Uh Oh, Apple (AAPL) May Be In Trouble

I think every American was heartened at the speed that the U.S., and the free world, levied sanctions on the totalitarian regime of Russia.

A few weeks ago, many said we couldn’t turn off Russia’s access to Swift, that would be the equivalent of an economic nuclear strike.

Then BAM! The EU said, “we’re doing this NOW, please join us.”

Many said we couldn’t stop buying Russian oil, because that would hurt the world, including the EU, way too much.

Then BAM! We stopped buying Russian oil.

Just a few weeks ago, who would have thought so many company would join the battle? Google. Facebook. Twitter. Visa. MasterCard. American Express. PayPal. Nike. Adidas. McDonald’s. Starbucks. Coke. Pepsi. Hundreds and hundreds more… all flipping the middle finger to Putin. In fact, if you haven’t stop doing business with Russia yet, something is wrong with you.

China’s reaction to all of this? Silence in the beginning. A lot of folks say that’s just their way, “to observe.”

I think it’s something different. That they originally thought what Putin thought: “No way the U.S. and the EU can ever get their stuff together to act in concert… and certainly whatever they do won’t have teeth.”

But both Putin and China were oh so wrong. The outpouring of support for Ukraine? STUNNING. BLINDING.

UNANIMOUS.

So China went from quiet cockiness to silent terror… now knowing that the free world has a NEW weapon against oppressors: We’ll just turn you off.

It couldn’t have happened 20 years ago… maybe not even 10… but now the world is really so interconnected, that it really is possible to, say, strangle Russia-the-dictatorship-that-oppresses-people to economic death.

With all this momentum, China realized it had to do something.

Of course they didn’t do what would have been truly helpful to peace… and that is whisper in Putin’s ear, “wtf, it didn’t work, stop acting like a madman!”

Instead it’s s-l-o-w-l-y been rolling out support for Russia over the last week or so. Essentially “reminding” everyone we need to de-escalate because it will further mess up global supply chains and such.

Boy, did Xi miscalculate on that one, too.

Talk turned today of “secondary sanctions” against China. If they’re still doing business with a murderous dictator that wants to take away others’ freedom, then maybe we’ll just turn China off, too.

My reaction?

YES! LET’S DO THAT! NOW!!

Then I got to thinking, why wouldn’t we do this? China is mostly a one-way relationship: They economically abuse us. And every time we ask them to play fair, they cry about it.

Then I got to thinking some more: Which American companies would get hurt by this?

And then it hit me: Apple. The world’s most valuable company. The company that derives 19% of its revenue from China. The company that makes almost HALF of their iPhones in China.

This would be an economic disaster of epic proportions for Apple stock.

And since virtually EVERY person on the planet either has money directly in Apple… or their mutual fund does… or their 401K does… or their bank does where they save their money… and so on…

… hurting Apple stock is akin to hurting every person on the planet.

I kid you not.

Remember the dotcom crash? It started (imho) because Microsoft and Intel, the two companies that used to financially represent everyone in the world, missed earnings numbers and sent shock waves through the financial markets. A history-making crash.

So it’s happened before.

We survived… but remember it was awfully rough for a while… and Microsoft stock price, literally, flat-lined for about the next decade.

If sanctions move to China — whether it’s for their support of Russia — or they start moving on Taiwan — I know every American will feel the way I do: YES! LET’S DO THAT! F*ck China. You sell to your oppressed people… and we’ll sell to the FREE world.

If that happens, I’m not sure Apple wouldn’t get caught in an awfully bloody crossfire.

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Why Do We Import 500,000 Barrels Of Oil A Day From Russia When We Export 8.4 Million To Other Countries??

Oil prices are going through the roof.

Certainly all the uncertainty in the world isn’t helping.

But gas prices have skyrocketed. Which means inflation is skyrocketing, since the price of a unit of energy affects everything we purchase.

It’s killing me that all the DRILL DRILL DRILL folks are coming out of the woodwork and screaming, “we told you so!”

It’s killing me because, lest we forget, climate change is absolutely an existential threat to our very existence, too.

Seriously. Next time we get back-to-back “once in a century” storms, you’ll remember how much climate change sucks.

Or, just look at pictures of Beijing at noon to remember just how disgusting pollution is.

Now, we’re contemplating banning the import of Russian oil. And for some reason, this has spooked the oil market even higher.

