Economy ~ Made In America ~ [US Shale Juggernaut Stomping OPEC + MFG's Biggest Annual Job Gain In 20 Years]

[NoDak]

http://www.themanufacturinginstitute.org/News-Articles/2018/11/14-Skills-Gap-Report.aspx

“Manufacturers in the United States are experiencing some of the highest levels of growth we’ve seen in decades, yet the industry seems unable to keep up with the resulting rebound in job growth,” said Paul Wellener, vice chairman, Deloitte LLP, and U.S. industrial products and construction leader.

“With nearly 2 million vacant new jobs expected by 2028, compounded by 2.69 million vacancies from retiring workers, the number of open positions could be greater than ever and might pose not only a major challenge for manufacturers but may threaten the vitality of the industry and our economy.”

 

[NoDak]

I've spoken quite a bit about Arizona in particular. Here's some of the initiatives taking place to try and avert this national crisis of having so much American manufacturing output and too many available jobs in the sector.

 

[Seano]

I don't know how civil this story is, but it made me laugh.


Chinese Game Site Censors Winnie The Pooh in Kingdom Hearts III

Screenshot: Weibo, Buzz Plus
When Chinese game site A9VG recently covered Kingdom Hearts III, it decided to remove one thing: Winnie the Pooh.

Below is a screenshot of the A9VG coverage that was posted on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. According to Buzz Plus, to get around censors, it seems, the site decided to edit out Pooh bear.


What gives?

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been repeatedly compared to Winnie the Pooh, which led to a crackdown of the character on Chinese social media.

https://kotaku.com/chinese-game-site-censors-winne-the-pooh-in-kingdom-hea-1830618072/amp

 

[NoDak]

U.S. Factories Are Posting Job Openings Like Never Before

Job openings have surged at U.S. manufacturers of durable goods from machinery to cars in recent months, suggesting factories have plenty of demand despite recent tariff obstacles.

The job openings rate for the durable-goods manufacturing industry reached 4 percent in October, a record in data back to 2000, according to figures issued Monday by the Labor Department. That’s up from 3.7 percent in September and 3.1 percent a year earlier. Total openings were 332,000, compared with about 8 million jobs in the sector.

A separate report from the Association for Manufacturing Technology released Monday noted that machine-tool orders from August to October totaling $1.6 billion were the most in 20 years.

lol @Gunny, God Dammit! You can't stop this country, motherfuckers. It can only do that to itself. And the god damn dollar has gained near 10% this year against the currencies of main trading partners to hurt exports. This is also going to boost industrial production on the whole.

The U.S. Just Became A Net Oil Exporter For The First Time in 75 Years

Always worth a reminder how this happened, courtesy of political intelligence consultant Gary K. Busch:

"There were lessons learned in the production of fracked oil and gas in the United States with OPEC’s desire to drive the US industry to its knees and start an oil pricing war to make fracking uncompetitive. Instead of folding up their hands, US producers innovated new processes and introduced new technologies which drove down operating costs. Now, OPEC cannot compete and is fighting a losing battle to drive out US shale. America will be self-sufficient in energy by late 2019.

There are numerous new techniques being applied including smart drill-bits with computer chips that can seek out cracks in the rock and adjust the drilling accordingly, fully degradable fracture balls and seats to isolate zones during well stimulation that eliminates previous limitations on lateral lengths and maximizes estimated ultimate recovery while reducing risks and costs as well as expandable tubulars, more cost-effective rotary steerable systems, and intelligent drill pipe for high-rate bottomhole data telemetry drilling to depths no longer limited by initial hole diameter.”

 

[ElKarlo]

The big problem facing US manufacturers is the competition overseas that gets away with treating laborers like we did back in the 1920s. We did the right thing for the workers, obviously, but it has hindered our ability to produce the same shit we buy from China or Indonesia.

This, freetrade should only be done with those that have similar laws and standards as ours. Ross Perot was right, sending mnfg to places with no OSHA and no medical benefits is easy. We shouldn't have done it the way we did.

That said, aircraft, oil and oil development and semiconductors are the future for US tech

 

[ElKarlo]

Unlike most other places the US allows innovation, like in shale. It was allowed to be attacked by OPEC, and has gotten stronger for it. Protection ends up coddling industries and making them weak.

 

[NoDak]

This, freetrade should only be done with those that have similar laws and standards as ours. Ross Perot was right, sending mnfg to places with no OSHA and no medical benefits is easy. We shouldn't have done it the way we did.

That said, aircraft, oil and oil development and semiconductors are the future for US tech

The Fab 5 are agriculture, energy, advanced materials, aerospace and semiconductors. The primary and industrial sectors have been cast aside in presumed importance for too long. For me, they're always the priorities and the backbone of this country. At the most fundamental level, 'national security' comes first and foremost from being both food secure and energy independent. America's biggest geopolitical rival is neither.

