ecugringo

Yeah I remember going into costco in my Denver burb with my 2 yr old and getting yelled at by the greater that he wasn't masked up. Then there was a dude that got arrested for shooting hoops with his daughter at a park in the early days in the same hood. Funny when I traveled to red states they didn't have these issues.

When I lived in Denver I could tell Denver would be the new LA/SEA. Nobody wanted to admit what the issue was, just be nice and cave to their poor plight. My burb but in a light rail to Denver. A billion over budget but once it opened our nice little old town was filled with bums. Quickly became a place you didn't want to take the family. Although some loved hte diversity. But if you brought it up you were a bigot. Ironically I think it was the mayor from Aurora who was a self described liberal. He spent a week on the street with them. His thesis was they were down on their luck good Americans victims of the system....He reported it was mostly a lifestyle choice that were abusing drugs and alcohol. Where I live now there are signs in our urban center that specifically say no panhandling and if you want to help donate to this site.

Kids are going back to school, inflation, recession, midterms, low approval ratings, Ukraine, China…..I’m sure the cdc guidelines are completely unrelated.

So she was shot and sent him a text while hes right there? How many blead out while they stood around that could have had a chance?

That video is hard to watch. Now that I have a soon to be 6 yr old, I cant imagine having to live through something like this or the fear or it happening. We chose to homeschool our kids for many reasons. This being one of them. It can happen anywhere. We lived in CO and there was constant issues with guns in wealthy suburban areas. Lots of drug issues in schools with kids and parents. The police reaction is similar in Uvalde is similar to a shooting in Arvada a lil over a year ago. Arvada is a wealthy burb of Denver with a historicish downtown. Some wackjob parks his truck walks up to a cop and offs him right there. A hunting store across the street had 3 cops in it and 1 civi with a CCW. COps hid, Civi takes out the shooter. Then, more cops show up and take out the civi. I cant think of a better time to argue pro 2A then now. If my kid was in that school I know what me and my wife woudl have done.

It's a massive expense. Depends on the volume you want to process a day as well. If you are set up for sweet and want to undertake sour, its a decision that the C level with very high level long term plans consider. Its not just a flip of a switch. Sour you need a coker plant which is a mini refinery inside the refinery itself. A coker is what makes your diesel, gasoline, Jet. If you dont have a coker you can make those products from a reformer. If you have a coker you also are heavily dependent on hydrogen as well. Refining is similar to distallation. Making Vodka is 1 thing, being able to make whiskey from corn mash and tequilla from agave is something else altogether. For perspective on costs: P66 Bell Chase in New Orleans flooded last year in a hurricane. They shut it down for repairs. The startup est was over $1bl. Its now just a storage facility.

Its still traded as a global commodity since they are part of OPEC but since the whole dictatorship deal ppl try to shy away. They do have the most known reserves of anyone. Most refineries can and will process sour. The East and West coast shy away but keep in mind embridge is a Canadian company that has dozens of lines crossing the MN area to directly feed the mid west. Line 5 runs under Lake Michigan and a lot of ppl cry about it. The Crude from the Bakken in ND is mostly shipped by Rail to the coasts because thats safer for some reason.

Yeah not true. If a refinery has a coker plant they can process sour crude. Sour crude is a fraction of hte price as Sweet crude therefore yields a much higher crack spread. I know every refinery that purchases sour. The Keystone PL supplies Cushing OK (Worlds largest storage center) with millions of Sour from the tar sands in Canada. Keystone is not to be confused with the yet to be built Keystone XL. What is your experience in O&G btw?

Yeah I am a business traveler. Usually every other week going somewhere for a few days. Conferences are coming back but its still mostly full of vendors and not our customers. We are finding they are still pretty slim and major operators are not rushing back to these events. I think most are realizing a huge part of customer/vendor interaction can be done via phone/email. This was going to always be the case but covid accelerated it. I dont think business travel will ever be what it was pre covid. Now with pleasure travel....my flight to Houston was $300-$400 bucks inside 2 weeks. Its now over $800 with fewer options. I suspect families will rethink travel plans as well.

I read something a while back on NYC and Roe v Wade. The hypothesis was that RvW stemmed violence in NYC by having fewer unwanted kids growing unto early adulthood which also tied in with when Guiliani took over as Mayor. The argument was his policies didnt really turn NYC into a better place. It was fewer criminals being born. IDK what hte truth is. But the argument that abortion = less crime is a pretty sad statistic.

Yeah I believe some of these institutions have been found of Fraud? But agree, that is what I was referring to.

