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Friday’s Forum
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9 responses to “Friday’s Forum”
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What are the real facts? Who knows?
Goldman Says Hormuz Oil Flows at Two-Thirds of Pre-War Levels
Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have recovered to around two-thirds of pre-war levels, limiting the Iran war’s impact on global crude prices, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Total exports of crude and oil products passing through the waterway have risen to 15 million to 16 million barrels a day, Goldman analysts including Daan Struyven and Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby said in a note. That’s still 7 to 8 million barrels below pre-conflict levels, but well above a trough of 5 million to 6 million barrels a day in March, they said.
“The rise in dark crossings by specialized shippers, and in ship-to-ship transfers shows that producers and shippers are adapting to the Mideast conflict,” Goldman said. Higher dark flows could “moderate the upside to crude oil prices even if Mideast disruptions last longer,” it said.
Same article seems to contradict itself.
About 6 million to 8 million barrels a day of crude is transiting the strait, traders told Bloomberg this week.
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It’s difficult to be certain what the flows are, and they seem amenable to change.
What’s certain is, they are less than before the war began. Therefore the upward pressure on oil prices remains.
A major reason for the relatively mild price impact so far seems to be oil futures traders recurring optimism, and China cutting consumption and releasing stockpiles.I doubt either are infinite resources.
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So the tariffs turned into another scam to take from the poor and give to the rich.
Tariff Refunds Contribute To Record-Setting Corporate Profit Boost
You may not have seen any money back after a large swath of tariffs were overturned, but corporate America got plenty of tariff refunds—and it’s using them to haul in record-breaking profits.
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The bottom line was boosted by an estimated $71 billion in tariff refunds companies got in May and June, according to an analysis of government data by The Tax Foundation think tank.
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The money is going back to the pockets of companies that paid the import taxes, even though economists say most companies ultimately passed the cost along to consumers. -
Gift link to an excellent read if you’re interested. NYT has an opinion column by a historian laying out parallels between our giant tech corps and the British East India Company. The EIC sort of invented corporate lobbying. They became deeply enmeshed with the British government and its finances.
He notes, as does Rick Atkinson in The British are Coming, that the Boston Tea Party was the result of Parliament granting the EIC a monopoly on the American tea trade. A move motivated by trying to save a financially strapped EIC. He noted that fear of the EIC being allowed to do to the American Colonies what they had done to India was a driver of the Revolution. Edmund Burke spent years trying to impeach the Company’s governor-general of Bengal. The Commons impeached, but the Lords acquitted. History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes pretty good.
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El Taco will not go to Ground Zero for the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
The assumption is because he won’t be allowed to speak. Politicians are not allowed to speak at this ceremony.
And while that sounds like the beloathed Taco, I think there’s another reason. The commemoration consists of families of the victims reading the names of the ones they lost that day, while everyone else stands in respectful silence. El Taco just can’t sleep standing up that long.
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This doesn’t quite rank with “man bites dog,” but it’s close:
Milo Yiannopoulos was detained by ICE .
The particular leopard eating his face seems to be Laura Looner.
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