this week.

**************************

RBN Energy

The latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report projects natural gas production in the Marcellus and Utica up 170 MMcf/d  in April, and forecasts growth of another 150 MMcf/d in May and June to average about 3.8 Bcf/d higher in Q2 than in the same period last year.

While there is talk of deferred well completions and shut-ins, it has yet to translate to a slowdown in production volumes in the Northeast region. Our analysis suggests that barring record-high demand, the region will struggle to balance growing supplies this summer with potentially dramatic consequences for prices.

Today RBN concludes its analysis of the Northeast gas supply/demand balance.

In Part 1 of this series RBN showed how Northeast production growth thus far has largely been accommodated by pushing out traditional supply flows into the region. That cushion has now been used up and will not be available this summer. As a result, incremental production growth this year needs to find about 3.5 Bcf/d of additional demand in order to prevent widespread supply congestion and the prospect of a price meltdown.

In Part 2, RBN assessed the ability for regional storage and consumption to absorb the incremental supply. On the storage front, RBN found that even record injections and filling storage to capacity would soak up no more than 0.5 Bcf/d of incremental demand. On the consumption side, power burn shows the most promise, given gas-fired electric generation capacity additions, coal plant retirements and competitively low natural gas prices. But RBN Energy calculated that even a quite optimistic demand growth scenario would bring only about 1.2 Bcf/d of incremental demand, again not enough to offset the 3.5 Bcf/d of additional supply. If both storage and power burn achieved these lofty volumes, combined they would offset at most 1.7 Bcf/d of production.

So it’s clear that the regional balance this summer depends on outflows and new demand sources outside the region. That brings us to today’s discussion of the third balancing item:  outflows. RBN Energy looks first at additional takeaway capacity added since last summer, and then wrap up with a discussion of the net effect of storage, power and outflows, including high and low demand scenarios.

Much, much more at the link. 

****************************

US Economy

Reuters is reporting:

U.S. retail sales were flat in April as households cut back on purchases of automobiles and other big-ticket items, indicating the economy was struggling to rebound strongly after barely growing in the first quarter.

The weak retail sales report from the Commerce Department, and other data on Wednesday showing the 10th straight month of declining import prices in April, suggest little urgency for the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates.

While March's retail sales were revised up to show a 1.1 percent increase instead of the previously reported 0.9 percent rise, that was not enough to offset the general weak tone of the report. Economists had forecast sales rising 0.2 percent in April.

Futures markets continued to show that traders do not expect an interest rate hike until December at the earliest. The dollar fell to session lows against the euro and Swiss franc, and approached a near one-week low versus the yen.

And that's why oil is up today: the falling dollar. Nothing else. Simple as that.

And, now, off to breakfast with my lovely wife. Off the net for awhile.

TGIF; Administration To "Run" Health Insurance Industry. For The Granddaughters: James Bond

Active rigs: 191

RBN Energy: a nice essay from past CEO of Williams Companies on global warming and US energy potential. [This morning I posted this link which included this observation: " If you look at the numbers, 2013 is going to turn out to be one of the coldest years in the U.S. in the last 20 years." This afternoon, there was this story linked by DrudgeReport: over 2,000 cold and snow records set this week in the US.]

The Wall Street Journal

Here it comes. The administration will tell health care insurers how to run their business, including providing unlimited liability even if folks don't pay their premiums. This was the same situation when folks were allowed to live in their homes for months without paying rent during the housing debacle, and houses were in foreclosure. Previous articles used the word "urged" in the following headline in The WSJ: health insurers told to ease coverage rules. By the way, the reason for this: HHS realizes that most/many/some of those folks who signed up for ObamaCare in October, November probably don't have coverage due to high error rates in transmission. However, there is another nasty little bit of reality: folks have policies in their carts, but the software to pay for those policies has not been written. This is seldom mentioned in most news reports. The photo on the front page of this particular article appears to be a nursing home. Imagine all the folks in nursing homes with senile dementia/pre-senile dementia who have not enrolled. Social workers would not have the time or resources, and many of the patients are seldom visited by family members any more. [Oh, that's right; they're covered by Medicare; never mind.]

The WSJ continues to look at November retail numbers. As more and more data is analyzed, folks are going to realize this is going to be a blockbuster holiday season. The automobile sales suggest that. In addition, the surge of first-time unemployed claiming benefits (68,000) suggests a lot of folks will have free time to shop.

Saudi won't cut unilaterally.

