In another life I would have liked to have been a Production Economist. A lot of concentration on markets and demand but there’s a science is instigating and managing production that I think is lost on some.

alex williams@atwilliams.bsky.social · last yr.

its funny bc i complain the same way about a carbon tax. ok price passthru and the revenue goes to the government: who's paying for new carbon-free capital goods?? with what revenue??

A good look into the Oxy investment. Call me skeptical that anyone other than Warren gets away with general stock purchases at BRK, I just don’t see the magic transferring to anyone else.

Liam Denning@liamdenning.bsky.social · last yr.

Occidental faces another oil downturn and the loss of its cheerleader-in-chief, Warren Buffett @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

To me the most interesting thing about this is I doubt he has seen or could conceptualize what 21st century toys are. There are some really cool circuits and other learning toys that are quite complicated.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last yr.

Trump on China: "They made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. Somebody said, 'oh, the shelves are gonna be open.' Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more."

Ethane REJECTED. (This is hilarious if you process natural gas) NGL exports are something not a lot of folks get into, glad to see some attention here in my wheelhouse.

Matt Zeitlin@zeitlin.bsky.social · last yr.

plastics! heatmap.news/economy/trad...

How does the fever break? Corporate interests pressing on senators? I doubt the market will be enough but it’ll be the quickest thermometer.

A great read on the many issues with oil and gas in the current administration. I’ll also note there’s a bit of fun going on with oil-gas, in that as oil production decreases it’s slightly bullish gas as trash (associated) gas disappears some.

Joe Weisenthal@weisenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

MUST READ IN THE NEWSLETTER: Oil and gas executives just gave scathing comments on this administration and the state of the industry> Read the full thing here from @tracyalloway.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

It’s poetic there’s an egg shortage and auto tariffs. It’s back to the 1970s with the Chicken Tax.

I typically think of many things as a chemical plant. I should probably read the book but for any process you need to understand demand or you risk orphaning your production in a sense.

alex williams@atwilliams.bsky.social · last yr.

production is like a chemical plant -- you have to have a lot of specific unit operations in order to turn a bunch of trees into a house, whether that means the 2x4s or the printed pieces of paper

One of my thoughts in the abundance discourse is many times there is a Field of Dreams assumption, if you build it they will come. Who pays the carrying cost for the abundance? Are you suggesting private capital/ government and how are you agreeing on production levels?

Tim gets at the one use case k really care about in the ML/AI space: making fluid dynamics and process simulations so cheap I can run any dynamic model I want for pennies. Think of the optimization and frontiers possible.

Tim Latimer@timlatimer.bsky.social · last yr.

An underdiscussed trend in hardtech: over the last couple of decades, particularly with the rise of cloud, cost of compute has fallen dramatically. Fervo, like many hardware companies, relies on complex simulation to hone our designs that would have been cost prohibitive even just a few years ago.

Maybe I’m being too clever but to me (a pilot and engineer) there’s this sort of Societal Minsky Moment where we’ve had stability in certain sectors for so long we’ve become communally immune to imagining risk properly.

zatapatique@zatapatique.bsky.social · last yr.

because we live in societies where nothing ever happens, there are now too many people thinking in bets (put sellers) and not enough people thinking like aviation or nuclear safety engineers

One man’s resiliency is another man’s waste, one man’s inefficiency is another man’s flexibility. Pick your poison, just know what you’re picking.

I agree with this hypothesis. A good middle manager is also quite a good generalist in most engineering organizations. Most leaders which for extreme specialization and optimization from engineers, but I find my ability to speak electrical and controls a big asset as a mechanical guy.

Camille Fournier@skamille.themanagerswrath.com · last yr.

Hypothesis: The belief that AI can replace middle management is actually the wish of execs who never gave up on "command and control" models of leadership and just didn't feel able to execute them at scale, but now believe that the machines will allow them to do so

Of course there hasn’t been any justification, just increased uncertainty. There is low confidence in permanence due to a lame duck term. I was joking it takes 4 years to grow avocados, what factory will be up and running any quicker? Better to have a few loans in my opinion.

John Arnold@johnarnoldfndtn.bsky.social · last yr.

If the purpose of tariffs is to reshore industry, companies need very high confidence in the permanence of the policy. If the purpose is to raise revenue, they must stay enacted. If the purpose is to negotiate policy, there must be a specific ask.