As it is, the midwestern United States constitutes the most productive contiguous region of arable land on the planet (not to mention the California salad bowl) and the US is the world's largest agriculture exporter by some distance. Earlier this year it became the world's largest producer of oil and gas, now pushing the brink of net exporter status on crude almost a year sooner than predicted.

The other three are utterly indispensable and I've discussed them more times than you can shake a stick at: the pinnacle industries of advanced manufacturing and America is responsible for spawning two of them. I care less about vague "technology" in general than I do maintaining dominance over the engineering and production of the materials, machinery, components and devices that are the brains of it.

It's less Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and more Intel, Qualcomm, TXN, Micron, Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor. That's what immediately comes to mind for me when people say "tech companies". It isn't just the private sector either, because since World War II the US has maintained a very effective network of over 40 FFRDC government labs which engage in applied research of all types, much of it confidential.

 

[NoDak]

Unlike most other places the US allows innovation, like in shale. It was allowed to be attacked by OPEC, and has gotten stronger for it. Protection ends up coddling industries and making them weak.

 

[ElKarlo]

Yeah shale is def an amazing phenomenon. Wonder why no one else is doing it? There def are some marginal areas that could be exploited by it

 

[NoDak]

Yeah shale is def an amazing phenomenon. Wonder why no one else is doing it? There def are some marginal areas that could be exploited by it

They lack most of the above, in particular the advanced microseismic and multilateral drilling technology and techniques. And yes, as someone well to the left of you socioeconomically it's also great when regulated to serve the public interest (mostly at a state level). North Dakota now has multiple, multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth and trust funds that wouldn't otherwise exist as a result of this domestic energy boom. It's the right thing to do.

 

[NoDak]

Uh environmental degradation is a concern though, especially ground water contamination. Obama's EPA published a peer-reviewed study in 2015 claiming fracking safety clearance which I found unbelievable given arsenic drawn, but then kind of reneged on it just prior to him leaving office. It's a bit of a clusterfuck.

 

[ElKarlo]

They lack most of the above, in particular the advanced microseismic and multilateral drilling technology and techniques. And yes, as someone well to the left of you socioeconomically it's also great when regulated to serve the public interest (mostly at a state level). North Dakota now has multiple, multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth and trust funds that wouldn't otherwise exist as a result of this domestic energy boom. It's the right thing to do.

Oh I think sovereign funds can be great. ND is Def an example of shale helping a state that was on the margins.
You'd think the shale suppliers woukd want to export their equipment and contracts. Wonder why it basiyhasnt happened yet? Environmental issues?

 

[MMAViewer]

Uh environmental degradation is a concern though, especially ground water contamination. Obama's EPA published a peer-reviewed study in 2015 claiming fracking safety clearance which I found unbelievable given arsenic drawn, but then kind of reneged on it just prior to him leaving office. It's a bit of a clusterfuck.

We had proposition 112 on tha ballot here in Colorado it would have pushed wells 2500 feet from dwellings. Big oil spent millions and by out messaging won bigly. Sadly.
If the voters knew the truth it would have passed easily.
We are blue here but big oil has our politicians paid off. Polis will be better than hickenlooper's sold out ass I hope.

 

[NoDak]

Oh I think sovereign funds can be great. ND is Def an example of shale helping a state that was on the margins. You'd think the shale suppliers woukd want to export their equipment and contracts. Wonder why it basically hasnt happened yet? Environmental issues?

The biggest reason it isn't already happening on a large scale is because not all shale is created equal. The United States boasts particularly advantageous formation geology and all of its shale is marine shale, the majority of the rest of the world's is lacustrine. With the latter, hydrocarbons are trapped within waxy layers of clay and it makes clean extraction almost inextricable at this juncture but rest assured, the wildcat American innovators will find a way to get that fucking petroleum. It took a ridiculous amount ingenuity just to break through stateside even with the comparative geological ease.

We had proposition 112 on tha ballot here in Colorado it would have pushed wells 2500 feet from dwellings. Big oil spent millions and by out messaging won bigly. Sadly.
If the voters knew the truth it would have passed easily.
We are blue here but big oil has our politicians paid off. Polis will be better than hickenlooper's sold out ass I hope.

That's no bueno. I'm already faced with a moral dilemma of sorts in regards to fracking outright and hardly only because energy independence further dials up America's economic strength, national security and geopolitical clout. My personal outlook changes substantially when legislation that basically amounts to redistribution is implemented to benefit the population at large such as in North Dakota, and it could probably even pull on @Trotsky. I support it, and that makes me a hypocrite to discuss topics like climate change from the position I do.

Other material on NoDak:

North Dakota's Norway Experiment: Can Humane Prisons Work In America?

Little Sovereign Wealth Fund On The Prairie (From 2014)

North Dakota is enjoying a flood of biblical proportions. Shale-drilling technology has liberated huge quantities of oil from the Bakken shale in the western part of the state. Production has surged from about 100,000 barrels per day in 2007 to nearly one million barrels per day this year - a tenfold increase.