Really? They supply about 5% of the world’s oil. Only about 1/2 million barrels a day to us. Why the hell do we need to drill more? We’re already exporting 17 TIMES that amount every day!

Maybe we should ask our national oil producers to keep U.S. oil in the U.S.? Or maybe they should just know to do that, as in, knowing the right thing to do in this situation?

AND… maybe the entire world doesn’t have to freak out about a lousy 5% of oil… how about we all just use 5% less energy? Walk to the store? Ride a bike to school? Use public transportation? Carpool? Take one car to a restaurant rather than two?

Seriously, simply combining weekly errands into just one or two trips a week would probably do it.

C’mon, America. We can tell Putin where to shove it AND help clean up the environment with so little effort… it will hardly feel like the WARTIME we’re in.

If I Were President: Here’s The Solution To Gas Prices (And Inflation And Pollution)… Stop Driving For A Month

I’m not suggesting we go into lock down, but there certainly were a few unintended yet welcomed consequences from the early days of Covid.

We learned that we could work remotely, at least those in corporate America.

We learned that we could hold meetings — work or personal — quite reasonably on Zoom.

We learned that even a month of reduced driving made a big impact on our environment. CO2 levels started coming down. You could see fish in the Venetian waters again. And all kinds of other miraculous things, too.

Most importantly, we learned that even a month of reduced driving made a big impact on oil supplies and gas prices…

… and since the price of a unit of energy affects the price of everything else in our world, we were reminded that the price of everything in the world comes down as oil prices come down.

So if I were the President of the United States, here’s what I’d do:

(1) I’d gather the top 50 employers in the country to an emergency meeting at the White House… hey, I can do that, I’m POTUS! :) I’d remind everyone that we’re in a time of extraordinary crisis… whether it’s Ukraine, Russia, China, inflation, deficits, interest rates, supply shortages, pandemics, whatever. I’d ask the CEO’s of all of these companies if they would consider voluntarily having their workforces work at home, just like they did during the early days of Covid. I’d suggest 90 days, to correspond during the spring, where temperatures would not be too cold nor too hot, so easy on home heating and/or cooling needs.

(2) I’d address the nation… and remind all Americans that we’re in facing multiple, life-changing crises… and just like great Americans have done through difficult times, we all can make a contribution. Nothing is locked down. But walk to a local restaurant or shop. Ride your bike to school. Take public transportation. If you have multiple cars and have to drive, take the one that gets the best gas mileage. Plan trips better, do all your errands in one trip rather than three. Get together with your friends and neighbors and carpool when possible. Want to show solidarity with the Ukrainians? Want to stop run-away inflation and pay less money for everything? Want to put a lid on pollution? Want to sock it to Russia (and the Middle East while we’re at it) where it hurts, in their oil pocketbook? For the next 90 days, let’s make a wartime-effort to reduce or eliminate driving if we can.

(3) I’d met with the leaders of other countries, talk about what we’re doing in the United States, and ask each and every country if they would join the battle.

Here’s what I love about this plan: It literally has a huge impact ON DAY ONE.

And it shows that we control our situation… our situation does NOT control us.

Oil… What’s Stronger: Reality Or Contrarian View?

Anyone that reads this blog knows I root for oil to go down, down, down… because, while that doesn’t benefit an outdated oil industry, it does benefit every other person on the planet… and, oh by the way, it benefits the planet, too.

The facts all virtually guarantee oil will keep driving lower… because of lack of demand (remember the world has shut down!)… because of geopolitical bickering… and because — go figure — the world is really, truly almost out of oil storage.

Ha, those are some pretty great facts!

So why would anyone take a flyer on oil going up now, with oil trading in the low teens?

Because that’s what contrarians do… the opposite from what everyone else thinks.

Case in point:  After oil getting absolutely crushed over the last few days, it had a rather big pop today.

So oil can go up, if no other reason than a dead-cat bounce.

Or, let’s say there’s a threat of war… like what may have happened this morning given Trump told the military to shoot at any harassing Iranian gunboats they want.  Military disruption like that tends to spike oil prices.

Or, let’s say Trump just can’t help himself and he starts levying tariffs on foreign oil.  The U.S. is (sadly) the world’s biggest consumer — by a wide margin — so tariffs would mean the price of oil would be artificially raised in a rather meaningful way.

