Change around us – Outrun Change

No more 747s will be rolling off the production line.

ST MARTIN, ANTILLES – JULY 19, 2013: Boeing 747 aircraft on therunway at Princess Juliana International Airport in Netherlands Antilles in July 19, 2013 in St Martin.

The half century production run of the iconic 747 has come to an end.

On December 6, 2022 the last 747s that will be built rolled off the bone production line in Everett, Washington.

Number 1,574 in the production run is finished. It will be test flown by Boeing pilots, painted, then delivered to the customer, a cargo and charter carrier – not a major airline.

As expected, legalized marijuana market is struggling with regulation and tax burden. – Part 33.

Source: Legislative Analyst’s Office, California Legislature

As I have long been predicting, the legalized marijuana industry in California is struggling. The illegal market is still dominant. Tax collections are far below projection.

Articles for your consideration today:

Legal-marijuana executives report their industry is on verge of collapse.
Tax collections fall short of projection.
Actual tax collections in state of California.

Previous articles on burdens the state of California has placed on the legalized industry can be found by clicking on the regulation experiment tag.

PJ Media – 12/18/21 – Pot Industry in California on Verge of Collapse – Entertaining opener:

“… getting the government involved in anything either makes it more expensive or ruins it completely.”

You cannot turn an economy off, then turn it back on. Here are the results when hubris makes you think you found the magic switch. Part 2.

Modern Cargo container ship giving an idea of the amount of cargo that can be carried. Each of those containers is one semi-load on the freeway. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Seems like most industries have a tangled supply chain. The entire transportation system is sorely distressed.

The elitists in federal and state governments have a staggering level of hubris. They think waving their hands, clicking on their laptops, issuing press releases will make the entire economy bend to their will. What they accomplish is willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.

Here are merely a few of the recent articles describing the tangled impact of Covid dictats and sundry government policies:

Lots of cargo ships are waiting to unload off the California coast.
Large port operator expects disruptions to last into 2023.
Workers in transportation sector warn of possible system collapse.
Chip shortage for carmakers will last into late 2022.

Looks like it might take another 15 or 18 months to untangle the worldwide supply chain.

Wall Street Journal – 8/17/21 – Cargo Ships Are Again Idling Off Jammed Southern California Ports – Back in the middle of August the tally of cargo ships sitting off to coast of California was 37.

A tweet I saw this morning (10/9/21) from someone flying out of Long Beach indicated the individual counted 50 ships waiting to unload.

At around 10,000 containers per ship that is somewhere around 370,000 containers waiting to be unloaded back in the middle of August and is now currently somewhere in the range of half a million containers sitting off the coast.

Article says a few months ago it was only nine. Normally it is zero.

You cannot turn an economy off, then turn it back on. Here are the results when hubris makes you think you found the magic switch. Part 1.

Random stock outages are still common. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The supply chain in most industries is tangled up somehow somewhere.

The people in federal and state governments with the staggering level of hubris to think they can wave their hands and make the entire economy do their bidding are willfully causing disruption in your life and in my life.

What is going on around us?

I am struggling to figure out what’s going on around us in the economy. These are confusing times.

That is why I blog. Digging into news reports and statistics deep enough to write something coherent (hopefully) pushes me towards understanding. At least that’s the concept.

The next several posts I have lined up will explore some economics aspects of this confusing world.

Another launch of Starlink satellites and expected crash of Chinese rocket.

Starlink Mission by Official SpaceX Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Look at the contrast between private-sector space exploration in the United States and government run space exploration in China.

5/9/21 – Amy Thompson at Space.com – SpaceX launches 60 Starlink satellites in record 10^th liftoff (and landing) of reused rocket – On 5/9/21, SpaceX put another load of 60 satellites into orbit, increasing the constellation of Internet-providing satellites.

Of note is that this is the 10^th launch and recovery of this particular Falcon 9 rocket. That is the highest number of reuses yet of any in their fleet.

The goal, announced three years ago, is to fly each booster 10 times before major refurbishment and ultimately get up to 100 flights out of every booster.

Project Kuiper – Amazon’s planned constellation to provide internet service across the planet.

Merritt Island, FL, USA – December 26, 2020: Photo of the Blue Origin Complex, Merritt Island, Florida. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock and Felix Mizioznikov.

Amazon is developing its own low Earth orbit satellite system to provide Internet connectivity across the planet. They are calling this Project Kuiper.

4/19/21 – Ars Technica – Amazon’s first Internet satellites will not launch on Blue Origin rockets – Some background to start the discussion.

In addition to Amazon, Jeff Bezos also owns a rocket company developing spaceships. It is called Blue Origin. They are developing New Glenn rocket as a lift vehicle. Article says first flight for New Glenn is not expected until fourth quarter of 2022 with likely slippage to 2023.

Big announcement covered in this article is Amazon announcing they will use the Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance for the first nine launches of their satellites.

Successful nighttime recovery of four astronauts on SpaceX Dragon space capsule.

Crew-2 Mission by Official SpaceX Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The Dragon capsule Resilience was successfully recovered during a night landing off the coast near Panama City, Florida.

