Easy
Come, Easy Go:
Back in 2009 the fracking industry persuaded the SEC to let them
count reserves that wouldn't be drilled for years as assets,
provided they were recoverable at prevailing prices, on the condition
that the reserves be tapped within 5 years.. These putative reserves
were a significant part of the basis for valuing these producers.
At $80 or $100 a barrel this was good fun. But the five years will
be up next year and the price is now $40 and tens of billions of
“reserves” that were created by the accountants' pencils will be
erased just as easily. It won't be as much fun.
Daycare
For Adults:
First Santa Claus turns out to be just another overweight white guy
with diabetes and now the tell us that the No Fly list only provides
“the illusion of security.”
Another
Shoe: The
world's second largest copper miner, Freeport McMoRan has suspended
its annual dividend, saving $240 million “to enhance liquidity
during this period of weak market conditions.”
Privacy,
You Don't Need No Privacy:
The FBI continues
to claim that they can't protect your right to be secure in your home
from unreasonable searches if they can't read your email...
Cream:
In 2013 at least $1.1 trillion in “illicit financial flows”
moved from developing and emerging
economies. Look at it this way: In 2013 over
a trillion dollars was sucked out of poor countries and squirreled
away in various banks – each of which skimmed a little off the top
while providing laundering services for dictators, tyrants, crooked
politicians and drug lords.
Precisely:
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank expects the growth in the US
economy will be “fairly persistent” next year.
Well, you wouldn't
want it to be "unfairly
persistent",
would
you?
Dreams
of Glory:
Erdogan
(and Turkey, they are essentially interchangeable these days) has
some modest religious motivation in supporting the Caliphate against
Assad in Syria, but far more important is his imperialist drive to
recreate the Ottoman empire – at least in the Middle Easern areas
adjacent to Turkey. He, and many of his fellow citizens, do not
accept the boundaries drawn by the Allies after defeating the
Ottomans in WWI. Geography and history suggest a southward expansion
to the area between Homs in Syria and Mosul in Iraq (which was
Turkish until 1917 and would bring with it Iraq's
northern oil fields and large oil and gas fields in Syria).
The people in this area have been living Turk-free for a century and
may not welcome a new set of masters with open arms.
Exceptions:
If gaining college admission via affirmative action based on the
color of one's parent's skin is wrong, why isn't gaining admission
just because dad graduated 25 years ago just as wrong?
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