Steve Russell

Porter Stansberry: Pockets of Promise in Natural Gas and Oil

Whether there is in fact plenty of oil forever will come out in the wash. I'm betting not and I'll live with the consequences of my bet just like this idiot will live the with consequences of his. Fortunes are made on such disagreements, I guess.

But how much oil there is on the planet is a separate question from who has access to it.

The US needing to suck up to despots who happen to have oil is a good thing why? Fighting wars over oil is a good thing why?

Global Warming Models: 'Out of Order'?

As best I can tell, the climate prediction models have been shown wrong in the past fifteen years or so. They did not account sufficiently for a number of feedback loops and as a result climate is changing much more quickly than anticipated.

It would be good to focus on mitigation rather than prevention at this point and, honestly, the US is not in bad shape compared to Asia and much of Europe.

I'm not sure why the deniers think that getting off the oil teat is bad policy. Seems to me a critical need if climate change did not exist. But I'm sure they'll think of some reason why that's incorrect.

This is all, of course, information that can drive investments, and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I urge the deniers to do the same, since every transaction requires a willing counter-party.

Cap and Trade Would Sink the U.S. Economy

Cap and trade as policy is a pitiful and in Europe ineffectual substitute for a straightforward tax on carbon emissions.

If every possible means for drastically cutting carbon emissions will destroy the US economy, then the obvious conclusion is that the US economy must be destroyed....although it kind of makes me wonder what a 4 degree rise in the planet's temperature would do to the US economy? For one thing, it will certainly change the price of Florida real estate....

Vanilla Financial Products Could Help Remedy Clear Market Failures

The fundamental argument seems to be that a clamp down here exports risk which means we will export capital.

Say that's true in the short term, which I doubt.

It also exports the bust when risk is chased over a cliff. I am aware of no historical unlimited pursuit of risk that did not go over a cliff.

Also, I presume our paradigm won't be far off the rest of the world, such that the only place for capital to go will be the next Iceland.

Tax 'em and they'll leave. Regulate 'em and they'll leave. The young people in the streets around the G-20 are not the only anarchists, and I'd as soon be governed by one as by the other.

MSNBC Acquires Hyperlocal News Aggregator EveryBlock

Confession out front: I live in a college town.

If you don't watch Maddow you can barely carry on a conversation around here.

Ditto the academics with whom I correspond.

Only a tiny market, but one advertisers like to reach...


On Aug 18 08:33 AM TCK wrote:

> Since MSNBC doesn't have an audience either, this should be a good
> fit !

Greg Mankiw on Cap-and-Trade (NYT)

Cap and trade passed BECAUSE it can be gamed like it was in Europe.

Of course, the idea that we could wait until the economy improved is preposterous.

I'm not sure this cap and trade idiocy matters because the climate models were wrong. In everything measurable, the measurements are showing that the models were way too optimistic.

It's too late for prevention. Amelioration makes more sense now. For the US, that's making some real estate decisions re the coastal lands and helping our farmers though some major changes.

For China and India....well, they've got more serious problems.

The Truth About Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy

The issue about reaching peak oil is not if but when and the when is tied to cost. There is plenty more oil in the short term if we are willing to pay for it, which means that I agree shorting oil is silly.

Also, there is a lot of use for oil and gas that does not involve transportation or electricity. However, if we de-petroled those uses, we could get by with our domestic oil and gas production rather than give money to repressive regimes that don't like us.

What can we do about climate change when there are massive numbers of Asians seeking our lifestyle?

Well, consider the politics of this: India and China are going to get whacked by climate change a lot harder than we will. The rise in sea levels that is already under way will threaten some high dollar real estate in America but the Asian populations living in the river deltas that will within two generations be salty is huge.

Our agriculture will be affected but not always in a bad way. For some of our most fertile lands, the growing season will be longer. Our farmers will have to change crops and some methods but they will feed us with little problem. We can't say that about Asia. They are looking at, simultaneously, a huge "climate refugee" problem, food shortages from salt incursions up the rivers, and a diminished supply of fresh water from the Himalayan glaciers (which are also going away as we speak and not in the far future).

If you are an Indian or Chinese politician, and you are not crazy, you have every reason in the world to be scouring the developed world for technology that will help you deal with climate change without destroying the aspirations of your people.

There is a lot of investable space in that scenario, but what it tells us is that if we are to be the source of that technology then the numbers the learned gentleman has put up in this article should be cause for major alarm. Who has the wind tech? Vestas, Siemans, Gamesa...oh yes, and GE. Where is the solar tech going? Where it was subsidized up to grid parity, subsidies that can now be withdrawn in part of Europe...having not yet been enacted here anywhere near grid parity.

