Biggest Global Energy Story Of The Day? EU Says Canadian Sands Oil No Worse Than Coal; Clears The Way For Canadian Oil Exports -- October 7,2014

Some dots starting to connect:

• President Obama kills the Keystone XL
• Kuwait buys into Canadian shale play (Duvernay)
• EU says Canadian sands oil no "dirtier" than coal

Opens the door to exports. Reuters is reporting:

A European Union plan to label tar sands oil as highly polluting in its fight against climate change has been abandoned after years of opposition led by major producer Canada.

A proposal published by the European Commission on Tuesday removes an obstacle to Canada exporting tar sands crude to Europe and comes at a time when tensions between the EU and top oil supplier Russia are running high. 

EU sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the desire for a trade deal with Canada had been a factor given the situation with Moscow.

So many story lines here, I won't even start. 

All politics?

Now we learn the two (2) degree temperature limit was "a political goal," so says the "father" of the warmists. Not even science; all politics. The link is to the New York Times.

Now, back to Europe. I think Europe is in more trouble than folks realize. There was talk that Germany would fall back into a recession -- that was a couple of weeks ago -- now the IMF forecasts EU growth to be even less than originally forecast.

I follow the "big stories" here. One of the big stories is Europe: Europe may become the only continent that requires imported energy to survive:

European Energy became a big story on May 18, 2013, when the EU Council President predicted that  Europe might become the only continent in the world to depend on imported energy.

May happen sooner than we thought.

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Out Of Stock

This was all over Michael Savage show today -- folks calling in to say his book was out of stock. I checked. Yes, Amazon.com is out of stock of Michael Savage's most recent book, Stop The Coming Civil War: My Savage Truth.

However, there is another book available -- 

Dreams of My Father for as little as one cent. One penny. One hundred copies for a buck. Enough for three middle school classrooms for a dollar. And he's still in office.

Collectible copies less than $10:

Profiles in Courage? The least expensive is still 5x the least expensive Dreams of My Father.

Montana Williston Basin Bakken Completions -- October 7, 2014

The Fairfield Sun Times is reporting:

In Richland County:

• Continental Resources, Rognas-Barbara HSU, a Bakken Formation well, 20,011, IP of 546 bopd.

Roosevelt County, two Bakken Formation completions were reported.

• Statoil, Snyder 1-12 1H, 15,699 feet, 1,024 bopd.
• Continental Resources, Gehringer 1-13H, 20,170 feet, IP of 471 bopd.

ObamaCare Working The Way It Was Supposed To? The 30-Hour Rule -- October 7, 2014

Huffington Post is reporting:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer.

Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week.

The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees.

Wellborn says the company will use a third-party organization to help part-time workers find insurance alternatives: "We are trying to balance the needs of (workers) as well as the costs of (workers) as well as the cost to Wal-Mart."

The announcement comes after Wal-Mart said far more U.S. employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Wal-Mart, which employs about 1.4 million full- and part-time U.S. workers, says about 1.2 million Wal-Mart workers and family members combined now participate in its health care plan.

That has had an impact on Wal-Mart's bottom line. Wal-Mart now expects the impact of higher health care costs to be about $500 million for the current fiscal year, or about $170 million higher than the original estimate of about $330 million that it gave in February.

This blog talked about the "30-hour" from the beginning.  Folks will now need two jobs to reach 40 hour+/week and neither employer will provide health care coverage. And restaurants are now adding a surcharge to cover ObamaCare expenses. Thank you, Mr Obama. 

And most of ObamaCare is yet to kick in. There's a reason the GOP is letting this debacle play out.

Another Taxpayer Bailout For The Millennials? Unrelated -- Another Huge Layoff At HP -- 55,000 And Rising -- October 7, 2014

Posted earlier, but it's a big story that I was unaware of.

Motorola and Bristol-Myers Squibb cast off billions in pension burdens. So, how do they do it?

Motorola Solutions Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. are the latest companies to cast off billions in pension burdens, fueling a trend that could weaken the government’s ability to protect the payouts other employers have promised millions of retired workers.

The two companies recently disclosed separate deals that will shift a combined $4.5 billion in pension obligations to insurer Prudential Financial Inc., PRU -0.66% which will take over paying benefits to 38,000 retirees. The deals are good for the two companies’ balance sheets.

What’s more, joining the dozens of companies that have shed their pension plans lets Motorola and Bristol-Myers stop paying millions in yearly fees to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the government pension insurer. The problem: the growing number of these pension dropouts threatens the agency’s resources for insuring the plans of those that remain in the system.