5/2/21 – Space.com – SpaceX Crew Dragon makes 1^st nighttime splashdown with US astronaut since Apollo era –

This is the first night landing in the American program since Apollo 8.

Video of the recovery can be seen below. Skip forward to the about the 6 hour 34 minute point in the video. Splashdown is about 6:48. Dragon is onboard at about 7:15 mark.

The video:

China launches first component of its space station.

ZHUHAI, CHINA- NOVEMBER 6, 2018: Mockups of the New Generation Launch Vehicles of Long March Family are on diplay during the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock. I think the tallest one, fourth from right, is the 5B.

China is building their own space station. On 4/28/21 they successfully launched the first of three main components.

4/28/21 – Space.com – China launches core module of new space station to orbit – The central component of the space station is called Tianhe, for Harmony of the Heavens. This module is 54 feet long. Two more sections, each of them 47 feet long, will be launched. The basic station will be assembled by the end of 2022.

A Long March 5B heavy-lift rocket launched the space station.

A cargo launch will go to the station next month with three astronauts arriving in June.

This is not the first space station China has put in orbit. The first one, Tiangong-1, back in 2011 had visits from two crews of three astronauts each before it reentered the atmosphere and was burned up.

SpaceX uses recycled rocket and recyled capsule for launch to space station.

A previously used Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule lifted four astronauts to the ISS.

4/23/21 – Science Alert – In a Huge First, SpaceX Just Launched Astronauts to the ISS on a Recycled Rocket – In their third flight to the International Space Station, SpaceX used a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule that had both previously been used. This is a big deal in terms of reducing the cost of space travel.

Along with the two previous flights this ends the American reliance on Russian lift vehicles to get crew to the space station.

SpaceX successfully recovered the booster. Again. They sent out a tweet saying this is the 80^th recovery of a rocket. Very cool.

With these four astronauts (one from France and one from Japan) on board, there will be 11 people on ISS, which is a record. Another crew will return on the Dragon in a few days.

The crew:

Forecast for oil activity in Bakken.

Notice the massive amount of unused space and the large number of storage tanks. Eventually there will be one or two more rows of wells with perhaps 10 wells in each row. Only four pumpjacks at the moment. This photo hints at the amount of future drilling. Photo by James Ulvog.

What are the prospects for drilling and oil production in the Bakken oil field in North Dakota? Particularly in regards to Williams County, what does the near future hold?

With all the turmoil in the oil industry lately, haven’t had much discussion here on what the future holds.

The Million Dollar Way blog had a great commentary by Bruce Oksol on 4/8/21: Idle Rambling In Response To A Reader’s Question.

The reader asked if there is likely to be any future development around Williams County, or on the other hand, if there is any acreage left to develop.

Combat drone launches drone. Spare parts for Minuteman system getting scarce.

The XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrates the separation of the ALTIUS-600 small UAS in a test at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground test range, Arizona on March 26, 2021. This test was the first time the weapons bay doors have been opened in flight. (Photo courtesy United States Air Force.)

The U.S. Air Force is working to develop drone fighters. Most recent test flight had the drone launch another drone.

All the original manufacturers for every component of the Minuteman ICBM system are either gone or the assembly lines have long since been shut down. That means USAF is using its own production facility to create the myriad of necessary spare parts.

4/6/21 – New Atlas – Valkyrie combat drone launches another drone during test flight – Imagine a drone fighter that accompanies a cutting-edge manned fighter such as an F-35. The escorting drone could carry a heavy load of bombs to multiply the strike power of a fighter. It could carry an assortment of air-to-air missiles to defend against other planes or air-to-ground missiles to strike radar or other defense assets.

Another SpaceX launch increases Starlink constellation to over 1,300 satellites as OneWeb builds their constellation.

Starlink Mission (3/14/21) by Official SpaceX Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Launch by SpaceX put another 60 satellites into orbit, bringing the constellation of Starlink communication satellites to over 1,300. Launch by OneWeb put another 36 of their satellites in orbit for total of 146.

SpaceX and OneWeb are both making progress on developing a constellation of satellites which will provide Internet connectivity across the planet. Discussion of OneWeb’s progress follows description of SpaceX’s launch.

Oh, by the way, after reading this post I am confident you will agree that the future is so bright we ought to wear sunglasses all the time.

SpaceX

Behold the creativity of cheaters.

Need to fabricate an excuse to bail on your meeting? There’s an app for that. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

I am continually amazed at the creativity of cheaters. A few examples in the news recently:

Restaurant offering receipts with menu items relabeled as office supplies
Generate disruptions to get out of a zoom meeting
Fake Covid test results

I mentioned these for the laughter value and more importantly for the educational value.

The stories are amusing. If you work in the finance area or are leading an organization, having an awareness of these schemes might help you recognize one if presented to you.

Your entertainment and anti-fraud training for the day:

Oil production in North Dakota continues recovery in August 2020.

Parked wells west of Williston, ND in August 2020. Photo by James Ulvog.

As shown in the following graph, crude oil production increased again in August 2020. It is up 122,351 barrels of oil per day (bopd) over revised July amount, which follows a 148,343 bopd increase over June.

Continue reading “Oil production in North Dakota continues recovery in August 2020.”