Week 1 - 2: January 1, 2025 -- January 12, 2025 -- This Is Going To Get Ugly — These Stories Are Being Reported By The New York Times — January 10, 2025

Locator: 44665TOPSTORIES.

Southern California Fires

• Anger: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6366937197112. 
• Brentwood, January 11, 2025. Politicos talking about “re-building,” link here.
• Victor Davis Hanson: link here.
• Sunday morning news shows are going to be must-see TV. Let’s see if Governor Newsom gets a pass.
• Southern California fires, January, 2025: tracked here. 
  

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Top Stories

Geoff Simon's Quick Connects -- January 10, 2025: link here.

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Hiatus Between November 5, 2024 - January 20, 2025: Twelve Weeks
Biden-Trump Transition
December 30, 2024 - January 13, 2025: Week Ten / Eleven

The transition works this way, this cycle:

• Biden's emphasis is on pardons and commutations, separately making Trump's life as difficult as possible; 
• Biden has never been so busy in the past four years as the past week with executive orders, briefings, southern California briefings.
  
• Biden still perceived by many as working to set up Trump for failure; 
• Biden exit interview: still believes he could have won race against Trump; though he admits not sure if he would live another four years.
  
• continues to regret that he dropped out of race; says he could have won (he's 82 years old) 
• as delusional as he is senile
  
• Trump: US Supreme Court, 5 - 4 lets legal system play out -- Trump sentenced, but no punishment; none whatsoever; judge wishes him Godspeed
  
• state felony so future president cannot pardon Trump; would have to be done by a NY governor
  

The Florida White House:

• no change from last week:
• Trump is the president, simply waiting to make it official, January 20th (unchanged from last month)
• surrounding himself with "self-made billionaires"
• those billionaires not named to his administration are making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago
• most recent rumor: Bill Gates on his way (I don't think he has gone there yet)
• entry fee to be part of Trump's inaugural inner circle: $1 million -- Tim Cook most recent to ante that $1-million entry fee. 
• since last week, both GOOG and MSFT have each donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural
• also Hims and Hers
  

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The Top Stories

Top story of the week:

• the southern California / Pacific Palisades and four other fires
• said to be worse in history
  

Top international non-energy story:

• 
  

Top international energy story:

• Biden finally places huge sanctions on Russis
• WTI spikes from $83 to $87
  

Top national non-energy story:

• Trump stories continue to dominate political stories
  
• Jack Smith, who led federal prosecution of Trump, steps down / resigns / quits.
  

Top national energy story:

• WTI surges -- from $83 to $87
  

Focus on fracking: current link here. Generally updated late Sunday night.

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story:

WPX Cancels 39 Permits All In Dunn County; Hess With Four New Permits -- January 10, 2025

Locator: 44664B.

WTI: $76.57. Up 3.58% for the day; up $2.65 for the day. New sanctions on Russia. Amazing how much "stuff" Biden is getting done in his last 20 days.

Active rigs: 33.

Four new permits, #41501 - #41504, inclusive;

• Operator: Hess
• Field: Stanley (Mountrail)
• Comments:
• Hess has permits for four wells, NWNW 12-155-92, three RS-Sorenson wells and one RS-Piepkorn well; to be sited 263 FNL and 797/896 FWL

Thirty-nine permits canceled, as a reminder:

From East Daley:

• WPX:
• three Charles Blackhawk permits;
• ten Charging Eagle permits;
• seven Two Shields Butte permits;
• four Skunk Creek permits;
• gems:
• an Emerald permit;
• an Amethyst permit;
• a Ruby permit;
• a Citrine permit;
• a Sapphire permit;
• sharks:
• a Hammerhead permit;
• a Tiger permit;
• three FBIR Johnson permits;
• a Chokecherry permit;
• a Hoser permit
• a Loonie permits;
• an American Elm permit

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 38099, 450, BR, Stafford 12-34MBH, McKenzie;
• 40392, 1,822, WPX, Missouri River 25-36HZ,

Two dry holes:

• 39541, dry, Grayson Mill, Knight 38-26F 5TFH, McKenzie County;
• 40283, dry, Eagle Operating, Wade 5-11, Renville County;

Time To Ditch Bonds? Barron's -- January 10, 2025

Locator: 44663BONDS.

The headline barely supports the story. It's almost as if the writer simply spoke to a bunch of folks and suggested an investment buffet. 

Link here.

A surge in bond yields on Friday highlighted the volatility that has characterized fixed income in recent years and has caused some investors to question the stability of the popular 60/40 asset mix.

