Some key points from Berman’s remarks:
The US is a much smaller player, in global terms, than the cheerleading would have you believe
The EIA (which if anything has a bullish bias) projects that US oil production will peak in 2016
Shale gas production is falling for all US plays except Marcellus, and that is estimated to peak in 2020
LNG export is a bad idea; the US can’t compete with Russian prices
Not to mention, many newer companies are deeply indebted.
With more than 40 dead after protests against Congolese President Joseph Kabila's attempt to stay in power, Friends of the Congo representatives and a Congolese youth organizer discuss what's at stake for the country's citizens...
Close to a million demonstrators marched in cities and towns across Brazil on Sunday to protest a sluggish economy, rising prices and corruption - and to call for the impeachment of left-wing President Dilma Rousseff.
The protests in the continent-sized country come as Brazil struggles to overcome economic and political malaise and pick up the pieces of a boom that crumbled about the time Rousseff took office in 2011.
Just to put this in perspective, say that a full-time student works 40 hours per week for 12 weeks of summer vacation, and then 10 hours per week for 30 weeks during the school year--while taking a break during vacations and finals. That schedule would total 780 hours per year. Back in the late 1970s, even being paid the minimum wage, this work schedule easily covered tuition. By the early 1990s, it no longer covered tuition. According to the OECD, the average annual hours worked by a US worker was 1,788 in 2013. At the minimum wage, that's now just enough to cover tuition--although it doesn't leave much space for being a full-time student.
Now, if Brooks images that improving social norms is just a sliver of the solution, then he’s right: making poor families better off won’t erase allbehavioral differences between the wealthiest and poorest. But it would go a long way. Despite all paranoia about poor people nursing addictions and indulging themselves before spending money on necessities, programs that distribute cash to the poor have been repeatedly proven as wise investments. People who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or “food stamps,” tend to make healthier food choices than those who don't use SNAP; they also tend to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables when provisions (such as small credits for buying fresh fruits and veggies) are made that account for the extra cost of cooking multi-item meals. And, as a 2005 British study found, low-income parents who are given benefits to help raise young children "increased spending on items such as children’s clothing, books, and toys, and decreased spending on alcohol and tobacco.” In other words, reducing poverty through infusions of cash appears to correct many of the behaviors poor people are regularly maligned for, including neglectful parenting and unhealthy lifestyles, bringing them more in line with the habits of the well-to-do.
You’d think this sort of plunge in drilling activity would curtail production. Eventually it might. But for now, the industry has focused on efficiencies, improved drilling technologies, and the most productive plays. Drillers are trying to raiseproduction but with less money so that they can meet their debt payments. Thousands of wells have been drilled recently but haven’t been completed and aren’t yet producing. This is the “fracklog,” a phenomenon that has been dogging natural gas for years.
Emphasis mine.
My main takeaway from this exhaustive report on the still-unsettled science around wheat is this: The role of wheat in our health is a complex topic—one not well illuminated by marketing efforts like the ever-burgeoning "gluten-free" one. For the 98 percent or so of people not suffering from celiac or wheat allergy, it seems wise to stick to sourdough-style bread and avoid foods laden with additives like inulin, high-fructose corn syrup, and vital wheat gluten.
The country’s budget deficit rose to 10.5% of gross domestic product in February from 4.2% in January, as revenues contracted even as expenditures were slightly reduced.
Russia’s revenues were hit by lower prices of oil, one of the country’s key exports, along with shrinking revenues from collection of taxes, such as value added tax, according to Vladimir Kolychev, chief economist at VTB Capital.
A faster-than-expected spending of military expenses exacerbated the problem, Mr. Kolychev said. This could be a temporary development and the budget deficit is likely to shrink in the second half of the year, he added.
...
The budget pattern underpins the broader economic trend in Russia. Its economy is expected to contract by 3% in 2015 as the key drivers—consumer demand and investment activity—are likely to spend the year in negative territory.