mspart

https://abcnews.go.com/US/washington-passes-california-expensive-state-gas-aaa/story?id=100284315 Washington state has overtaken California as the state with the highest gasoline prices. The average price of regular gas in Washington is $4.93 a gallon, up 33 cents from the same time a month ago, according to AAA. California's average price for regular gas is $4.86 a gallon, 7 cents cheaper than Washington, AAA data shows. The price of gas in the state is up 6 cents from this time a month ago. California has often been the state with the highest gas prices, with drivers paying an average of $6.40 a gallon in July 2022. While the average price of gas in Washington is $4.93, some motorists are paying over $5 for gas in some counties, according to AAA data. The average gas price in King County, Washington, which is the home of Seattle, sits at $5.09, according to AAA. Skamania County's average price for gasoline is $5.32, the highest in the state. The national average for gas is $3.58 as of Wednesday, according to AAA. What could possibly explain this. WA Gov Jay Inslee says it is two things: 1. A critical pipeline is off line and this is drying up supply 2. Those darned oil companies making their record profits and he is going to ensure the legislature investigates when they come back into session in Jan. Well, those are good theories. I have not heard of any pipeline that has gone off line. And the oil companies are just gouging WA state? Not OR, not CA, not ID, not MT, not NV, not UT? I'm not buying that. But what I am buying is a new climate tax that Inslee got through the legislature that causes the oil companies to buy CO2 indulgences at auction. The expected rate for the indulgences was predicted to be roughly $0.46/gallon. And that is about where it is at plus one of the highest gas taxes in the country. WA taxes gas at 49.4 cents/gallon with an additional CO2 levy of 46 cents/gallon for an almost $1/gallon of tax per gallon. Obviously the legislature will not find that this new law is the problem. Because they wrote that law and stated it would only add pennies to the cost of gas. Yeah, roughly 46 pennies. So they were not wrong, but implying very little change to the cost of gas. No wonder the national opinion on government doing the right thing most of the time is at an all time low. Inslee lying through his teeth when the reason for high gas prices is obvious. Obviously you guys out there in the hinter-webs don't care. I just thought it was interesting to share. mspart