“This has identified a fundamental flaw with the pension system,” said Brad Belt, a former executive director of the PBGC. “Inevitably, there’s going to be a taxpayer bailout [of the PBGC] in the future.”

There's a lot of information in that linked article.

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Another Huge Layoff At HP

Business Insider is reporting:

As HP cleaves itself in two, the company will also trim another 5,000 employees from its payroll.

And even that won't be the end of a massive multiyear layoff that grows bigger every few months, HP CEO Meg Whitman essentially told CNBC's Dan Farber on Monday.

HP first announced its layoffs plans in 2012. Back then, HP said it would cut 27,000. By June of this year, it had doubled the target, to 50,000, with 36,000 employees already gone.

On Monday, it bumped up the new layoff target, yet again, to 55,000.

Even so, HP remains an enormous employer, with over 330,000 employees worldwide, and that means that when HP reorganizes itself, it will likely make even more cuts.

55,000 and rising.

Five Feet High and Rising, Johnny Cash

Fire Sale? Apple Could Take Possession Of Sapphire Ovens -- October 7, 2014

Active rigs:

	10/7/2014	10/07/2013	10/07/2012	10/07/2011	10/07/2010
Active Rigs	192	182	190	194	153

RBN Energy: update on the widened Panama Canal. Will come on-line about same time US LNG exports begin, 2015 - 2016 time frame.

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The Wall Street Journal

Hard to believe this would be the top story in The WSJ: Supreme Court passes on gay marriage. Did anyone expect differently?

GT Advanced, the sapphire screen maker that has experienced delays in building a plant in Arizona to service Apple, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Apple could take possession of the ovens. It's an interesting story -- it all started Apple calling in a loan?

Apple vs Samsung? Samsung profits plunge on weak smartphone sales. Third-quarter operating profit may have halved from a year earlier.

Motorola and Bristol-Myers Squibb cast off billions in pension burdens. So, how do they do it?

Motorola Solutions Inc. MSI -0.89% and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. are the latest companies to cast off billions in pension burdens, fueling a trend that could weaken the government’s ability to protect the payouts other employers have promised millions of retired workers.

The two companies recently disclosed separate deals that will shift a combined $4.5 billion in pension obligations to insurer Prudential Financial Inc., PRU -0.66% which will take over paying benefits to 38,000 retirees. The deals are good for the two companies’ balance sheets.

What’s more, joining the dozens of companies that have shed their pension plans lets Motorola and Bristol-Myers stop paying millions in yearly fees to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the government pension insurer. The problem: the growing number of these pension dropouts threatens the agency’s resources for insuring the plans of those that remain in the system.

“This has identified a fundamental flaw with the pension system,” said Brad Belt, a former executive director of the PBGC. “Inevitably, there’s going to be a taxpayer bailout [of the PBGC] in the future.”

More expensive coffee? Coffee beans soar to 2 1/2 year high. Dry weather i Brazil to blame.

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For Philadelphia school teachers, a lesson in new math and ObamaCare:

In a surprise move Monday, the commission that governs the financially troubled Philadelphia public-school system canceled the teachers union contract and decided educators must contribute to their health insurance for the first time to free up money for classrooms.

“We can’t say to students, ‘We would like to give you millions of dollars to improve schools, but the PFT won’t let its members pay for some of its health insurance,’” School Reform Commission Chairman Bill Green said, referring to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Like this is the end of the story. Stay tuned.

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ISIS continues to advance. The question in Washington: is President Obama's heart in this war? Probably not. [Update: shortly after posting that, I see Panetta has said the same thing -- Obama has given up.]

We may not have (many) boots on the ground yet, but now we have Apache helicopters fighting ISIS. Mission creep.

Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Japanese and American scientists who invented those LED lights. Seems a bit of a letdown from what Einstein was doing back in the early 20th century.

Not good: Germany's factory order dropped. And then the usual surprise -- ""German manufacturing slumped unexpectedly in August, in the latest sign that growth in Europe's industrial powerhouse is sputtering. Merkel's energy policy front and center.

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The Los Angeles Times

Some scientists fear Ebola could spread more easily than generally assumed. And again, back to OPEN BORDERS/OPEN ARMS.

Syrian border town about to fall to Islamic State, Turkish leader says. If that's in the written intelligence report, hopefully President Obama is reading it today.

Police in Ferguson can't forbid protestors to stand still, judge rules. 

But most important: "the one 'Twin Peaks' question that must be answered." Something tells me this won't become "must-see."

Twin Peaks Theme, Angelo Badalamenti