Amy Dalrymple reports in Delta receives first Bakken shipment that Monroe Energy LLC, a Delta subsidiary that runs a refinery, has received their first shipment of crude from Bakken.
Month: February 2013
Is Facebook fading?
Possibly.
A Pew Research report suggests people are starting to disengage from Facebook – Coming and Going on Facebook.
A tidbit that struck me:
20% of the online adults who do not currently use Facebook say they once used the site but no longer do so.
If I read that right, one out of five people who go online and aren’t using Facebook used to be active. How’s that for a chill on your growth prospects?
Here’s a couple of things that ought to be keeping Facebook’s management and investors awake at night:
Nice photo of rigs in the Bakken
Beautiful picture of the North Dakota prairie with two active rigs in view.
Check out Million Dollar Way: Beautiful Photo of the Bakken.
Reminds me of when I lived in South Dakota. Except for the rigs, of course.
Quantitative Easing and other performance enhancing drugs
There was a big on-air confessional a while back. Something about bicycles. Here’s another interview that got overshadowed by that big one. Or perhaps it is an educational cartoon. I’m not sure.
Bernanke to Oprah: ‘I’ve Been Doping for Years’.
This cartoon gives a superb explanation in 12 minutes of a major factor about how we got into our current economic mess.
The format is an imaginary interview with the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, as he confesses to long-term doping of the economy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=orh64vypKwU]
Continue reading “Quantitative Easing and other performance enhancing drugs”
Illustration of tradeoffs in car safety
In this video, Milton Freidman explains the tradeoffs between making cars more safe versus the cost of doing so.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faSa3r8WIU0]
The questioner, who hasn’t thought the issue through very well, illustrates the confusion on the issue. He objects to Ford designing the Pinto car to exclude a $13 part and in doing so costing 200 lives a year. The breakeven point is $200,000 per life.
Let’s look at those numbers.
Let’s stipulate those facts and numbers are correct. Don’t know if that is the case, but let’s assume so. Don’t know if that supposed memo actually exists, but let’s assume so.
That means it would have cost Ford $40,000,000 to put that part in all the 3,076,923 Pintos they built.
Dr. Freidman devastates the questioner by pointing out this is not a moral argument of principle. What the questioner is arguing is the value used. He believes the $200K number should be higher.
And that is the debate.
What value would you pick?
The new ‘49ers’ and ‘29ers’
No, there isn’t a new gold rush in California.
There is a stiff penalty to be paid for employers who have any person working more than 29 hours a week. There is also a serious penalty paid for hiring the 50th employee.
Why?
29ers
Employers with a staff person working 30 hours or more must provide health insurance to the employee or the company must pay a penalty. The insurance will cost several thousands of dollars a year. The penalty will be $2,000 if health insurance is provided.
Mali update 2-24-13
I had been thinking of not posting anything this week on Mali. Then I realized the U.S. is tip-toeing into what looks more and more like an extended guerilla war.
2-22 – Wall Street Journal – Defenders Outgunned by Islamists in Desert
Drones doing acrobatics?
Yeah. Today they can.
As Alex Tabarrok says at Marginal Revolution, Acrobatic Quadrocopters, image a micro-drone, specifically a quadrocopter, that can balance a pole, toss it in the air, and have another micro-drone catch the pole in the air.
Check out this video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pp89tTDxXuI#t=17s]
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pp89tTDxXuI#t=17s
The catching ‘copter recalculates the exact position to make the catch 50 times a second. It positions itself at the exact point so the pole will balance and right itself.
Here’s the question – how long do you think it will be until you can go to your local hobby story and buy one of these for under $200?
Movie production credits – crony capitalism at work
Just in time for the Oscars…
A post at my other blog, Freedom is Moral – Movie Production Credits – Crony Capitalism that Attracts Few Jobs.
At a combined price tag of $1.5 billion a year, state and local governments try to outbid each other to get production. The main issue is how much of a net drain those subsidies create on state and local economies. Check out the article.
On Peak Lunacy, “you’ve been wrong long enough” – Peak Oil #18
Carpe Diem quotes the current issue of “The Gartman Letter” in a post, Quotation of the day on ‘peak lunacy.’ The newsletter is subscription only and I’m sure it’s far beyond my price range, so I have to quote the quote.
Mr. Gartman recalls his undergrad days when the Malthusians said the world would be out of crude oil by 1984. He calls this “sheer lunacy.”
Since it is now 2013 and I’m still driving a car powered by gasoline, I think we can call that a failed forecast.
What is Peak Oil?
Continue reading “On Peak Lunacy, “you’ve been wrong long enough” – Peak Oil #18”
Where do you draw the line on tradeoffs?
John Bredehoft ponders the question in his post, A steering wheel desk – where do you draw the line between personal and corporate responsibility?
Under discussion is a portable desk you can set up while in the driver’s seat. The illustration at Amazon makes it clear it fits over the bottom of the wheel and would make turning impossible even if you could handle dumping everything on your lap.
The poor need the rich so the poor can go to work
(Cross-post from my other blog, Freedom is Moral.)
If you need anything other than the clothes you wear in order to do the work needed to get a paycheck, you are dependent on “the rich” to provide the tools and equipment to get your work done.
That is the point in a 1-25-13 letter to the editor at the Wall Street Journal from Mr. Fred Anderson of Pittsburgh.
He says: Continue reading “The poor need the rich so the poor can go to work”
Estimates of recoverable oil in Bakken
Million Dollar Way pulls together three estimates of recoverable oil for Bakken field – Estimates of Bakken Recoverable Oil.
Three data points: Continue reading “Estimates of recoverable oil in Bakken”
Mali update – 2-17-13
2-11 – Wall Street Journal – French, Malians Retake Gao After Assault by Militants
Militants attacked the city of Gao. After an apparent running gun battle, the French and Malian troops chased the rebels out of town.
2-15 – Wall Street Journal – French Lessons in Mali
Let’s see if I can put this in one sentence.
The Tuareg in northern Mali (MNLA) will cooperate with the French against the jihadists but continue to have long-running grievances with the Malian government and army thus won’t cooperate with them, so to get out of the country France needs to negotiate a political deal between the government and MNLA.
Am I close? I’m not sure
2-16 – New York Times – In Mali, the Peril of Guerrilla War Looms
The jihadists/rebels/militants have reportedly blended in with the locals at villages near Goa. They can hide in plain sight. Looks like they may wait for an opportunity to strike back.
Capital appreciation bonds -– compound the interest on a bond for 20 years before starting to make any payments. How’s that for a wonderfully bad idea?
If you thought zero documentation and 120% loans were good for the economy, you will love capital appreciation bonds.
Here’s the deal – what are schools and local governments in California to do once they have run out of cash to pay even the interest on bonds, can’t cover the principal on the cost of new buildings, and face huge voter resistance to any increase in spending? What to do when you just want to keep spending?
How about issuing capital appreciation bonds. That allows the government agency to keep spending whatever they want.
You can borrow money, make no payments for 20 years, compound the interest into principal, and burden the adult children of current students with the huge payments.