Here is an interesting article on ESG investing I found on yahoo finance. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/good-riddance-esg-200637182.html Good riddance, 'ESG' Rick Newman ·Senior Columnist Tue, June 27, 2023 at 1:06 PM PDT Woke is walking. Larry Fink, CEO of investing giant BlackRock, said he’ll no longer be using the buzzphrase “ESG,” which stands for environmental, social, and governmental factors when evaluating companies to invest in. ESG investing gained some popularity in recent years as a set of non-financial metrics to help guide conscientious investors toward ethical companies and away from malfeasant ones. Supporters argue that ESG investing, while fostering a clear conscience, also generates superior returns. Yet like any do-gooder effort these days, ESG investing also produced a politicized backlash, mostly from conservatives protesting liberal overreach, or the “woke mind virus,” as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis likes to say. Fink says the term and the concept of ESG have been “totally weaponized” and “misused by the far left and the far right.” Fink has been a leading proponent of ESG investing, so his about-face may mark the beginning of the end of this socially conscious trend. I’m shedding no tears. ESG investing may have been worth a shot, but it has turned out to be counterproductive, outdated, and ineffective. For one thing, research suggests ESG investing might produce higher short-term returns only because the trendiness of it leads to more short-term demand for certain ESGish tickers. Over the long term, ESG returns are nothing special. Markets should also do what markets are good at, which is maximizing profits and efficiency. Other institutions should regulate pollution rules, police corporate governance, enforce the rights of all minority groups, and pursue the other goals of ESG investing. There’s never a bright line delineating where the market ends and government begins, and the ESG movement has been a kind of trial-and-error effort to move those lines a little bit, which is fine. But the experiment failed. Here is how each leg of ESG investing flopped. Environmental. The biggest push along this axis has been the movement to disinvest in fossil fuel companies. Be careful what you ask for. Guess who benefits when free-market economies start to move away from oil and natural gas: Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other unsavory oil-producing nations that don’t care about ESG values. This played out in stark fashion last year when Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine and energy prices soared, producing a windfall for Russia to use to finance its war. Here in the United States, enviro-president Joe Biden faced a huge political problem as gasoline prices skyrocketed to $5 per gallon. The ultimate irony was Biden, a green-energy acolyte, begged US drillers to produce more oil. Everybody forgot that most of the US and world economies still run on fossil fuels. The ESG mindset on energy is binary: Renewables are good and fossil fuels are bad — get rid of fossil fuels as fast as possible. This is completely disconnected from what’s happening in the world and even from the best-case scenario for green-energy adoption. The world will need a lot of oil and natural gas for decades, and gas is even a crucial “base load” fuel that will allow the faster adoption of renewables. Pressure to disinvest in companies that produce vital commodities we depend on today is foolish. The better approach is a steady transition from one to the other without jumping so fast you cause self-defeating shortages. When ESG investing kicked off, governments weren’t doing much to combat climate change. Now they’re doing a lot. Biden has signed the most aggressive legislation in US history to incentivize green energy adoption — and the evidence so far is that it's drawing even more private-sector money into renewables than most people anticipated. There will be stumbles, but that’s a lot better than a minority of investors trying to accomplish this through market manipulation. Social. Who sets the rules for what is socially acceptable behavior at publicly owned companies? This is obviously a minefield for CEOs, with the recent Bud Light fiasco showing that outreach to one group can enrage other subsets of customers. ESG investors want to favor companies demonstrating the most tolerance toward the widest group of people, which is laudable. Maybe just do not do it through your portfolio? There are already laws against discrimination and other types of abuse. Corporations struggle with social policies because there’s a giant clash of cultures nationwide, whipped up by frothing politicians like DeSantis and Donald Trump and amplified on cable news and social media. There are plenty of activists to fight these battles. Doing so in the name of investing returns is kind of silly. Governance. Aren’t investors supposed to take account of corporate governance as a matter of course, and not as some special side venture? Isn’t that why we have a whole elaborate set of reporting requirements governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission? What more do you need? Again, this is a bit of a guise meant to assure favored companies do the right thing, whatever the right thing is. If you doubt the effectiveness of plain-old corporate governance, watch what happens to a company’s stock when it discloses it has received a Wells Notice or files an 8-K report providing notice of some accounting irregularity. The intent of ESG investing won’t go away, even if the phrase or the concept does. There are a lot of investors who want to feel good about the companies they invest in. Larry Fink and other smart money managers will find ways to serve them. If they could honor the cause without being so judgy, it would be a worthy evolution. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman But there is more: https://grist.org/economics/bp-exxon-shell-backing-off-climate-promises/ Why are BP, Shell, and Exxon suddenly backing off their climate promises? As oil giants rake in record-breaking profits, they have begun tapping the breaks on much-publicized initiatives. .... But in recent weeks, these oil giants have begun tapping the breaks on these much-publicized initiatives. BP walked away from its target to reduce emissions by 35 percent by 2030 — once lauded as the most ambitious, tangible goal in the industry — promising a cut between 20 to 30 percent instead. Shell said it would not increase spending on renewable energy this year, contrary to expectations. Meanwhile, Exxon has pulled back funding from its decade-long algae effort. These quiet announcements coincided with their recent blockbuster earnings reports, which were celebrated by executives and excoriated by politicians like President Joe Biden, who called them “outrageous.” Buoyed by oil prices soaring above $100 a barrel last year, the oil giants roughly doubled their profits from the year before, with BP raking in $28 billion and Shell $40 billion. Exxon, the oil major that has been the least enthusiastic about renewables, reported even better results — $56 billion, up 143 percent from the year before and a record for a Western oil company. “We leaned in when others leaned out, bucking conventional wisdom,” said Darren Woods, Exxon’s CEO, in a call with investors, praising his company’s resistance to pulling back on fossil fuel production. So why are oil companies slowing down on renewables now, when they have plenty of cash to spend and the world is grappling with the alarming fires, floods, and droughts spurred by climate change? The ease of short-term profits when oil prices are high and the political cover provided by concern about “energy security” have played a large role. Heartened by last year’s flow of oil cash and dissuaded by the rising costs of installing wind and solar, executives are turning away from the longer-term payoffs promised by renewable investments. Climate advocates say that Big Oil’s recent moves should serve as a wake-up call for investors and regulators that oil companies plan to double down on fossil fuels for as long as it’s profitable. ... The rising costs of rare earth metals, used in wind turbines and solar panels, may also be slowing down oil companies’ spending on renewables. The cost of a stationary solar installation, for instance, rose 14 percent globally between the summers of 2021 and 2022, according to a BloombergNEF analysis. BP has pushed back against criticism that it’s changing course. Earlier this month, the company updated its strategy to increase spending on low-carbon energy from $1 billion last year to between $3 and $5 billion each year by 2025. After announcing Shell’s earnings at the beginning of February, Wael Sawan, the CEO, said that the company planned to increase natural gas production and would not be ramping up spending on renewables this year. In 2022, Shell’s capital spending on “low-carbon” initiatives (a broad definition that includes gas) had increased to $3.5 billion, almost a 50 percent increase over the prior year. But the potential clean-energy profits of tomorrow don’t make good business sense when oil and gas are making sky-high profits today, Sawan explained. “We cannot justify going for a low return,” he said during a conference call. “Absolutely, we want to continue to go for lower and lower and lower carbon, but it has to be profitable.” Yes, BP and Shell announced last week that they would go more lean on their renewables and focus on petroleum. Why? Because renewable is too expensive and doesn't bring in profits. Petroleum does. Simple economics that anyone can understand. This is similar to why BlackRock is not touting its ESG bonafides anymore. It doesn't bring in the profits that it thought it would. Course correction. I have nothing against renewable energy, but it is not enough to solve the world's energy issues. A thoughtful transition would be much more likely to succeed rather than eliminating fossil fuels quickly in favor of renewables. Which has been the effort up to now. mspart