Asia will come around because it has to. China and India are already hungry maws for clean tech that will devour anything we can send them. China builds on coal because they must but if "clean coal" technology existed they would buy it from us in a heartbeat.

I don't see an economic disaster for the US here unless we fail to respond. I see a lot of economic activity in which Europe already has a head start because they got out in front of it with government leading the way. We don't "believe" government can do that.

Results trump faith every day.

CO2 Cuts Will Cost a Lot More Without Nuclear and Clean Coal

"Clean coal," so-called, is not ready for prime time. Nobody is against it, but it's nothing more than a research project right now, albeit one worth pursuing because we have ample coal reserves.

Nuclear looks a lot more attractive than it used to, and there are many proposals to cut down on the waste problem. At the University of Texas, they have designed a "hybrid" fission/fusion plant that manages to burn almost all of its own waste...but we don't know if it will scale yet.

Both "clean coal" and "waste free nuclear" are wonderful ideas. But there are so many power sources that have hitches that are not theory problems. The intermittent nature of wind and solar and tidal is something we can deal with using current tech. Geothermal could make a major impact on air conditioning in the desert Southwest just by changing the building codes to require digging a blooming hole every time you build a house.

There's so much stuff we already how how to do and all that're lacking are the economies of scale and the will.

And it all works for investors. Whatever gets the necessary subsidy to achieve scale will be investable and those who can pick the right companies will make money.

I'm less worried about my money than about my planet.

BP Scientist: Ethanol Easier than Biodiesel

Seems to me that pending cellulosic ethanol becoming economically viable, biodiesel can be produced in ways that do not compete with human or livestock food and biodiesel can also be gleaned off of the waste end of the food supply.

This coin is still in the air but if I had to call it right now biodiesel works. Ethanol works in Brazil but we are not Brazil.

UAW Still Made No Sacrifices to Make General Motors Competitive

I do not understand the whining about CAFE standards.

Japan, Europe, and EVEN CHINA require more mpg (or klicks per liter) than the US will require after Obama's standards kick in.

Safety requirements? They apply to foreign cars sold in the US. As that great capitalist Lombardi used to say, it rains on both sides of the football field.

Lemme tell you a story from the other side, since capitalists seem to prefer anecdotes to statistics.

In 1992, I tried to order a Ford Explorer with California emission controls.

The dealer would not take the order in Texas.

After many hissy fits on my part and threats to just not buy, Ford finally gave me a reason. They did not wish to sell California equipped vehicles outside of California because that would create the "false" impression that people were willing to pay more for cleaner cars. This they told the guy who was offering to pay more for a cleaner car....Sheesh.

9 Predictions for 2009 Mid-Year Update

Blago's gig was not in Puerto Rico. That would have been no problem, because the federal court could reach him in Puerto Rico.

I see Blago's wife is bug-eating in his stead.

You were not persuaded by Blago's recorded contempt for Obama's refusal to play ball. If FBI wiretaps don't convince you, I'm not sure what would.

GM Finally Dies - Does the U.S. Have Similar Symptoms?

What I don't understand about you knuckledraggers is that you keep saying things are impossible to do that have been handily accomplished by Western Europe and Scandinavia.

You have no shortage of horror story anecdotes about all those national health systems, starting with Canada, but you never explain the overall numbers that show the US paying more for inferior results by objective measures of morbidity and mortality. Are they smarter than us?

You say entitlements don't work, but they have been working in most of these countries since the end of WWII. Are they smarter than us?

I'm not arguing about what policies would be "good" but rather pointing out that your views of the possible are manifestly incorrect.

Yes, we would have to start paying taxes. Sounds OK to me. I've never joined the whiners. I would gladly double my tax bill for Canada's health system.

ETF Death Toll Climbs to 113: On Pace to Set Another Record for Closures in 2009

I was in PHJ.

I decided to take my liquidation sum rather than try to sell.

The money has not appeared yet.

Sigh.

In Defense of CNBC (Sort Of)

If you have been letting CNBC drive your investment decisions, maybe you should cut down to a few indexed ETFs....or maybe a nice mutual fund.

If you have been watching the Fox Business Channel, your on line broker should lock you out for 48 hours so you can de-tox.

Reich's Reasons for a New Fiscal Stimulus Bill

Fine, call it "stimulus."

But we have a terrible case of infrastructure rot that does not befit a world class economy.

The biggest immediate problem is that the electrical grid is not "smart" enough to deal efficiently with renewable electricity sources and, of course, the transmission lines do not go to the right places.

It's the job of government to fix the grid, the highways, and the bridges. Those responsibilities are as fundamental as defense.

If those fixes happen to put a bunch of people to work and those people suddenly have money to spend, it would not break my heart.