Category Archives: Business

The Shale Revolution

Is going to have long-term geopolitical effects:

“So far this century, this is the biggest innovation in energy, in terms of scale and impact,” according to U.S. analyst Daniel Yergin, author of a classic history of the oil industry, “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power”, who emphasised that one-third of all the gas produced in the United States is already extracted from shale gas reserves.

…In Ramírez’s view, “the abundance and new distribution of reserves of shale gas and other non-conventional fossil fuels will affect predictions about the relationship between energy and the economy, and will have major geopolitical effects.

“An initial effect is that the largest and best discoveries are outside the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),” which will see its influence on the global energy market diminish in the long run, the expert said.

At the same time, Ramírez said, Russia will embark on the race to consolidate its position as a major global actor on the basis of its energy resources; Canada will emerge as a world oil power; and the United States, its supply secure, could feel freer from the vagaries of Middle East conflicts.

Can’t happen soon enough.

Best Buy Is Going Out Of Business

Gradually:

I’m not shilling for Amazon or any other successful online retailer here. My point is much more basic. Amazon neither invented nor appropriated its basic strategies from Best Buy or anyone else. It simply does what consumers want. Best Buy does what would be most convenient for the company for consumers to want but don’t, then crosses its fingers and prays. That’s not a strategy –- or not a winning strategy, in any case, now that retail consumers aren’t stuck with the store closest to home.

I’ve never liked Best Buy. It was a shame that they lost competition when Circuit City went under. My only real brick and mortar alternative now is Fry’s, which has its own problems.

Why Can’t Hollywood?

get DC right?

Because they don’t care, any more than they care about getting science right. And it never occurs to them that maybe this is one of the reasons why they haven’t been doing well in terms of selling movie tickets. The Deer Hunter was ruined for me by shooting what was supposed to be Pennsylvania in the Olympic Mountains, but apparently they don’t realize how stupid that was, or care that it was so grating to some people.