Sweden: A New York Times article

A month ago, I wrote two blog posts on Sweden. I posted articles from Mother Jones, Reuters, The Local (a Swedish site) and The Times (UK). Here's an article from the New York Times (3 March 2018) and some of the major points are:

1. Gang violence is moving outside of the poorer parts of Sweden.

2. Weapons are entering Sweden via the Oresund Bridge, which links Denmark and Sweden (specifically the city of Malmo). In my previous blog posts, I mentioned that Malmo is the focus of the violence.

Pension Problems: Santa Cruz, CA

I was scanning through Pension Tsunami and came across a couple articles on Santa Cruz and their pension problems. I happened to spend a couple months up in Santa Cruz and so have an interest in the area. I decided to read the articles.

First up is the Sacramental Bee that uses the word "clobbered" in the headlines. As with many cities, health and retirement costs are a growing part of the budget. The article mentions that as a percent of general fund salary it has grown from 28% in 2004 to an estimated 58% in 2020. That's a touch above a double.

To me, the following is the killer quote:

With operating costs, particularly for pensions, continuing to outpace revenues, even during a generally upbeat economy, city officials projected budget deficits growing to more than $20 million a year by 2021.

Libya Update: March 2018

The last time I posted on Libya was back in January. I figured it was time to see what is going on in that country. Reuters has an article up about Sabha, what they call a southern city. Honestly, when I looked up the city on the map, it appears to be more in the middle of the country versus the south of the country. Based on Wikipedia, the city has a population of 130,000. Fighting has occurred in the city between forces loyal (Sixth Division) to the Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Tebu ethnic group.

A reminder is that the LNA is the government in Eastern Libya. There is also the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is the internationally recognized government in Tripoli.

South East and East Asia Oil Decline

Though oil production is expected to increase in the US due to shale production, other areas of the world are expected to see declining oil production. I happened to come across this Rystad Energy report projects that oil product will decline by 20% between 2017 - 2025. (This 20% decline includes oil and gas.) The report mentions that production has been declining since 2015. From 2017 to 2025, production is expected to decline from 13.1 million boe/d to 10.4 million boe/d.

What's driving this decline in production? Well, lack of discovery. The report mentions that in 2012, over 1 billion boe reserves were discovered. In 2017, the figure dropped to 300 million boe. This is driven by a lack of spending, which has dropped from $160 billion in 2013 to $101 billion in 2015-2016.

This forecasted decline got me interested so I did some research. Oil Price had a post from Aug 2016 that discussed how the oil majors were leaving the area.

BP: Oil Outlook 2040

BP recently came out with their 2040 energy report. For the purposes of this blog, I'm most interested in their oil outlook. From what I can tell from the data, their forecast is that oil demand will peak between 2035 - 2040. The reason for the range is that their oil consumption is forecasted in 10 year increments so they're not providing yearly forecasts from 2030 to 2040.

For example, 2030 is at 4,864 million tonne of oil equivalent (toe). All energy sources is at 16,317 toe.

In 2040, oil declines to 4,836 (toe). All energy sources increase to 17,983.

So obviously sometime between 2030 to 2040, oil consumption declines.

Venezuela: Oil Industry Employees

In recent posts, I've made reference to Venezuelan oil industry employees.

I quoted an article that stated a former mechanic made more money busking in Colombia versus working in Venezuela.

I mentioned another article that said 10,000 left their jobs in one week.

Well, Bloomberg recently had an article digging into this topic even more. Here are some of the points:

1. One reason why oil production is dropping in Venezuela is hunger. The oil industry is physically demanding. With hyper-inflation, employees aren't able to afford food. Without enough calories and a balanced diet, employees just can't do their work.  To describe the situation, the article uses words like "passing out," "weak," "fainted," and "fatigued."

2. The article doesn't mention anything about 10,000 people leaving in one week, but it does mention numbers like 500 leaving over 12 months or 10 people resigning in a month. What is one interesting sentence is the following: There are 263 plant operators remaining and 180 vacancies at the Puerto La Cruz refinery, he said. That's 40% of positions unfilled. I have to think that at that level, there are plenty of necessary duties that aren't being done and therefore the refinery is becoming less and less productive.

3. An interesting quote is: Those who quit without notice risk losing their pensions, as bureaucrats refuse to process paperwork . . . In one human resources office, a sign advertised a limit of five resignations a day.

My thought on that: in a world of hyper-inflation, would the risk of losing your pension really be a reason not to leave? I don't know how much those pensions are worth, but I have to believe that one could probably live better in another country -- like I've mentioned, a person was able to make more money busking in Colombia versus working in Venezuela. I mean, generally, don't pensions provide you with less money than what you used to make working? Of course, this is Venezuela versus the US. But if you are starving on your current salary, wouldn't it be even worse on a pension?

Venezuela: Oil Production at near 30 Year Lows

It isn't news that Venezuela is in economic chaos. People are fleeing the country. And now oil production is near a 30 year low. Per CNN:

The country's oil output in January fell to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, not including a brief oil strike in 2003, according to S&P Global Platts. A monthly OPEC report published Monday revealed Venezuela pumped 1.6 million barrels of oil per day last month. Production in January was down 20% from a year ago.

The article also points out that 95% of all Venezuelan exports is oil.

Venezuela: Migrant Crisis Update

I wrote a post in mid-November about the crisis in Venezuela. I touched on the refugee crisis. At the time, The LA Times estimated that there were 300,000 - 400,000 Venezuelans living in Colombia. It's time to take another look at the situation.

Via Reuters, Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos is requesting international aid to assist with the refugee crisis in his country. Per the article, the current estimate of Venezuelans living in Colombia is 550,000. So the numbers have gone from potentially 400,000 to 550,000 in just a couple months. (Of course, I quote another article that puts the potential number even higher.) There are also a number of Venezuelans who still live in Venezuela, but shop in Colombia. Per the article:

Iran: After the Protests, is Rouhani playing some palace intrigue?

In early January, I wrote a post about the protests happening in Iran. Since that time the protests appear to have largely subsided (though there is an interesting smaller protest going on that I will get to later in this post).

Not only have the protests subsided, but it appears that the government is feeling confident that they won't return. How would I draw that conclusion?