The final week of January requires a final blast of sarcasm.
Wall Street is launching its business continuity plans as winter storm Juno hits the Northeast. The world won't miss a few hundred useless Wall Street relationship managers if they froze in place for a couple of days. I'm pretty sure a few hamsters running in miniature plastic wheels could keep the financial sector humming. Automation is making most of these humans redundant anyway. The storm is the perfect test case for AIs.
Some OPEC big cheese is now warning about much higher oil prices. Well, dude, blame Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf sheikhdoms for flooding the market with oil to protect their market share. Driving more expensive shale producers out of business is a surefire way to frighten capital away from exploration and production. Analysts underestimate the long lead times needed for new infrastructure. Capped wells can be turned on quickly but many gas pipelines to shale fields and tar sands are still in the planning stages. The smaller servicing companies that are about to go bankrupt won't be able to keep their fleets of trucks and portable rigs in storage, so those will be sold for scrap or converted to something else.
China's brokerage firms are going nuts with margin accounts and ignoring regulators. This blatant juicing of Chinese equities is going to end very badly for the retail investors who get suckered in at the very end. I hope the traders involved have lots of dried noodles stored up for the lean times awaiting them after the inevitable crash.
In other news, I am now the proud owner of a bag of potatoes. They don't last as long as canned food but they are quite tasty with salt.
Wall Street is launching its business continuity plans as winter storm Juno hits the Northeast. The world won't miss a few hundred useless Wall Street relationship managers if they froze in place for a couple of days. I'm pretty sure a few hamsters running in miniature plastic wheels could keep the financial sector humming. Automation is making most of these humans redundant anyway. The storm is the perfect test case for AIs.
Some OPEC big cheese is now warning about much higher oil prices. Well, dude, blame Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf sheikhdoms for flooding the market with oil to protect their market share. Driving more expensive shale producers out of business is a surefire way to frighten capital away from exploration and production. Analysts underestimate the long lead times needed for new infrastructure. Capped wells can be turned on quickly but many gas pipelines to shale fields and tar sands are still in the planning stages. The smaller servicing companies that are about to go bankrupt won't be able to keep their fleets of trucks and portable rigs in storage, so those will be sold for scrap or converted to something else.
China's brokerage firms are going nuts with margin accounts and ignoring regulators. This blatant juicing of Chinese equities is going to end very badly for the retail investors who get suckered in at the very end. I hope the traders involved have lots of dried noodles stored up for the lean times awaiting them after the inevitable crash.
In other news, I am now the proud owner of a bag of potatoes. They don't last as long as canned food but they are quite tasty with salt.
