Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Green groves feed the townspeople crafting their wares for the benefit of an enlightened populace, the amber fields of grain are milled for bread for the troops to keep our sovereign democracy intact. The greatest of civilizations are measured by the strength of their army, the complexity of the structures that they construct, yet history tends to gloss over the fuel that stokes the fires of the greatest civilizations, the tended lands that feed...

A quick note on the current state of affairs within the current Texas freeze, and the years worth of political nonsense that is the Texas Legislature. The fine folks over at Space City Weather, do a great job of keeping the Houston metro area informed of weather conditions, but their two leads, Eric and Matt also look at the broad perspective and encompass weather related knock ons, such as the electric grid, or our beloved ERCOT. The Texas...

Oil prices hit 7 year high, natural gas hits 14 year high on largest one day price jump on record; natural gas supplies see largest draw this winter, Focus on Fracking, RJS Oil prices rose for a sixth straight week and eclipsed the 7 year high hit last week on heightened tension over Ukraine, tight supplies, and perceptions of rising demand…after rising 2.2% to $85.14 a barrel last week on supply disruptions in the Middle East and on rising...

Total supplies of oil & products at 7 1/2 year low even after largest 4 week build of gasoline stocks in 32 years SPR inventories are at a new 19 year low; gasoline inventories are up most in any 4 week period since Jan 1990 as gasoline demand, ex worst Covid drops, are at a 10 year low; imports of gasoline are at a 87 week low; total inventories of oil & all products made from it are at 7 1/2 year low The Latest US Oil Supply and...

Lambert at Naked Capitalism has an interesting article up as taken from KHN entitled “I Write About America’s Absurd Health Care System. Then I Got Caught Up in It” as detailed by Bram Sable-Smith. As taken from the KHN article, Bram describes the beginnings of his dilemma of getting Insulin: “I’d been waiting since September for an appointment with an endocrinologist in St. Louis; the doctor’s office couldn’t get me in until Dec. 23 and...

WSJ reports Stocks rose broadly Thursday morning after the GDP report, but they retreated later in the day, with the Nasdaq falling 1.4%, the S&P 500 dropping 0.54%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 0.02%.Thursday’s report contained warning signs. Most of the growth owed to companies’ restocking rather than people and firms buying stuff. In part, the rise in inventory investment reflected a rebound from super-low inventory levels in...

Usually, discussions of decarbonizing energy production involve solar, wind, tidal and geothermal. But nuclear power generation doesn’t generate greenhouse gas (though the large amount of concrete in conventional nuclear power plants does). Nuclear power generation has a bad name after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. While there is debate about whether the Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents really endangered many lives, there’s no...

Thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for posting the qualifications of President Joe Biden’s pick (Ketanji Brown Jackson) to replace justice Stephen Breyer Justice at SCOTUS. I’ll (digby) just lay out the qualifications of the presumed front runner for the job: Ketanji Brown Jackson: Fifty-one year old Ketanji Jackson fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having...

Not sure why Democrats are so trusting with Republicans with Deal-Making. “The Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. So far, so good, given past Senators have changed the rules for judicial nominees to get across the finish line with just 51 votes. The so-called nuclear option is meant as a last resort, but with the exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, none of the current conservative Justices cleared a...

New Deal democrat, “Historical Note on US Treasury Interest Rates and Stock Prices“ Over the weekend I was asked by two people what is going on in the markets. That’s usually a sign that there has been a sudden downside move, and people are getting emotional. Back 5 and 10 years ago, when I was doing perpetual battle with the DOOOMers, several times I was able to call a market bottom to the day – and once within an hour in real time – by how...