Yes, I felt pretty proud, more for the logic than for what you are thinking. But in reading your post that I responded to, the tone of it sounds different than what you are trying to explain after the fact. That doesn't make any difference at all to the assumptions you make by calling out someone else's assumptions. By doing so you are saying they are wrong in their assumption. Which in the end, is an assumption on your part, because you don't really know either. In the final analysis, no one knows anything except that CBS has verified that this document, wherever it may or may not be, is not part of the prosecution. I would say that is not an assumption. It is more a matter of trust in CBS's veracity, which I am not sure about really. They are the network of Cronkite so they wouldn't steer me wrong would they? Oops, showed my age again. mspart

Perhaps you should be asking that of O'Leary? Remember I'm too stupid to know since I know nothing of business school curriculums. But seriously Plasi, what BL did was for no good business reason at all. They offended 25% of their customer base going after what would amount to a less than 1% of sales chasing another demographic. They didn't know they were doing that, but then again, how could they not have known? Who does a stupid thing like that? I think that is where O'Leary is also. You should ask him because again, I'm not smart enough to really know now am I? mspart

Impressive vocabulary!! I mean that sincerely. I don't know how I would have said that. Monacoan? Monacolese? Person from Monaco? mspart

Writing this and then calling someone the stupidest? You should proof read what you write when you call someone else stupid. Errors above in RED. These are not egregious errors, but from a lawyer whose detail to words should be paramount, it makes taking this seriously more difficult. But then you make assumptions that I don't think you can answer. So if this bozo doesn't know anything, please illuminate us all and say where this document is. And you can also tell us why the document in question was not found at the home of a man who has been charged? I think you are projecting, because you too are assuming, but in the opposite direction. But of course that is ok because it is against Trump. You assume they have found the document in question and you are assuming it was found in the home, even though CBS says it is not part of the evidence. Hopefully you can answer the questions above. If not, are you not doing the exact same thing as this bozo you are complaining about? Trump may be guilty. True enough. But you are assuming it is true without any real knowledge, based on what I read above. You are doing what you are complaining about. Projection at its finest. mspart