LOL I have a Poli Sci degree from a state school. From my perspective, I dont think a degree matters that much. I work in Oil and Gas and I see a pretty wide range of backgrounds that are pretty successful. I will say maybe from being an Officer and my degree gives me an advantage in critical thinking and writing skills. I work in sales and business development and I see a lot of people with maybe a MBA from a state school and its never been that impressive. I will also say getting an engineering degree might start you off at a decent level but it stagnates pretty fast. I think going into debt for an advanced degree really only pays off if it is from a high end business school that can get you connected. Getting a MBA from whatever State U IDK. In my role you can make pretty good $$$. We have a lot of former enlisted people in our company as either a service tech or sales. All make 6 figures. One of our sales guy pulls over $200k with a GED but he was in the Navy so we knew he was trainable. We have had guys with a STEM degree from Texas A&M and honestly i couldn't stand them. There is some truth to the millennial stereotype but I also think the media really pushes it as a talking point. But I also think there is some truth to the corporate bitching. Companies are making record profits but are they giving out many raises? You always read about a CEO making millions only to fail miserably only to get picked up at another company. Meanwhile the boots on the ground are making it all happen with what they have. So yeah I sympathize with that bitching a bit. I also have seen a # of CEO's lifestyle and Im not interested in that. Student Loans: What I think is really ed up is hte Univ of PHX and other for profit schools that really went after the lower income and undereducated. They promised a bright future with a BS degree. Univ of PHX business plan was to grow at a rate of an Ohio State Univ every year. This is where the Govt should step in and investigate. I am in favor of those schools being banished and loans forgiven. I think these for profit schools make up the majority of delinquent loans? There are plenty of options to be successful. I think today there are far more creative ways and there probably is more wealth to be generated that in the past. Look at United Airlines. They are starting their own from hte street to RJ school. Skip college, be an RJ at 18 or 19. By 40 you're making bank in the right seat. Just a quick example off the top of my head. What I disagree with the boomers is the idea of being a slave to a company. Again in my experience the only way i see people getting promted or raises is jumping to different companies. Or the idea of being a good soldier and not taking sick days and being hyper dedicated. When you watch your peers of a company be there for 20+ years and being kicked to the curb at the first hint of decline, all of a sudden you're only out for yourself. Pensions are no longer a thing, benefits aren't what the use to be. The table has flipped and the employee can make more demands. I think hte corporate structure is flipping as it should. Finally: tangent into global warming. I was curious why the left didn't push harder to keep remote workers as much as possible. Less cars not eh road, less congestion, etc....less need for office space=more green space. Should help global warming?????

Agree 100%. My Brother in law is early 30's super techy and educated. He would not make a great sales guy or maybe even manager but he works in cyber security and does pretty well. He has no interest in owning a large home with a fence, 2 kids and dog. Him and his wife have a small city home, small cars and work from home. They also want to be able to say it, pack up and move somewhere else and do hte same job. Hell I did that myself. IMHO the corporate office culture has died and those managers that can't adapt and overcome will fail. PPL realized there is value in getting an hour+ of your life back from your daily commute.

Did not know that.

Why is Zelensky meeting with Ben Stiller? Why is Ben Stiller in Ukraine? Seems odd the head of state that's currently at war has time to meet with a holly wood actor?

I think this just shows that an advanced country like Germany is still primarily dependent on Gas for their energy needs. Even Nukes didn't supply 100% power. The Nordstream Gas Line was to go directly to Germany to fill their energy needs. Yeah they have Solar Panels everywhere and some wind farms but the reality is they still are dependent on Gas and were nowhere close to replacing it.

According to Peter Zeihan they are all next. Side note: read an article last night can't find the link now but it discussed how the Intel Agencies missed on Russian Military capabilities. Thinking about it and going back to Al Queda, WMD's in Iraq, Taliban/Afgan pull out and now Russia.....Is there anything else they can miss so big on?

Officially the #1 Tom Cruse movie now. Only trails Avatar in Revenue at this point in its run. Saw it with my Dad, he took me when I was 5 for hte original. Loved it! Really great film to see in theaters. Made the wife watch the original and man was it corny! Still fun to watch but didn't realize the amount of cheese. When I was young the original Charlie was the ultimate prize. Re-watching it.....Nah, she doesn't hold up as well as I thought. Also thought you could have a Beach Home on a govt contractors salary growing up too. Jennifer Conneley>Charlie. There still hotter chics out there.

All that money Germany invested in Green energy appears to be wasted. Going back to coal! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/20/ukraine-war-germany-turns-to-coal-as-russia-throttles-gas-supplies.html

I read something years ago stating durign the cold war, specifically when we had the DEW line we had more weather monitoring stations in the Arctic than we do now. This helped shape the climate is cooling message. I also remember in the early 90's when the rain forest were being wipe out they would be gone within 20-30years? That message eventually faded away. There were even movies about it. But with most of the global population increasing in 3rd world areas like Africa and south Asia.....they need cheap energy and land to feed themselves....but yeah go buy a Tesla and save the planet. I think 1 car battery needs like a swimming pool of water to create. Oh and the Dow is down 900 pts today.

lol i bought Exxon in May or June 2020 at around $34. Was at $104 last week.

We now have the President telling companies what an acceptable profit margin is. Biden tells oil companies in letter 'well above normal' refinery profit margins are 'not acceptable' (cnbc.com)

The other interesting point is the Crack Spread. This is the ratio of what companies purchase crude at vs selling a finished product. The higher the spread the greater the profit. Right now with Oil at $120/bbl and Fuel at $5sh.....It's actually not good margins for producers. Now when the storage tanks were full at $40-$60/bbl and Fuel started increasing, they made stupid money. Not saying they aren't now but its not what you would think. When Crude gets too low they tighten the valve and layoffs happen. Since Putin has state run oil companies as well as many OPEC players....They really aren't interested in reducing the price of crude. 2 of hte top 10 companies in the S&P now are Marathon and Valero. Not Salesforce or Facebook/META bs. My bet is their strategy is to maximize profits and shareholder revenue today and hold cash. If there is a red wave this fall I think they will invest in infrastructure and you might see more crude hit the market. But if Dems hold ground, these companies will further retreat and not invest in future aquisitions.

there is so much revenue to be create from O&G that can better our country as far as infrastructure, education and other programs that could really help those in need, I dont know why we want to race away from that sector. The US is in a position to be the global energy export leader. When you factor all the jobs involved in Exploration and production (Drilling), Midstream (Transportation) and Downstream (Refining and delivery), ppl only think of hte big players like Exxon and Chevron but there are thousands of other businesses all involved in the process. Maintenance, Integrity, Installation, there are hundreds of thousands employed. Planting a bunch of wind farms wont create the jobs claimed. I also challenge proponents of wind to drive through WY on any given day and notice all the turbines that are idle due to wind loads. Turbines need wind but too much and they break. IMO our energy policy should be to be an Energy leader while supporting R&D to develop new technologies that can be more efficient.