*********************************

As inflation view shifts, the Fed might "floor" it -- leaving rates at near zero until 2016. Huge story, for so many reasons:

Before making a move on interest rates, though, a quick glance at its blind spot—inflation—may be in order. The Fed's critics, who in recent years have accused it of risking rapid inflation through unorthodox policies, have egg on their faces.

In fact, the danger of disinflation—decelerating price gains—now looms. November's producer-price index is due out Friday, and the consumer-price index will be published Tuesday. In October, both registered their lowest level of year-over-year growth since autumn 2009, when the country was just climbing out of its worst postwar recession.

Both should tick slightly higher on that basis for November, but not by much. While low prices sound good, the Fed's current leadership is wary of flirting with outright deflation. Their preferred measure of prices, known as the personal-consumption expenditures deflator, rose by just 0.74% year over year in October, even slower than the 0.9% rise in headline consumer prices.

The difference is explained by the greater weight of housing in the consumer index. The PCE deflator excluding food and energy, the measure most favored by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, is expanding by just 1.1% annually. In response, he suggested at a September news conference that an inflation "floor" might be worth considering to decide when rates should rise from zero. That would supplement the Fed's inflation "ceiling" of around 2.5%.

It appears consumers will be paying more out-of-pocket at retail, but the government numbers will suggest inflation is non-existent  because greater weight is being placed on home values. Okay. I'm not sure if this is good news or bad news. Investors will like the news. Seniors on pensions pegged to the inflation rate will not.

*********************************

The government gives in: switching from paper one-dollar bill to coin would be too expensive.

Natural gas prices at a 2 1/2-year high.

The big chill gripping the U.S. is heating up the natural-gas market. Prices climbed to a two-and-a-half-year high on Thursday as one of the coldest autumns in more than a decade has kept stoking demand for the heating fuel. The run-up has helped investors who bet that gas prices would rise once temperatures fell.

But it is bad news for utilities, which use gas to fuel power plants but are prevented in many states from immediately passing higher prices along to consumers. If the rally is sustained, it will spell relief for producers, which have struggled with low prices for years as output has soared. 

**************************************

Netflix says binge viewing is no 'House of Cards.'

Netflix is trying to better understand your binge-viewing habits.

The company Friday will reveal a snapshot of a phenomenon that is reshaping TV culture—viewers devouring shows in long jags, episode after episode. Executives say they found a strikingly consistent pattern in the pace at which people binge: In general, about half the viewers studied finished a season (up to 22 episodes) within one week. "Our viewing data shows that the majority of streamers would actually prefer to have a whole season of a show available to watch at their own pace," said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer of Netflix in a statement. The data adds to evidence that binge viewing is becoming a social norm. It also shows that no matter what kind of shows are available, viewing patterns are remarkably similar. Netflix's message is that the stream-and-binge model it helped create is here to stay, undermining the stereotype of stupefied couch potatoes. 

And really good shows will have viewers watching more than two or three times.  Case in point: "Big Bang Theory." The next big thing: product placement. But down the road: someone is going to figure out some way to make those DVDs more interactive, and current over the lifetime of the viewer. YouTube is beginning to crack the code. It will only be a matter of time before Hollywood cracks the code. Folks like Tina Fey are no doubt trying to figure out how to do it.

*******************************************

Netflix series: a wise guy's warm welcome in a cold climate.

When "Lilyhammer" ended its initial run in 2012—the first of Netflix's original-series endeavors—it was understood that it would be some time before this hilarious concoction of wiseguy melodrama and scathing social commentary returned. Return it does on Friday with its saga of a cooperative mobster who got himself relocated, under the FBI's witness protection program, to the relative obscurity of Lillehammer, Norway—a place whose charms Frank Tagliano ( Steven Van Zandt ) first noticed while watching the 1994 Winter Olympics. He arrived in Lillehammer with a new name—he was now Giovanni Henriksen, or Johnny, as he told everyone to call him—and some very old, firmly established views on how things are supposed to work, what's right, what's wrong, what a person can put up with and what's intolerable and requires action.

************************************

A Note To The Granddaughters

The original (and newest) James Bond movies are now available in Blu-Ray and have been for quite some time.  They hold up very, very well over time. I have "Dr No," "Goldfinger," and "Skyfall." Some say "Skyfall" was the best of the Bond movies. Maybe. But I'm not so sure. "Skyfall" was mostly "action" and little story line with not much dialogue, and I don't recall much romantic interest but I watched it while blogging and probably missed a lot. I remember the good old days when the annual Playboy issue came out with "women in film" or something to that effect. The movies, of course, were all G, PG, or maybe a few R-rated, so the photos were less than what Sports Illustrated now reveals. But the issues were widely anticipated and always seemed to live up to one's expectations (at least for teenage boys). In the 60's it was guaranteed that the Playboy issue would include photos from James Bond movies. I have not seen the inside of a Playboy magazine in decades; I always bought it for the writing, and gradually migrated to The New Yorker which had better writing, and better more cartoons.

