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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (486)	2/23/2004 2:43:33 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

Thoughts from Rien on oil sands from my board on the FOOL Some more impressions: I also searched for environmental impacts, the problem is waste water. In order to supply the world with oil from the sands, waste water would fill half of lake ontario. In SA, you just stick a pipe in the ground, and out comes oil. Oil sands are "slightly" more difficult. Thus the price will probably reflect this. Canada and the middle east think quite different about pollution and CO2 emissions. This will also push the price up. It was claimed that cost price of oil sands was $8. I find that hard to believe as even optimists only forcast oil at $24. This would be a mighty incentive to go all out on oil sands. World wide recoverable oil sands were clocked at 800Gb. In canada they use steam to separate the oil from the sand. To generate steam, they use cheap NG. That NG is cheap because it comes from small fields where it is not economical to build pipelines to urban area's. These fields are small, and will run out soon. For full scale development expensive NG would need to be imported ??? All in all, I get the impression that while it is possible to retrieve the oil from the sands, it will probably not be in time to avoid very high oil prices. ========================================================== Conclusion from Mish Oil sands are very feasible but not without difficulty There is plent of oil to be extracted here and it is being done economically There is plenty of NG resources in the world but not plenty of LNG production It is possible to supply NA with oil IMO using this stuff but only if we quickly work to resolve the problems. It is quite likely a "disaster" in the ME will force this issue. Mish

To: mishedlo who wrote (486)	2/23/2004 2:49:45 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Manufacturing McDonald's? newsday.com White House economists wonder whether hamburger flippers at fast-food restaurants should be considered manufacturers. President George W. Bush raised the issue in his annual economic report. In the report last week, Bush's chief economic adviser N. Gregory Mankiw called the definition "somewhat blurry" and asked whether it should be changed. "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" =========================================================== From FY on the FOOL....... I took a field trip a Taco Bell manufacturing site yesterday for lunch. I'd like to report that we were barely able to communicate with the migrant laborers who manufactured our chicken soft-shell tacos and burritos, but they were quick and courteous. The assembly line was short and efficient. Our food outputs were created on demand for us, a marvel of "just in time" manufacturing. No flies were observed on the inputs, either. The factory floor appeared to have been recently swept, a marked improvement over the condition of the most recently-toured Wendy's manufacturing site. After our repast, the interactive portion of the tour was appreciated, as we manufactured some outputs in the mens' and ladies' factories, respectively. All in all, a very optimistic sign for the future of American manufacturing. --FY