Or, let’s say that the world gets unbelievably creative and somehow finds a lot more storage space… like old train storage containers… or old storage silos or such… because it’s the lack of storage space that caused the extreme oil pricing mania yesterday.  (“What do you mean I have to keep all the oil in my swimming pool?!”)

Or, let’s say of the 70 vaccines in testing right now, one of them makes it to the finish line relatively soon.  The real possibility of the world reopening for business would also cause oil to spike.

Or, let’s say OPEC decides that their 9.7m barrels a day cut from a week or two ago was completely and utterly insufficient… and so they call another “emergency” session and cut oil by 30, no, 40 MILLION barrels a day… way more than anyone would expect… because they know the time for horse-shitting around is over.  That would send oil prices skyrocketing.

And, let’s say Trump can’t stand being out of the spotlight for more than 12 seconds and he politically forces the Saudis and Russians to cut supply… by offering guaranteed cuts from U.S. producers (something that was left off the table the last time OPEC got together).  With oil at perceived negative prices, he just might have the go-ahead to make that type of commitment.

Note that nothing above is, “when aliens invade the planet” crazy.

So, call it contrarian or whatever, but I just don’t trust that something, ANYTHING won’t happen to interrupt the greatest “fuck oil!” party ever.

Sadly.

And Just Like That, Maybe I’m The Idiot Again? Am I having a ‘Chauncey Gardner’ moment??

The other day I wrote a scathing piece about Trump being a lap dog for Putin.

Today I read a blatantly pro Trump article trying to make sense of the Trump-Putin summit.

I didn’t like the writing style — felt like someone that didn’t have full command of the English language.  I also thought he was reaching, conjecturing, and defending in a less-than-credible way.

But I kept reading the long piece… almost voyeuristically… awaiting a train wreck of logic and bias… and — surprise — I found myself thinking that some of what the author was saying had merit.

I don’t like the way Trump represented America at the summit.  And I certainly don’t like all the inane backtracking he’s done in the wake of the summit (“whoops, it should have been ‘wouldn’t’ instead of ‘would,’ my bad”).

However, Putin is a very bad guy.  The Chinese may want to dominate the world, but it’s business related… they are as capitalistic as we are.  Putin doesn’t give a hoot about capitalism or business or democracy or freedom.  As cold-war as this sounds, I believe Putin’s idea of domination could devolve into annihilation.

So maybe Trump played him in the only way he could?  Lull the dictator with a war-mongering bias into a false sense of superiority?

Maybe?

Wow.  I’m now officially confused.

There was a great Peter Sellers movie in the 70’s about a person that, through random events, began influencing the world.

The wonderful thing about the movie is you never knew if his character, Chauncey Gardner, is a messiah-like figure with an extraordinarily simple but powerful message… OR just a simpleton who got lucky spouting innocuous kindergarten phrases.

Similarly, I can’t tell whether Trump is a lucky, haphazard idiot… OR some kind of seat-of-his-pants savant tactician.

Here’s what I do know:

His style is immaturely unlikable and highly, offensively, DANGEROUSLY divisive.

But he’s getting things done — including some things I absolutely despise… but also a few things I really care about — like no other President I’ve seen in my many decades on the planet.

Maybe this is just what it feels like when old, crusty, inefficient, and ineffective things get fixed?

And Just Like That, Trump Acts Like An Idiot Again

Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday.

I get diplomacy, but Trump looked like he had a man-crush on Putin.

It was just weird.  John Hardwood of CNBC had the best explanation:

President Donald Trump’s stunning news conference with Vladimir Putin becomes understandable once you recognize that he was advancing his personal interests, not those of the United States.

Of course, ever insightful, late-night comedy host Jimmy Kimmel zero’ed in on something that’s probably close to the truth as well:

“If you’re wondering whether or not Vladimir Putin has incriminating video of Donald Trump, we now know, beyond a treasonable doubt, that he does.”

Maybe here’s the very weirdest part:  I didn’t care if the Russians interfered with the election… I assume they did… just as I assume the United States interferes in anything and everything we care to interfere in, too.

But that whole “summit” (if you can call it that) was so weird that now I do care about whatever the hell Trump is trying so desperately to hide.

What a backfire.

One strong step forward, one fan-boy step backward for the United States.