I digress. I watched "Goldfinger" on Blu-Ray earlier this week. Fantastic. It holds up well. Then I watched it again -- just the first ten minutes -- with commentary. I want to watch/listen to the full commentary with a significant other, and not by myself. But the little I watched, I thoroughly enjoyed. I have to say I enjoyed "Goldfinger" better than "Skyfall." The earlier Bond films had better gadgets, Pussy Galores, and great writing. And when you get right down to it, "Skyfall" was simply about trying to protect a government official from being assassinated; not quite as exciting as knocking off Fort Knox.

I watched "Goldfinger" with my granddaughters last night (again, only the first 30 minutes before we had to go to soccer). They were mesmerized. I had to explain a lot but there were no difficult or embarrassing scenes. Not last night, but earlier, when I watched "Goldfinger" with the commentary, this was said: the director of "Goldfinger" had a miserable challenge complying with both the British and the US censor. The British censor, at the time, abhorred violence; the US censor abhorred sex. There was less violence in "Goldfinger" than "The Hunger Games."

I think there are 23 or 24 James Bond movies. (23) I know I will end up watching all the Sean Connery films; I'm not sure about the rest. They say Daniel Craig is the "best" James Bond/007. I'm not so sure. Or maybe they say "after" Sean Connery, Daniel Craig is the "best" James Bond. That I can accept.

This Will Be Interesting To Watch Play Out

Under ObamaCare, insurance companies are on the hook for unlimited liability.

Now, the government is pressuring the insurance companies to provide unlimited coverage even if they (the insurers) do not get paid their premiums. What's not to like?

ObamaCare: You Can't Keep Your Doctor. Or Your Hospital. Or Your Pharmacy.

NPR early this morning confirmed The FT story that was posted yesterday; that story was taken down and placed in draft so that Bakken stories would lead overnight. This post will be up only for a few minutes and also taken down. Everything will be re-posted later this morning after the Bakken news is presented.

But back to the NPR story. It turns out that, according to NPR, "a powerful Tea Party faction" prevented New Hampshire from setting up its own state Obamacare website, and thus New Hampshire must rely on the federal exchange. [Based on what is going on in Oregon, New Hampshire's political sister, it sounds like New Hampshire made the right choice. Oregon's state website is still not up.]

Only one insurance company "signed up" for New Hampshire's website: Anthem BC/BS, and Anthem "locked out" 26 hospitals across New Hampshire. NPR did not state the reason but it would have been done because the hospitals a) did not meet Anthem's medical standards; b) were inefficient and costly; and/or c) maybe first-rate hospitals but excessively expensive. Something tells me the teaching hospitals were part of the "locked out" hospitals.

Good for Anthem BC/BS -- doing the right thing: forcing hospitals to provide reasonable care at a reasonable price. If folks want better care, they can pay more -- the President's tzar on health care (yesterday, Sunday morning talk shows previously linked), and even the President has told folks to "shop around."

********************************

Forbes: you can't keep your pharmacy either.  I wouldn't get too shook about this. There are plenty of medications, brand-name and generic, to choose from. This is simply tweaking the drug list you worked so hard to massage for your personal needs. A year from now you will be happy with your new drug list. Or not.

The Rollout To Destroy The US Healthcare System. We Knew It Was Bad; We Just Didn't Know It Was This Bad -- Talk About Breaking The Best Medical Care System In The World, The President Is Doing It

Updates

December 14, 2013: one of the eastern liberal states, Connecticut, will get to see just how "wonderful" ObamaCare is. TheDay is reporting:

Undocumented immigrants are expected to make up a larger share of Connecticut's uninsured population next year, putting "new financial pressures on safety-net hospitals" that provide emergency care to everyone, state and national health experts predict.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides coverage options for legal immigrants, but those in the U.S. illegally cannot apply for Medicaid, even if they are poor, or buy coverage at Access Health CT (the new insurance marketplace), even if they have cash. That means undocumented residents without coverage will continue turning to local emergency departments for care at a time when Connecticut hospitals face the loss of millions of dollars in federal and state subsidies to help defray the cost of uncompensated care.