I remember somewhere on here I said this is an example of how not to do things that will be taught in business schools. What do I know about business school? Nothing, so I must be absolutely wrong on that, which was the consensus on here of some. So I give you the following: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unprecedented-kevin-oleary-says-bud-155603390.html 'So Unprecedented': Kevin O'Leary Says Bud Light Is The Gift That Keeps On Giving, Plans To Teach Its 25% Market Share Collapse To College Students Bud Light is in the headlines again. The CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD), the multinational brewing company behind Bud Light, is reportedly planning to go on a tour this summer to listen to consumers. But “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, doesn’t believe it will turn things around. “I don’t think that’s going to work,” O’Leary said in a recent interview with Fox Business. “He’s going to get an earful, there’s no question about it. The problem with that tour and that idea is it keeps it as a frontline press item.” Mr. Wonderful then highlighted how Bud Light’s situation is unprecedented in the beer industry. “Beer brands take decades to build and usually are fighting [for] 1% to 2% share per year by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising,” he explained. “This has never happened before. No beer brand has ever lost 25% market share in a matter of hours. It’s so unprecedented that there’s no playbook for this.” ... O’Leary pointed out why Bud Light has been facing such strong headwinds. “Beer is a commodity, the only difference is brand, so you really have to protect your brand every way you can,” he said. “If you don’t understand who’s buying your brand and you enrage them, which seems to be what happened here, you don’t know the outcome. And now we can measure it — 25% market share.” O’Leary also intends to share the insight with his students. “This is so extraordinary that I’m planning to teach it this fall in the colleges that I visit and guest lecture at. I’ve never seen a brand case like this one,” he said, later adding that “Bud Light is the gift that keeps on giving.” mspart

Well, there is that. But if Garland is, then he is liable to Congress. But with the Senate in there now, it would have to be an ironclad case that even Ds couldn't dismiss. And that won't happen, meaning the D's would never cave no matter what the evidence is. mspart

The Ruskies should just give up. They tried to run them over and they resisted now for 1.5 years. Enough already. mspart

Now Wagner folks get to choose, join Russian Army or go to Belarus. Knowing that Prigozhin's days are numbered, I feel like most would go to the Army. But then again, they will most likely get the toughest assignments (ie: suicidal assignments). Maybe Putin wanted to get rid of Wagner and it is taking effect now. Maybe he's brilliant, maybe he's lucky. mspart

Here is an honest question. Fact: Brooks was in final X. By winning Nationals, he was automatically in Final X. Question: Who in their right mind would give that up for a chance at a non olympic weight, have to go through a whole other tourney just to deny someone a spot if they were good enough to actually take it? Who would give up Final X for a maybe Final X? The question just doesn't make sense. ZV made his choice and AB made his choice. AB could have made a different choice, but who would do a stupid thing like that? For ZV, it was an obvious choice because he had no other shot at getting on the team. And it worked out for him. But there were many here that felt Macc would easily beat him. Many here made fun of him being fat. But he killed the mini tourney and the Final X. Good for ZV. Would AB have had as much luck? Maybe, maybe not. But he was already in a final x so why even consider it. You can't do an ex post facto on the event and say "I shoulda done this" and have everyone comply with your wish. Life, as has been mentioned doesn't work that way. mspart

This. mspart

Never say Never. I wish James all the luck in the world. I would think he could make a good run of it. mspart

Plasi is right. We need to wait. But as Jonathan Turley points out, someone is lying. Whistleblowers or Garland. Garland stated that the Hunter Biden prosecutor would not be limited in anyway to do what he needed to do. The whistleblowers say David Weiss the prosecutor said he didn't have jurisdiction to prosecute Biden. It can't be both, one of them is not telling the truth. So we shall see if it is Garland or the whistleblowers. To quote Industrial Disease by Dire Straits - Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong. I've always loved that line. It doesn't discount that one of them could be Jesus, just not both. mspart

