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Sometimes a map or some number of maps with a chart or two thrown in, is all you need

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 05/03/2014 - 09:37

 

Because we’re a mite out of practice, we’re gonna ease into this thing today with some simple stuff.

President Obama continues to block the Keystone Pipeline project.

 

And yet, Canadian oil exports to the United States continue to expand.

 

How’s it getting there?

Rail.

 

Wait a minute ..... where have I seen a chart like this before?

Of course, it looks just like Michael Mann/Al Gore's famed "Hockey Stick" chart!

Oh well, at least the profits were real ..... in both cases.

 

Silly political reporters spent a couple days arguing about “ugly politics”, the “Green” wing of the Democrat Party and how they are killing jobs all over the country.

Your Uncle Roany, cynic that he is, is inclined to consider a different possibility and wonders who owns the Rail Cars delivering all that oil. 

Mostly, it’s the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

 

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railways is 22% owned by Berkshire Hathaway since 2009.

You might have noticed that shipments of oil by rail took off big time in 2010.

Speaking of rich guys, Berkshire Hathaway’s largest shareholder is of course Warren Buffett.

 

Just sayin'.

 

Who, as an aside through Berkshire Hathaway, also bought a 1% interest in Suncor, a huge player in the Canadian Oil Sands just last summer.

In the interest of full disclosure, your Uncle Roany is about to get back into COS.

Speaking of oil, Russia is about to end up with about as much Ukraine as Putin feels like having despite the best efforts of the Neocon/Lib imbeciles running amok over at the CIA/State Department, as Europe will cave on the issue, leaving the pathetic little man in the White House with even more egg on his face than usual.

Here are the only two pieces of information you need in order to discern the fate of Ukraine.

 

 

If you’re wondering where the world’s proven oil reserves reside now days, here’s your answer.

Not much has changed in a while.

 

Not much has changed on the consumption side either, except that China continues to expand it's consumption.

 

Along with it's pollution problems.

 

That's all for now.

To quote Tony Kornheiser,

 

 

How much are you askin' for that BTU?

Submitted by Roanman on Tue, 02/14/2012 - 06:57

 

Gregor Macdonald's fine site Gregor.us is a new and welcome addition to our list of places we hang out at in the middle of those nights we have failed to take our medicine.

Gregor provides outstanding analysis of the sources and markets for energy and conveys that analysis in short and simple articles.

Recommended.

As always, click the chart for the entire work.

 

For A Million BTU

The price differential for a million btu is blowing out once again, between Global oil and North American natural gas. The extraordinary discount has persisted for some years. But today, with West Texas Intermediate (WTIC) oil above $100 and Brent oil above $110, the spread has reached new highs. The energy content of natural gas is trading at an 83% discount to WTIC Oil, and at an 85% discount to Brent oil. 

 

And we're paying the Saudis and Hugo Chavez mas o menos a hundred bucks a barrel because?

 

Indian Gold for Iranian Oil

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 01/28/2012 - 06:32

 

From Debkafile one of the better sources for actual news anywhere.

As opposed to opinion dressed as news most everywhere.

Yes of course, the picture ... click on it.

 

India to pay gold instead of dollars for Iranian oil.

Oil and gold markets stunned.

 

 

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, DEBKAfile's intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively.  Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.

By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank's assets and the oil embargo which the European Union's foreign ministers agreed to impose Monday, Jan. 23. The EU currently buys around 20 percent of Iran's oil exports.

The vast sums involved in these transactions are expected, furthermore, to boost the price of gold and depress the value of the dollar on world markets.

 

You should be listening to your Uncle Roany here ..... buy gold!!!!!

 

 

 

The Guidotti-Greenspan Rule

Submitted by Roanman on Mon, 04/05/2010 - 10:09

 

The Guidotti-Greenspan Rule

Named for Pablo Guidotti, former deputy minister of finance for Argentina (that bastion of resposibility in national financing), and Alan Greenspan, increasingly discredited former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States (that other bastion of responsibility in national financing)

States that a countries financial reserves should equal short-term external debt (one-year or less maturity), implying a ratio of reserves-to-short term debt of 1.

The rationale here, is that countries should have enough reserves to resist a massive withdrawal of short term foreign capital.

The U.S. holds gold, oil, and foreign currencies in reserve.

The U.S. has 8,133.5 metric tonnes of gold (supposedly, ain't nobody counted it in generations).

It is the world's largest holder (supposedly, ..... ).

That's 16,267,000 pounds (at the risk of redundancy ....... ).

At about $1,100 per oz. or $17,600 per pound, it's worth just under $300 billion (you know ..... ).

The U.S. strategic petroleum reserve shows a current total position of 725 million barrels of oil.

At about $80 per barrel, that's roughly $58 billion.

And according to the IMF, the U.S. has $136 billion in foreign currency reserves.

So altogether... that's around $500 billion of reserves.

Now, consider this .............

Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt.

That's not counting any additional deficit spending, maybe another $1.5 trillion ..... ish.

Add it up and you get $3.5 trillion ..... or so, a trillion here a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

That would be about 30% of our entire GDP.

Where do you think that money is gonna come from?

They're gonna print it.

Or snatch your IRA.

If not both.

 

The above was taken almost in it's entirety (with the exception of the bitter and/or sarcastic comments usually written with type just about this big) from a Porter Stansbury article that was all over the place most of this past fall.

It appears here, here, here  and there, but originated here  (somewhere).

 

 

Two differing approaches

Submitted by Roanman on Sat, 01/30/2010 - 12:38

 

Taken from China Daily 1/28/2010

 

China’s $300 billion sovereign wealth fund is considering new investments in resource-related companies after bets on commodities producers from the U.S. to Kazakhstan paid off in 2009.

“China Investment Corp. increased spending on energy and minerals assets last year to profit as the global economy recovers. The Beijing-based fund avoided the worst of the credit crunch in its first full year in 2008 and may have had a return of more than 10 percent in 2009, said London-based Jan Randolph, director of sovereign risk, analysis and forecasting at IHS Global Insight. ‘They have timed the upside well both in market terms, but also to fit in with the longer-term diversification strategy,’ Randolph said.

“CIC has had ‘early’ talks for direct investments in Brazil, the world’s second-biggest iron-ore exporter, and Mexico, the No. 2 silver producer, CIC Chairman Lou Jiweisaid at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on Jan. 20. Jiwei pumped about $10 billion into commodity-related companies in the second half of 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“With China’s reserves at $2.4 trillion and swelling by an average of $37.8 billion a month last year, CIC has asked the government for another $200 billion…” China Daily 01/28/2010

 

 Taken from the fine site, "Seeking Alpha".

Click anywhere within the body of the paragraph for the complete article.

Another site that I highly recommend for grownup reading.

 

Steven Gross, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Trust fund wrote a letter* on 9/15/2008. In that letter he included this graph.

 

On 2/12/2009 Mr. Gross wrote a letter* to Senator Robert Bennet. That letter contained this graph.

 

 

Here is a link to a report produced by the Trustees of the Social Security Trust Funds (“SSTF”). http://justthinking.us/sites/default/files/image/Single%20Gear%20Down%20Left.gif
 
 
  

 

 

 

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