December 14, 2013: we are not even into the second quarter of ObamaCare, the First Year, and the president has already garnered a new award, an award of distinction: Obama's "You Can Keep Your Insurance" is the 2014 "Lie of the Year." And look at the source: NPR.  The interesting thing is that every other runner-up and nominee was a conservative, it appears. You have to hand it to NPR to at least recognize the "You Can Keep Your Insurance" as the biggest lie, but in fact, by recognizing the others, NPR conveniently forgot many, many other lies made by folks who supported ObamaCare. 

"I still support President Obama, but everything he has done has screwed up my life."-- Obama supporter, 2013. Cognitive dissonance.

December 14, 2013: New York elite -- the ones who would have overwhelmingly voted for Obama -- are losing their insurance coverage.

Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it.

They are part of an unusual informal health insurance system that has developed in New York in which independent practitioners were able to get lower insurance rates through group plans, typically set up by their professional associations or chambers of commerce. That allowed them to avoid the sky-high rates in New York’s individual insurance market, historically among the most expensive in the country....

December 11, 2013: the numbers, by state:

• North Dakota, at 265, signed up the lowest number.
• South Dakota, at 372 , signed up the second lowest.
• Florida, at 17,908, led the nation (Florida, with all its senior citizens, is certainly not known for young, healthy males)
• Illinois, at 7,043, certainly is not particularly noteworthy.
• Delaware, at 7,650, was said to be "tiny."
• Hawaii signed up 574, for $350,000 apiece.
• California signed up 107,087.

Seattlepi.com has has a nice summary:

Vermont has, by far, the highest rate of signups as a share of its population: 0.8%.

It's followed by Connecticut, Kentucky and California.

Because of its large population, California accounts for about 30% of total Obamacare sign-ups, at 107,087.

New York, another state running its own exchange, has provided more than 45,000 enrollments.

Nationally, only 0.12% of Americans signed up for private health insurance made available by the Affordable Care Act between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30; that figure must rise to 2.2% for the Obama Administration to reach its goal of 7 million signups by March 31.

In general, the states with the fewest signups rely on the federally-run exchange, whose infrastructure has been plagued by technical problems, though website performance has improved over time and enrollments have been accelerating.

But some state-based exchanges are doing even worse than the federal one. Oregon, which runs its own exchange, has enrolled virtually none of its population. In fact, its website is so plagued that it has only enrolled people through a paper application process, according to the Washington Times.

HHS reports just 44 enrollments in private insurance through Oregon's exchange as of Nov. 30, though a local press report puts the figure at 217. Either way, the figure is dismal.

Hawaii and Massachusetts are also poor performers, challenging the stereotype that state-based exchanges outperform the federal exchange.

Reminder: the ten (10) states most critical and the numbers needed to enroll:

• California: 1.3 million
• Texas: 629,000
• Florida: 477,000
• Washington State: 340,000
• Oregon: 237,0000
• New York: 218,000
• Pennsylvania: 206,000
• Georgia: 204,000
• North Carolina: 191,000
• Ohio: 190,000

December 11, 2013: the first quarter stats are still rolling in.

• Oregon spends $300 million; signs up 44
• Ms Sebelius will investigate her own website
• Missouri school district hit with $150,000 bill for ObamaCare -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg, folks 
• Poll: young adults rejecting ObamaCare -- who wudda guessed? 
• Apparently the Obama administration has decided that paper applications will no longer be emphasized; taken off-line; paper applications have no chance in hell of being processed by the December 31, 2013, deadeline.  

Original Post

If this was being reported by Fox News I would consider the source, but this is coming from the highly respected Financial Times. It turns out that Obamacare policies will NOT be accepted by the premier hospitals in the nation, like MD Anderson and/or Mayo Clinic.

This is truly beyond the pale: even those folks who can can actually enroll and obtain insurance won't be able to access some of the best hospitals in the world. This trainwreck is going from bad to worse daily.

The FT is reporting:

Americans who are buying insurance plans over online exchanges, under what is known as Obamacare, will have limited access to some of the nation’s leading hospitals, including two world-renowned cancer centres. 

Amid a drive by insurers to limit costs, the majority of insurance plans being sold on the new healthcare exchanges in New York, Texas, and California, for example, will not offer patients’ access to Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan or MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, two top cancer centres, or Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, one of the top research and teaching hospitals in the country.

Wasn't it just two days ago when The Los Angeles Times asked what will come out next?

Now we know. 

This is complete insanity.