But North Dakota, America’s latest petro-state, is handling its newfound wealth with the kind of modesty you might expect in a land where people live in giant open spaces and at the mercy of nature. Decades of boom and bust in agriculture have forged a culture of thrift, an abhorrence of debt, and a healthy mistrust of high finance.

Alone among the 50 states, North Dakota has a state-owned bank. It never had much of a housing and credit boom, so it never had much of a housing bust. So it’s not surprising the state is taking a conservative approach to its sovereign wealth fund, the North Dakota Legacy Fund...

...When fracking turned the Bakken Shale into Saudi Arabia on the high plains, the trickle of oil revenues turned into a gusher. Eager not to squander the state’s good fortune, North Dakota in 2010 created the state’s Legacy Fund through an amendment to the state constitution. The amendment stipulated that 30 percent of all extraction and production tax revenues collected should flow into the fund.

Further, the money couldn’t be touched for seven years, until 2017—at which point the interest and income generated by the fund would be rolled into the state’s general budget. Money from the principal could only be spent if two-thirds of both houses of the state legislature approved. And no more than 15 percent of the principal could be spent in any two-year period.

As the young fund got on its feet, it followed an extremely conservative investment philosophy: Pretty much all the cash was invested in safe, low-yielding bonds. There were to be no indoor-ski slopes built in Bismarck or 90-story skyscrapers constructed in Fargo. And the team at the North Dakota Investment Board, which also takes care of the state’s pension programs for public employees, didn’t rush to New York to find hedge fund and private equity sharpies.

The Legacy Fund is still an untapped minnow at around $6 billion with no clear purpose; total deposits are up to $4.72 billion from oil and gas tax revenue with another $1.19 billion in staunchly conservative investment earnings. There's been legislative proposals to use it in part to help fund public works projects and people often wonder about redistribution in the form of dividends. The state also receives royalties from energy development on public land that go into the separate Common Schools Trust Fund, which is a little over $4.3 billion itself.

 

[MMAViewer]

The biggest reason it isn't already happening on a large scale is because not all shale is created equal. The United States boasts particularly advantageous formation geology and all of its shale is marine shale, the majority of the rest of the world's is lacustrine. With the latter, hydrocarbons are trapped within waxy layers of clay and it makes clean extraction almost inextricable at this juncture but rest assured, the wildcat American innovators will find a way to get that fucking petroleum. It took a ridiculous amount ingenuity just to break through stateside even with the comparative geological ease.



That's no bueno. I'm already faced with a moral dilemma of sorts in regards to fracking outright and hardly only because energy independence further dials up America's economic strength, national security and geopolitical clout. My personal outlook changes substantially when legislation that basically amounts to redistribution is implemented to benefit the population at large such as in North Dakota, and it could probably even pull on @Trotsky. I support it, and that makes me a hypocrite to discuss topics like climate change from the position I do.

I suppose we all have to live with some level of hypocrisy. Furthermore I think we can find a fair (more fair) compromise with environmental regulation and energy independence and energy efficiency.


*You're a smart guy NoDak, great addition to this board!

 

[NoDak]

I suppose we all have to live with some level of hypocrisy. Furthermore I think we can find a fair (more fair) compromise with environmental regulation and energy independence and energy efficiency.


*You're a smart guy NoDak, great addition to this board!

This convo has come up a few times, it's definitely something to strive for and aggressively at that. However, the slow transition towards green tech renewables isn't merely an issue that is born out of stubbornness and greed, it's just far more difficult to implement on a regional - nevermind global - scale than the loudest proponents tend to let on and I'm not even sure if they're aware of it tbh.

 

[NoDak]

 

[ElKarlo]

Wow man, good stuff. I really don't know anywhere nearly as much you do when it comes to fracking and SCs. Thanks!

 

[NoDak]

Wow man, good stuff. I really don't know anywhere nearly as much you do when it comes to fracking and SCs. Thanks!

Aside from both being part of my five indispensable US industries which would spark personal interest regardless, I think the direct environment probably has something to do with the amount of knowledge I have on particular, somewhat eccentric subjects. I'm North Dakota born and (mostly) raised, so I'm back home fairly often and there's few places in the country where the shale energy boom has been bigger.

I currently live and have spent half my life roaming the concrete desert of Phoenix Metro in Arizona so I've seen it transform into one of the semiconductor manufacturing capitals of the world and also have very close people to me that work in the industry. Of course, we've kind of broached this subject before as well as the reasons it happened.

Intel, NXP, Microchip, Marvell, Everspin, ASML are all practically along the same boulevard. There's another cluster nearby that consists of Applied Materials, ASM America, Advotech, Amkor, Collabratech, Entrepix and ON.

 

[NoDak]

China weighing options to shelve its "Made In 2025" national strategy (achieved through cyber and industrial theft of IP, trade secrets and technology transfers). It's pretty crazy they would even suggest something like that and allow press leaks given how heavily Xi's name is all over the policy. Not that I remotely believe them anyway at this juncture.