With everything going on I like to think I was a bit prescient on my comments here:

Red@redbuckman.bsky.social · 2y ago

“You can’t do that!” (Due to the laws of man) And “You can’t do that!” (Due to the laws of science) Are very different things, and some folks don’t necessarily distinguish between the two. I suppose I’m subtweeting everything with this.

There’s a big discussion on Amazon’s diesel backup plans in Minnesota. I think as long as they meet air permits it’s probably ok to have these. They did go Tier 4 emissions and if you don’t want them running then keep the grid on. Interesting planning discussion. www.startribune.com/amazon-must-...

I was wondering if this would be repealed. I did a lot of work on this and the AP is wrong here, basically every company would have been liable for a fee as gas moves through the processing facilities. apnews.com/article/meth...

If your project doesn’t have a shovel already in the ground then I don’t see how you green light any manufacturing in the next 4 years. The uncertainty and therefore discount rate or whatever metric you want is simply too high.

Paul Krugman@pkrugman.bsky.social · last yr.

Trump inherited a Goldilocks economy. But he may destroy it faster than even pessimists imagined paulkrugman.substack.com/p/surprise-c...

My Pipeline Politics book has so much fodder now I better actually write it. An entire chapter on IS-Canada. Do we think he knows who TC Energy is?

This is nicely summarized, and the Petrostate vs Petrostate production and price effects will be difficult to square.

I’m reading random books on financial crises and they always seem to mention a “safety valve” talking about Fed lender of last resort. This is an industry term and I’m just curious how it found its way into financial metaphors.

I’ve been wondering when the lawyers wake up to the contract law implications. This is the foundation for all business and contract law isn’t like constitutional law. -technical guy who reads more contracts than he likes to

Robinson Meyer@robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · last yr.

So far, the president’s freeze on climate and infrastructure law spending has been covered as a constitutional issue. But Trump is also about to start breaching hundreds of federal contracts — and *that* could soon open a new front in the legal war. I wrote about it: heatmap.news/politics/tru...

I enjoyed the “everything was the oil market” 1980s connection. Really hit the spot for my hobbies. Energy as a primary input to promises, makes you think.

Joe Weisenthal@weisenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

NEW ODD LOTS The politics of austerity and why it's so hard to cut government spending. We talked to Fritz Bartel, the author of The Triumph of Broken Promises podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

I dunno man. I look back through a pandemic recovery as a Dad, and I think most employment recovery analysis needs to consider childcare issues in the US. A lot of analysis on the past 4 years that will be interesting to discuss after these next 4 years I think.

Jason Furman@jasonfurman.bsky.social · last yr.

BTW, and cut from piece for space reasons, there should be more angst about why the United States had among the worst employment recoveries of the advanced economies. This is change in prime-age EPOP from pre-COVID to most recent. Worth more angsting.

Maybe 2025 I’ll try and be Iowa Sober - no corn ethanol for me. Will be interesting if the subsidies come to a head.

Combustion isn’t dead, and we are really good at optimizing explosions in cylinders. What is fun is that now we can optimize an engine driving a generator, which is very different than an engine driving a transmission. You can get a lot more mpg when you don’t have to worry about torque.

Heatmap News@heatmap.news · last yr.

"It sounds like Ford no longer believes pure electric is the answer for its biggest vehicles," writes @andrewmoseman.bsky.social. The age of the EREV may be upon us ⬇️

Someone needs to call the New Mexico BLM office and see if they are issuing oil and gas permits. As of last week the orders had gummed up the process and certain permits were not being issued.

jae holzman@jael.bsky.social · last yr.

what do you do when crucial federal permitting offices won’t even talk to renewables developers? welcome to our new reality, according to a leaked industry memo i reported last night for @heatmap.news heatmap.news/plus/the-fig...

Quick Look at Canadian crude imports by refinery. I was surprised the Gulf Coast had quite a few on there but there’s a lot of pipelines.

I just know there’s something like a gearbox or something automotive that is 100% imported, there’s just too many subcomponents.

“You can’t do that!” (Due to the laws of man) And “You can’t do that!” (Due to the laws of science) Are very different things, and some folks don’t necessarily distinguish between the two. I suppose I’m subtweeting everything with this.