Question: Will that date ever change or be removed? Is that possible? These things go in cycles. Some years ago smoking was on the wane, and now it seems to be on the rise. The new younger crop always seems to rebel. Regardless of facts and data. You know, "it just won't happen to me." mspart

Are these video or audio tapes? I have only heard portions but haven't seen anything. It doesn't look good for Trump. I can say that. But it also doesn't look good for Biden with the latest whistleblower revelations. It keeps getting worse. mspart

This. mspart

Smokin' meats and playin' banjo. Does life get any better? mspart

I was a great football player at 6 and 7. Just ask me. Then my mom made me quit because she was afraid i would squished. So I did wrestling when I found out about it. I played in the 65 lb league and it was tackle. Then it went to the 85 lb league and weighing no more than 40 lbs, my mom figured my football career was over one way or another. I was not a particularly standout wrestler, but I love the sport. NIL would have been wasted on me!! mspart

Aren't there a lot of phenoms pre-teen and teen that don't go on to college or pro levels? Why would anyone sign an NIL for 9 year old? I think this is ludicrous and will be behind Bernie in that line. In fact, aren't there standout HS athletes that go nowhere? It's like the Heisman trophy winner than can't make the NFL or have a substantial career in the NFL. How many have there been? A few for sure. I have to say Pat Sullivan of Auburn won the Heisman as their QB and didn't really do much in the NFL. I was happy about that because he beat out Johnny Musso of AL. I'm a Tide fan!! Musso did not play NFL much either so it was a bad year there. Even Archie Griffin, two time Heisman winner didn't have a long successful career. And they are going to pay a 9 year old for naming and likeness rights? Not a fan. He may just decide debate is his thing. Who knows? mspart

I liked BIG also. Regarding Schlottke, I did not wrestle him, but was in the UM wrestling room getting ready for Veterans and he was there pounding on people. That would have been in 2000 or 2001, probably 2001 because he was already a name in the wrestling community there. I lived in Apple Valley but was associated with the new Eastview HS, while Apple Valley HS was a monster on the other side of the city. Adam Fokken was State Champ from Eastview in 2001 so that must have been the year. He and the Head Coach would go at it the entire practice and you could tell he was ready for States. That was a fun year. I was a volunteer throwing dummy for them in 2000 and 2001. mspart

Now that we have a team assembled, they should go. Get the best seeding they can for Worlds. And get some competition in. mspart

Life sucks sometimes. Once he heard Zahid was going to 92, he could have gone to 92, but that would have left the #3 guy at Nationals going to final X. I think at some point you have to say the decision has been made and move on. Brooks is #2 at 86, ZV is #1 at 92. ZV saw an opportunity and went with it. Brooks was already in Final X. Both had the exact same opportunity to succeed. ZV made his stick, but not in an Olympic weight. So there is that. He will have to decide next year to go 86 or 97. Not enviable either; try to topple a multi World and Oly Champ, or topple a Multi World and Olympic Champ. And neither champs show any signs of deterioration. Now that's a tough assignment. Brooks has already tasted that with Taylor. So has ZV. I think it is remarkable that ZV stayed with TeamUSA rather than going with TeamMexico where he may have had an Olympic shot. If I read on these boards correctly, that is now not a decision he can make. So he has to be pretty positive about his ability to improve by next year. mspart

This is a crazy situation really. Prigozhin is now a walking dead man. I think he knows it. He has refuge in Belarus, whose dictator is a friend of Putin's. If Prigozhin can't pay his mercenaries, what do they do? Disband or run amok? They have been given a pardon but we all know that could be changed at anytime. In fact, they are probably on borrowed time as well. Only the Wagner boys that didn't march to Moscow have a silver lining in that they can come to the Russia Army. Wagner marched on Rostov and Rostov cheered them on. They went unopposed by the locals until they stopped and turned around. Putin either nearly lost it or created an exquisite ruse to clean house. Time will tell on this and on Prigozhin's life expectancy. My opinion is Putin is weakened and Prigozhin has limited time left on this earth. mspart

You misconstrue my statement into one of advocacy. It is not, it is just a fact. I provided evidence of that fact. No one twisted your arm to respond WR. mspart