History or His Story...

WTI-Oil is sinking like a rock right now and the dollar has lost value against the EU today

Hang on to your wallets.....

Push Hard, Press Forward
 
The latter is a good thing, unless you regularly find yourself buying European cars.
 
The latter is a good thing, unless you regularly find yourself buying European cars.
And you are correct Scoutpilot, what is interesting, both are falling. Usually when the dollar weakens price of oil goes up making it cheaper in the market to buy. Its reported Iran has 30 million barrels of crude waiting to flood the market. US storage of oil is at its highest in 80 years. Some estimate full capacity will be reached in a few months.

Push Hard, Press Forward
 
In this case it's not a matter of global weakening of the dollar as it is currency rate manipulation by the ECB.
 
If one can tell me how the price moves today in the Euro and the Crude are related to whatever was agreed to in Lausanne, let me know. Crude is actually 10% higher than it was two weeks ago. It's how I pay my light and whisky bill. BTW no sanctions have been lifted. It is true that in oil markets one barrel too many is way too many and one too few is way too few, but the world uses 85-90 million barrels of crude a day. Iran's 30 mil will not make as much difference in the scheme of things. Here are the most current price charts for WTI Crude and the $US. Quantitative Easing in the EU, Japan and now China has more than anything to do with the dollar strength, just as the Fed's QE caused the dollar to depreciate as it did up until last year.

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If you do have a UK mailing address and a way to get it here, now is a great time to buy a Barbour waxed cotton hunting jacket. DS is getting one for as a graduation present.
 
You're getting him the International, I hope? I always fancied myself a Belstaff man, but they've gone a bit haute couture. Having sold my Triumph bike in favor of a classic Triumph roadster, I'll need some waxed cotton come this fall.

As for Iran's stockpile, it made a difference by definition since the price dropped on the news. Oil is a queer commodity, being internationally dollar-denominated. So real highs and lows and nominal highs and lows can be very different.
 
Speaking of queer commodities...


Lol -- if they weren't caught, who knows what giant conglomerate they would be now. Ironically enough, their HQ in Houston very close to where I live is now a Chevron building.
 
Arthur Andersen's D.C. office is occupied by the audit regulator created after the collapses of Enron and WorldCom. Arthur Andersen was Enron's auditor.
 
If you want to read a VERY interesting and entertaining book about Enron.... check out Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald. I promise you, it is a very good read. It's the best book on Enron, hands down.
 
If you want to read a VERY interesting and entertaining book about Enron.... check out Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald. I promise you, it is a very good read. It's the best book on Enron, hands down.

I will check it out.....

Push Hard, Press Forward
 
I will check it out.....

Push Hard, Press Forward

It came out a few years after "Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Power Failure" so some of the "facts" from those two earlier books were corrected in "Conspiracy." It's just a more complete picture.... it will leave you scratching your head.... and it's well written.

If you end up reading it, let me know what you think.
 
You're getting him the International, I hope? I always fancied myself a Belstaff man, but they've gone a bit haute couture. Having sold my Triumph bike in favor of a classic Triumph roadster, I'll need some waxed cotton come this fall.

Triumph over Harley, waxed cotton. I like your style. I hope you sharpen your knives with a steel or a Lansky.

I wear the Beaufort and will get one for the DS. Unlike you, I'm more "basse" couture. If you are looking for warmth (which waxed cotton does not provide) and you haven't purchased a specific liner, I recommend this sweater. I'm wearing the purple/navy mix Gansey. The color goes perfectly with olive green waxed cotton.

http://freespace.virgin.net/peter.marrow1/

If you appreciate the beauty and elegance of low tech matched with high quality, look at Opinel knives. Carbon steel blade. Wooden handle. Simple twisting locking device. The Zippo lighter of knives.
 
Speaking of queer commodities...

LITS,

Bandwidth, as a commodity, is no more "queer" than a warehouse full of copper ingots, a pile of corn, space in a shipping container, commercial time during the Super Bowl or steaks at the butcher shop.

If it is widely produced, widely available, widely consumed and has a price, it's a commodity.

Bandwidth falls under the category of commodities, like fresh fish, hotel rooms, and airline seats, which admonishes the seller to "sell it or smell it."

