Let's start the weekend off with our VP talking to a baby. Sorry but neither of these sites would let me embed their videos.
Biden Tells Crying Baby: You'll Have To Pay For Romney's Tax Cuts
However, this is more what it's like in Washington
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I ask a friend who knows the oil industry to give me some insight on the piece I published earlier in the week about refineries shutting down. Here is his take.
A combination of factors: lack of pipeline infrastructure in the US means that oil-producing regions (Texas, Nebraska) can only export to certain refineries (Texas, Oklahoma) but there's limited pipeline capacity to bring that oil to such places as Pennsylvania, where Sunoco apparently has refineries. Lack of pipes means either you pay dearly to use those pipes, or you import via ship. As long as you're importing via ship, might as well get it from overseas where labor and cost may be cheaper. But rising emerging market demand is apparently making that oil expensive as well, and when you layer in the transport cost, it can't compete with US-drilled, US-refined petroleum.
Reduction in US demand doesn't help, esp when combined with rising demand in other markets around the globe (making exporting unrefined products more costly to acquire).
Bottom line is, the US needs much more infrastructure (pipes and wires) or costs will continue to rise. The Keystone XL pipe is actually a very good thing.
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Here's a fun chart produced by Bloomberg via our friends at Birinyi & Associates.
It's Apple's market cap versus the combined market caps of all of the publicly traded companies in Spain, Portugal and Greece combined.
Analysts see Apple shares continuing their unparalleled ascent. Currently worth around $586 billion, if Apple can get to around $590 billion, it would be worth as much as all of the companies in Europe's most debt-laden countries.
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Today the February trade balance came in narrower than expected.
Specifically, the trade balance was -$46 billion vs. estimates of -$51.8 billion.
This is being called good news because the trade deficit is subtracted from GDP. Therefore, technically Q1 GDP will be higher than previously thought.
And as such, various banks are now cranking up their Q1 GDP estimates. Yay! Markets higher!
But it's not actually good news!
Despite the fact that the trade deficit comes out of GDP, it turns out historically that larger trade deficits coincide with bigger GDP gains, and vice versa.
The above chart nicely shows what we're talking about.
The red line is the year over year change in the trade deficit. When the red line drops a lot it theoretically means that the trade deficit is improving, but what it means is that the trade deficit shrunk a lot from that same period the year before.
The blue line is the year-over-year percentage change in GDP.
The pattern is not hard to see. The more the trade deficit shrinks, the worse it is for GDP.
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I still can't believe we fired Petrino but we might as well have a few laughs.
Heard the U of A offered Jessica Dorell a first class plane ticket out of town but she refused because she only rides coach.
When you don't beat LSU you get angry. When you get angry you buy a Harley. When you buy a Harley you meet a 25 year old volley former volleyball player. When you meet a 25 year old former volleyball player, you give her a ride on your Harley. When you give a 25 year old former volleyball player a ride on your Harley, you end up in a roadside ditch. Don't end up in a roadside ditch, beat LSU.
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