Long-term bond yields soared on Friday after a strong jobs report dampened expectations of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 4.74% on Friday morning, the highest level in more than a year.

Yields had already been notching higher in recent weeks on fears of persistent inflation. Bond yields move inversely to prices, and lower bond prices indicate more investors are selling their bonds amid fears that inflation will eat into their real returns and strong economic growth will prevent the need for rate cuts, among other concerns.

Since the beginning of 2022, volatility has increased in fixed income, says Jordan Rizzuto, managing partner at GammaRoad Capital Partners, an investment research firm. What’s more, bonds have been more correlated with stocks lately than they have been during the prior 25 years or so, he notes.

Blah, blah, blah.

And then this:

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, bonds add little to nothing for retirees,” wrote researchers from Emory University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Missouri.

In lieu of a balanced stock and bond portfolio, the researchers found investors were less likely to exhaust their savings with an allocation of 33% domestic stocks and 67% international stocks.

Retirement expert Wade Pfau says income-oriented retirees could successfully swap annuities for bonds in their portfolios. Rather than set a fixed allocation to annuities, it is best to back into the amount by calculating how much income you require and buying an annuity to cover it, he says.

Once you have your spending needs covered, “You don’t have to be as worried about market volatility, and the remainder can be in stocks,” says Pfau, author of the “Retirement Planning Guidebook” and professor of practice at The American College of Financial Services.

On the other hand, Vanguard has suggested a higher allocation to bonds for investors who are comfortable with an active approach that responds to changing market conditions. A 40% stock, 60% bond portfolio might be warranted under today’s conditions, when higher interest rates have led to higher expected returns for fixed income, the firm said in a recent note. On top of that, high starting stock valuations imply that investors may not get adequately rewarded for holding equities.

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The Book Page

The Greeks: A Global History, Roderick Beaton, c. 2021.

Chapter 8:  Becoming Christian, 337 - 630.

Page 255.

At the time of Constantine's deathbed baptism in 337 ....

In Egypt, a villager by the name of Pachomius, who had converted to Christianity while serving in the Roman legions, seems to have been one of the first to establish a system of communal living for segregated groups of men and women, under strict religious rules and keeping their distance form towns and cities. By the time that Pachomius died in 346, nine of these "monasteries," as they came to be known, were in existence in Egypt. Those who submitted to the rule of a monastery were known as "monks."

The Greek word monanchos literally means "one all alone," a description that better fits the hermits and solitary ascetics than members of the communities founded by Pacohmius and others. A hundred years later, there may have been as many a fifteen thousand monks living in Egypt, including at least four hundred nuns. 

Many of those would have spoken Coptic, a form of ancient Egyptian that was also gaining ground as a written language among Christians. But the lives of the founders were written in Greek and widely read throughout the east empire. It was to the monks and hermits of their own localities that ordinary people looked for an example of how to love as Christians, as much as to distant emperors laying down the law in Constantinople.

Countdown To Inaugural -- Entry Fee: $1 Million -- Microsoft Joins The Team -- January 10, 2025

Locator: 44662TRUMP.

Link here.

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The Book Page

The Annotated Mrs Dalloway, Merve Emre, c. 2021.

Some weeks ago I mentioned I was in my India phase, in the process of reading three books on Indian history: the "whole" history, followed by the history of the British reign, and then ending with the story of India today.

Wow, that really paid dividends. Today I'm reading a bit of The Annotated Mrs Dalloway and early on the annotator has a long piece about another uprising in India during Britain's oppressive colonial rule. Had I not read the history of India, this annotation would have meant nothing to me and I would have skipped over it. As it was, I thoroughly enjoyed it, recognizing much of the history of which I was now familiar. 

Mrs Dalloway was published in 1925. On September 1, 1920, Mahatma Gandhi has started the non-cooperation movement with the aim of securing full Indian independence through nonviolent means. Two years later Gandhi was arrested for sedition and sentenced to six years in prison. 

Clarissa's sometime-love interest Peter Walsh worked as a civil servant in British India. It wasn't until 1947 that India gained its independence. 

Virginia Woolf, herself, committed suicide on March 28, 1941. 

I find it interesting, that of all the possibilities that Virginia Woolf could have chosen for Peter Walsh, she chose "civil servant in British India," an affair (the British Raj) that would have preoccupied Virginia Woolf's entire adult life. 

Virginia Woolf was born in 1882.

The British Raj: 1858 - 1947.

See my note, one of many, on Mrs Dalloway at this post.

My most precious note on the novel, here.

Countdown To The Inaugural -- Entry Fee: $1 Million -- Google Joins The Team -- January 10, 2025

Locator: 44661TRUMP.

Link here.