The fiber laid around the globe in the 1990's--pre-Google, pre-smartphone, pre-Video on demand--was dramatically in excess of demand at the time. It is questionable even today if all those costs have yet been recovered. Unused bandwidth earns nothing. The same as a shipping container returning to China empty earns nothing. Filling it with the by-product of an ethanol plant, benefits the US farmer, the shipping company, the Chinese consumer and the US balance of payments.

We can argue about the good and the bad of commoditization, but no one can argue its effects on prices.

Enron's history was in natural gas trading after natural gas deregulation forced producers to divest themselves of their pipelines. Their job was getting the gas from the wellhead to your furnace in the most efficient manner. They knew everything there was to know about the buyers and the sellers. They also ferretted out potential buyers and sellers.

Forgetting for a minute issues of corporate greed, outrageous salaries, etc., Enron was engaged in out and out fraud. Untimely, coordinated shutdowns of power plants with the sole purpose of creating an artificial shortage is also illegal. The extent of the crisis was partially a result of a stupid partial deregulation of the California electricity market. Fortunately, most of the perps went to jail and several are still there. The shame is that the outside auditors didn't suffer the same fate.

Talk about too much time on my hands. It's a holiday.
 
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Bandwidth as a commodity was pretty "queer" when Enron pushed it.... and their deal with Blockbuster fell apart (which is kind of interesting, now, with Netflix). "Mark to Market" which the SEC signed off on was pretty damning too.... not in theory, but how Enron used it.

For a little more info here, for folks that don't know much about Enron. Essentially, Enron would do something like.... build a power plant. They would estimate the power plant would produce a certain amount of money and they'd "book it" now. So, a powerplant, say India, was estimated to bring in $500 million. Enron would put that on their sheets.... as money they had (when they didn't actually have it). Then you would have disasters.... like a plant never opening.... now how would that be treated? You just said you made $500 million in Q1.... but you haven't seen a dime. Investors see the "money" and say "Oh crap, Enron's hauling in the $$, I better invest.... so the price of the stock doubles in no time... and keeps going up....

But eventually reality hits.... they don't actually have that money, and rumors swirl. An eleborate system of shell organizations were used to remove some of the liabilities on Enrons books.... but then it's discovered the ownership of those organizations aren't such that they can be considered independent.... so those liabilities land back on Enron's lap. And the dissent begins!

Bad bad news.
 
Bandwidth as a commodity was pretty "queer" when Enron pushed it.... and their deal with Blockbuster fell apart (which is kind of interesting, now, with Netflix). "Mark to Market" which the SEC signed off on was pretty damning too.... not in theory, but how Enron used it.

For a little more info here, for folks that don't know much about Enron. Essentially, Enron would do something like.... build a power plant. They would estimate the power plant would produce a certain amount of money and they'd "book it" now. So, a powerplant, say India, was estimated to bring in $500 million. Enron would put that on their sheets.... as money they had (when they didn't actually have it). Then you would have disasters.... like a plant never opening.... now how would that be treated? You just said you made $500 million in Q1.... but you haven't seen a dime. Investors see the "money" and say "Oh crap, Enron's hauling in the $$, I better invest.... so the price of the stock doubles in no time... and keeps going up....

LITS,

You're right. Enron was, among other things, booking future revenues as earnings and colluding with other electricity producers to shut down power plants during the peak A/C season in California. Yes. That is fraud and illegal market manipulation. Neither has anything to do with utilizing otherwise dark fiber.

There is nothing wrong with cataract surgery, but billing Medicare for phantom procedures is fraud.

There is nothing "queer" about trading bandwidth, ocean freight or hides and guts. What's "queer" is something like the effect of the Jones Act and the ban on US crude oil exports on the distribution of crude oil and petroleum products within and among the United States.

Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter. My suggestion is to go to Sam's get some racks of lamb. Take your Opinel knife, poke between each rib, insert garlic clove, slather with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. After they have warmed to room temperature, sear on the grill and finish in a 500 degree oven. Go to about 125 internal temp. Remove from oven, wrap in foil with a ton of Rosemary and cover with a towel for about 10 minutes.
 
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