Tesla: Are they finally running out of VPs?

I'm being a little sarcastic here, but how many VPs does Tesla have left? The LA Times (as well as many other sources), reports that Liam O'Connor, vice president of global supply management, resigned recently.

O’Connor, who joined Tesla in March 2015 from Apple Inc., is at least the fifth senior executive to be parting ways with the carmaker within the span of a few weeks. The company has lost its chief accounting officer and heads of human resources and communications this month. Justin McAnear, the vice president of worldwide finance, is slated to leave in early October.

Sweden: post-Election Stalemate

The New York Times has some Swedish post election thoughts.

Prior to getting into the article, it must be reminded that the various Swedish political parties coalesce around 3 distinct groups.

You have the center-right group called the Alliance. They're made up of 4 parties: Moderate, Centre, Liberals and Christian Democrats.

You have the left group called the Red Greens. They're made up of Social Democrats and the Green Party with help from the Left Party.

Then you have the far right group called the Sweden Democrats. The Alliance and Red Greens have said they won't negotiate with the Sweden Democrats to form a government.

As the article states, the problem with the post-election is that nobody has a majority. The red-green alliance has 144 of the 349 seats. The Alliance has 143 seats. The Sweden Democrats have 62. So that's the 349 seats. To have the majority, you need 175.

The New York Times lays out 4 potential scenarios to resolve this stalemate.

First: The Red Greens are able to convince the Liberals and Christian Democrats to switch sides. The two control 42 seats between them. That would get the red-green alliance to 186. You'd need both of them to switch over.

Second: Though both alliances have said they won't form an alliance with the Sweden Democrats, there could be negotiations with the center-right where the Sweden Democrats vote for this alliance to lead the nation. They'd need to get something back in return.

Third: Neither alliance needs a majority as long as the majority support one of the alliances to form a government. So there would be a need for an agreement between the two major alliances on who gets to form the government.

Fourth: After four votes to form a parliament, another election will occur.

To me, for right now, the second and third scenarios are off the table. I don't think anyone would be willing to align themselves with the Sweden Democrats at this point (though it could happen if another election creates different splits). And I would think that with such a close vote, one of the alliances would be more than willing to go for another round of voting to see if things might give them a larger portion of the seats. You may as well gamble and hope you win a few more seats in the second round. If one of the alliances was able to get a significant higher seat count than the other (more than the 1 seat difference), maybe you start having more political power to say your alliance should run the government.

So I guess that means I'm leaning towards either the Red Greens are able to steal a 2 parties from the Alliance (first scenario) or we go for another election (fourth scenario).

I think all the articles I've read about Sweden politics states that the Sweden Democrats have neo-Nazi backgrounds. However, none spent the time to bring a little history lesson. The New York Times was kind enough to write a few sentences about the history of the Sweden Democrats. Here's a brief quote:

The Sweden Democrats, founded in 1988, grew from southern Swedish protest parties with ties to neo-Nazis and a racist movement called Bevara Sverige Svenskt (“Keep Sweden Swedish”). They wanted to prohibit adoption from outside Europe and repatriate all immigrants who had arrived since the 1970s, Mr. Nilsson said, adding, “They didn’t want dark-skinned people in Sweden.”

Yemen: UN envoy and other notes

Al Jazeera provides some recent news on Yemen.

1. A UN special envoy arrived in Sanaa, Yemen to talk with the Houthi rebels.

2. The Saudi-UAE-backed government forces are closing in on taking over the port city of Hodeidah (Reuters, via a prior post, uses the spelling of Hodeida). This port is used to bring in supplies to Yemen (food, etc), but is also considered the way that Iran supplies the rebels with weapons.

3. Here's an interesting history lesson:

With logistical support from the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have carried out attacks in Yemen since March 2015, in an attempt to reinstate the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In 2014, Hadi and his forces were overrun by the Houthi rebels who took over much of the country, including Sanaa. Since then, they have recaptured some of the territory previously lost.

Pensions: Chicago and $10 billion bond for pensions

Earlier this year, a recommendation was made that Illinois should borrow $107 billion to help deal with their pension problems. It now looks like Chicago is mulling a similar option via what is called pension obligation bonds (POB). Per Marketwatch:

Chicago is contemplating a bond sale of $10 billion to help pay down its $28 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. Its exploration of such a deal speaks to the city’s dire financial straits. Chicago’s general obligation bond ratings range from junk, in large part because of the pension burden, to single-A among the major credit ratings agencies, and it has struggled to fill budget gaps beyond pensions.

