The Mideast just keeps getting messier. Turkey's hostility to one of America's most effective allies -- the Kurds -- simply undermines the effort to take out ISIS.
This Indian should have been buying lottery tickets.
Speaking of India, the country's telecom regulator bans Facebook's free basic service. Regulator says everyone needs to pay for internet; can't be given away for free.
Speaking of India, again, the country has surpassed China for bragging rights as the "growth company." India's economy expanded 7.3% last quarter. The country uses a lot of coal. A lot.
Wow, that took awhile: Volkswagen's "quality" - control chief resigns. I guess someone is using the phrase "quality control" loosely.
The Mideast migrants keep flowing into Europe. The Greek government want to build migrant camps on the islands; Greek people say "ouchÃ."
I disagree completely. The Super Bowl review at TWSJ:
Truth: outside of that Denver defense, it wasn’t an especially well-played game. A lot of it was snoozy. There were punts. And some more punts. And a few more punts (15 in total, tied for second-most in Super Bowl history) There were turnovers consequential and turnovers inconsequential. A Carolina field-goal attempt that thud-DONNKKKED off the upright. There were moments it felt like less like a Super Bowl and more like a Dolphins-Browns game. A Dolphins-Browns preseason game.
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Ford-Mexico
From a couple of days ago: Ford to more than double Mexico production capacity in 2018. Auto maker will build new plant in Mexico, expand existing factory. Better Mexico, than China.
Ford Motor Co. will build a new assembly plant in Mexico and sharply increase factory output from that country, representing the latest shift of investment abroad by a Detroit auto maker following the signing of a costly new labor deal.
The No. 2 light-vehicle seller in the U.S. plans to add 500,000 units of annual Mexican capacity starting in 2018, more than double what it built in 2015, according to people briefed on the plan. The plan mirrors General Motors Co. ’s $5 billion investment to double Mexican capacity by 2018.
Ford will build a new assembly complex in San Luis PotosÃ, and expand an existing factory near Mexico City. The moves will make room for several models, including a yet-to-be-disclosed hybrid vehicle that is described as a Toyota “Prius fighter,” and will allow Ford to focus its U.S. factories on higher-profit trucks and sport-utility vehicles.
Ford last year built 433,000 vehicles in Mexico, or 14% of its North American production.
Costs for the project likely will exceed $1 billion, people familiar with the details said, with factory construction beginning later this year. It follows a $2.5 billion investment Ford announced last spring to build an engine and a transmission plant in Mexico.Why the interest in Mexico? Gee, I wonder.
Detroit auto makers have long built cars and trucks in Mexico, but the country is looking more attractive following a new labor deal struck in November with the United Auto Workers that raises wages for U.S. factory workers.
Labor rates in Mexico are roughly one-fifth of those earned by unionized workers in the U.S., a gap that is only expected to widen as UAW wages approach nearly $30 an hour in coming years, representing as much as a $10 increase for some newer hires.But again, the article does not mention the other much, much bigger expense: ObamaCare.
It looks like this is the business plan: low-margin cars to be built overseas; high-margin SUVs and trucks to be built in existing US factories.
Energy is inexpensive in the US; will get a bit more expensive as cost of intermittent energy impacts rates. But energy will become less expensive in Mexico with all that natural gas the US is shipping to Mexico. Lower labor costs, lower energy costs.
Speaking of rising costs of electricity due to the cost of intermittent energy: in a state which has some of the lowest utility rates in the nation, there is an opportunity to raise rates. According to the Bowman County Pioneer, a "massive" wind farm is proposed for the county, data points:
- again, an out-of-state developer who can't get wind energy projects in his own backyard
- a Virginia energy company: Apex Clean Energy, Charlottesville, VA
- from south of Rhame to US Highway 85
- "the farm would effectively cover the entire county" -- one resident
- "at least" 100 turbines
- 25,000 to 30,000 acres
- 200 to 300 MW annually
- by comparison: the MDU wind farm in the same area: 13 turbines
The cost was not in the article, unless I missed it, which is possible. At $1.5 million / MW, it would be a 300 x $1.5 million project -- a half-billion dollar project.
Bowman County: 1,167 square miles x 640 acres = 750,000 acres.
30,000 acres = 50 sections; generally 36 sections in most townships in North Dakota.
Well, it would give me something to look at when I drive up from Texas back to the Bakken.
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Man-Camp Focus: Time To Move On
Restaurant and real estate sectors are the ones to watch.
Huge competition among Menards, Home of Economy, Wal-Mart.
Everything else will take care of itself.
The man-camp story is a good-news story -- except for the man-camp operators. Don't feel bad for the man camps. They advertised themselves as "temporary." Oil companies say they need the man-camps because their workers are mobile, back and forth from the south to North Dakota. The roughnecks are flexible, smart, adaptable. They're as good as US Marines and US Army finding places to stay when deployed. Instead of man-camps, they will move into town. Man-cap operators might be smart to invest in really, really cheap motels and apartment complexes, as those owners look to exit. From The StarTribune:
North Dakota’s unemployment rate is still an enviable 2.7 percent, and the jobless rate is even lower here in Williams County — 2.2 percent, up a percentage point from a year ago.
Camps like the Bear Paw Lodge or Black Gold reflected the allure and growing pains of an oil rush that overwhelmed the housing supply and infrastructure to the point that people camped in parking lots and homes rented for big-city prices — $3,000 a month or more. Many camps had their own security and strict rules against alcohol and drugs, as well as maids, fitness centers, high-thread-count sheets and 24-hour meal service.
But now, about 50 miles from here, Capital Lodge in Tioga, built for 2,000 workers, is a fenced-off ghost town. About 130 miles away in Dickinson, a 600-bed camp had dwindled to 30 guests when its owners shut it down for the winter. In Williston, where the population soared from 12,000 to more than 40,000 at the height of the drilling frenzy, local leaders ordered the remaining man camps to close by the summer.
The New York Times has pretty much the same story, "built up by oil boom, North Dakota now has an emptier feeling." Again, the writers/editors are fascinated by "man-camps."In the half-empty cafeteria of one camp operated by Target Logistics just north of Williston, electrical workers and pipe specialists one recent morning were starting and ending their 12-hour shifts over a breakfast of eggs, sausage and coffee as thick and black as crude oil. They talked about how many drilling rigs were operating (46 across the state, compared with 190 two years ago), their falling overtime pay and friends who had gone elsewhere for work.
The “man camps” sprang up from the prairie, rows of trailers and modular steel boxes that housed thousands of workers chasing their fortunes in North Dakota’s oil fields. But these days, the man camps are missing something: men.
Roughly eight years ago, at the peak of the last recession, oil drilling began to transform these remote corners of the plains into an economic beacon, attracting billions of dollars in new investments and thousands of workers in search of good-paying jobs and an escape from America’s economic pain. But now, as oil prices have skidded to $30 a barrel, new drilling has dried up here, and the flood of wealth and workers is ebbing.
