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Floating Oil Storage Offshore

My buddy in Houston sent me an aerial photo of the Gulf of Mexico - incredible amount of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) of 20 to 25 oil supertankers have been chartered for floating storage over the last few weeks – equivalent to something in the region of 50 million barrels of oil. The host of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) are camped out at various locations across the globe including: the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, in India and also in Malaysia. Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Koch Industries are among the companies thought to be stock-piling reserves in hope of a Christmas bonus, if OPEC price cuts send prices rising once again. More sensational – yet unconfirmed – reports have estimated that there are in the region of 300 vessels floating, like sitting ducks, outside of the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates alone. Olivier Jakob, Managing Director of Petromatrix GmbH, in Switzerland, said: “For OPEC there’s too much oil in storage and to have it floating is also more problematic.“OPEC cutting production is not good for shipowners because you will have less vessels being used,” added Mr. Jakob.As a result the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated in its widely-read monthly oil market report: “The increase in floating storage has developed as a result of abundant prompt supplies having a hard time finding customers, further supported by lower freight rates.”

Two things come to mind - (1) I hope Al Queda doesn't decide to use these sitting ducks for target practice. (2) Only 50% of oil is used for automobile gas and jet fuel. The other 50% is used for plastics, fertalizers and chemicals. As long as this world economy stays in the duldrums with no one buying anything, the oil surplus will continue.

Madoff is poster boy of US finance industry

LOS ANGELES -- Historians say Ponzi schemes and con men are a fact of life. The best, the brightest and the richest can all become victims: from President Ulysses S. Grant in 1884 when the partners of his Wall Street firm left him penniless a year before he died of throat cancer to Bernard Madoff's investors, many whom became instantly penniless, just before Christmas and Hanukkah. Greed is a fact of life.

Thomas Friedman said it best in the N.Y. Times: "I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the 'legal' scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed.

"What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds, which Moody's or Standard & Poor's rate AAA, and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn't a pyramid scheme, what is?"

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse along comes Madoff, the new poster boy for everything that's happened to the America's soul the past eight years: greed, arrogance, stupidity and megalomania.

After Christmas Price Cuts

I went to Sam's yesterday to grab an advertised Garmin NUVI 850 for a stocking stuffer, it was advertised less than half price. The 850 shelf was empty with a sold out sign, hower the NUVI 750 shelves were piled high with stock; I haven't seen a bait and switch in years. Needles to say, I moved over to the 42" LCD to see if they had dropped in prices. Nothing has changed except all these electronic goodies are now piled up on displays next to the checkout lanes. My neighbor's son works at this Sams, and today he was the "auditor" with the highlighter pen at the exit. He mentioned that I didn't buy much, and I replied that I was looking from some prices slashed. - Under his breath as he marked my receipt - come back after Christmas.
I'm hearing this at other stores as well.

Wayne Rogers on Fox Business

I see Wayne Rogers on Fox Business from time to time and this morning while he was commenting on the economy it dawned on me that he played Trapper John in MASH.

He is now a nationally recognized business guru. He said a great one liner today:

"Businesses were not meant to downsize to meet demand."