Part 3: International Maritime Organization (IMO) - About to Cause an Oil Spike?

A lot of news was made when Philip Verleger, an economist, issued a report regarding how the new regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) would cause a spike in oil prices starting in 2020. The regulation states that starting in January 2020, ships must use lower sulfur fuels (dropping from 3.5% to 0.5%). Via Reuters, Goldman Sachs has a different take on the impact:

Goldman forecasts scrubber installations at 3,125 in 2020 and 4,450 in 2022. It expects scrubbed high-sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) consumption at a total of 1 million barrels per day (mbpd) by 2020 and 1.4 mpbd by 2025.

Installing scrubbers is one way that ships can meet the lower sulfur content rules.

Sweden: Sunday Elections

I've written a few blog posts about the upcoming Swedish elections. Well, the elections finally occurred. Per CNN:

A far-right party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement won a surge in support in Sweden's general elections Sunday, partial results show, as anti-migrant sentiment rises in the once-open Scandanavian country. With votes in more than half of around 6,000 districts now counted, the far-right Sweden Democrats have won 17.9% of the vote, up from 12.9% in the previous 2014 elections, Expressen TV reports.

Venezuela: Migrant Crisis set to Explode?

Back in March, I wrote a blog post about the exodus out of Venezuela. At the time, estimates were that 550,000 to 1,000,000 had left Venezuela for Colombia. The Miami Herald (Aug 31st) is currently using the 1 million figure. So since March, it is possible that the exodus from Venezuela to Colombia has either come close to doubling or has stayed flat.

The exodus hasn't stopped:

If Venezuela’s economic collapse continues, as seems likely, [Christian Kruger, the director of the Colombia's Migration Office said] “We estimate that the number of Venezuelans who will have moved to Colombia will not be 1 million, but 2 million over the next 12 months. And the same may happen in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and other countries.”

Latin America is trying to come to terms with this crisis:

Ecuador has called a meeting of 13 Latin American countries’ foreign ministers on Sept. 17 to discuss regional remedies to the Venezuelan refugee crisis. Among other things, they are expected to consider creating a registry of Venezuelan refugees, so that the migrants can be directed to countries or regions where their respective skills are most needed.

Too bad President Trump is anti-migration. We could probably use a number of migrants with skills in the oil industry.

The BBC (Aug 29th) adds how countries are dealing with this crisis.

Brazil: Brazil says it is sending its army to the Venezuelan border to "guarantee law and order" amid an influx of migrants fleeing the crisis-hit country.

Peru/Ecuador: This month, Peru began tightening its border by requiring passports instead of national ID cards from Venezuelan migrants. The first day the new rule was instituted, Peru reported a more than 50% drop in the number of migrants. But hundreds more without passports entered the country by seeking asylum. Similar regulations were introduced in Ecuador, only to be overturned by a court ruling.

Per the article, the UN sees this as similar to the Mediterranean crisis in 2015.

Via The Guardian (Aug 28th) it looks like Venezuela is taking a playbook out of the US:

Speaking at a congress of the ruling United Social party this week, Diosdado Cabello implied that images of Venezuelans fleeing through South America on foot had been manufactured. 

Some think there is an upside to this exodus:

[Javier Corrales, a Venezuela expert from Amherst College] said the exodus also enabled Maduro’s administration to co-opt new supporters by giving them the jobs of those who left. “The government has ways to profit from this tragedy … so they don’t really have an incentive to bring this to an end.”

I'd go the other way. It isn't a positive, but a negative. The ones with the most initiative are probably the ones leaving. I'd bet the replacement workers are not nearly as good as those who left. Therefore, productivity declines.

Libya: Tripoli fighting

A lot of my blog posts on Libya has focused on eastern Libya and the Libyan National Army (LNA). That's mainly because most of the fighting appeared to be on the eastern side of Libya. Fighting has now broken out in Tripoli. From what has been written, it was caused by jealousy of those living outside of Tripoli who saw how those in Tripoli were living. Yes, I'm thinking it has to do with how oil money is being divided up.

Reuters (Aug 29th) reported:

Fighting on Monday and Tuesday pitted the Seventh Brigade, or Kaniyat, from Tarhouna, a town 65 km (45 miles) southeast of Tripoli, against the Tripoli Revolutionaries’ Brigades (TRB) and the Nawasi, two of the capital’s largest armed groups. The Kaniyat and other groups from outside Tripoli have noticed the success of rivals inside the city with growing unease. Reports about the wealth, power and extravagant lifestyles of some Tripoli militia commanders have fueled resentment.