To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: A 40 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 75. Friday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers before 2am. Partly cloudy, with a low around 61.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Free For All Fridays with Host David Ayres, an hour-long public affairs radio show featuring local newsmakers, personalities, public health updates and the occasional surprise guest, starts a little after 9 a.m. after FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam’s Reality Check. Today: County Commission Chair Leann Pennington and newly seated Flagler Beach City Commissioner R.J. Santore. See previous podcasts here. On WNZF at 94.9 FM, 1550 AM, and live at Flagler Broadcasting’s YouTube channel.
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” at Limelight Theatre, 11 Old Mission Avenue, St. Augustine. 7:30 p.m. except on Sundays at 2 p.m. Book here. What begins as polite conversation quickly unravels into escalating insults, exposed hypocrisies, and childish behavior. The dark comedy, God of Carnage, satirizes modern civility, exposing how thin the veneer of social decorum truly is when pride and principle collide.
“Steel Magnolias” at Athens Theatre, 7:30 p.m. except Sunday, 2:30 p.m., 124 North Florida Avenue, DeLand, (386) 736-1500. Cost: Adult $37, Senior $33, Student/Child $17, groups of 8 or more $30 per ticket, all including processing charge. Book here. Truvy’s beauty salon is where life happens. It’s where women gather to laugh, cry, share stories, and carry one another through everything life throws their way. Steel Magnolias is a funny, deeply moving story about friendship—the kind that’s loud, loyal, and shows up when it counts. It’s about finding strength in the people who know you best, and love you anyway. This heartfelt comedy-drama is as sweet and soulful as Southern tea—and proves that “laughter through tears” just might be the finest emotion of all.
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County: The AARP Foundation’s Tax Aide provides free tax preparation services at six locations in Palm Coast, Flagler Beach and Flagler County through April 15, but you must make an appointment first and fill out paperwork. To do both, go here.
From Statista: Since Israel and the U.S. launched a war against Iran, international shipping has almost come to a halt at the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, through which transits close to 27 percent of the world’s maritime oil trade. The impact of the instability in the region on oil prices was swift: in the days following the first strikes, the price of Brent crude jumped by 10 percent. Ten days later, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil has reached $108, exceeding the $100 mark for the first time since August 2022, according to data from investing.com. Analysis from Rapidan Energy Group picked up by CNN and CNBC shows that an estimated 20 percent of the world’s oil supply has been disrupted by the ongoing conflict. That’s more than double the previous record set during the Suez Crisis of 1956-1957. Gas prices in the U.S. have now increased nearly 50 cents, or around 17 percent, since the beginning of the war on Iran.
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
April 2026
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County
In Court: Anne Mae Demegillo Arraignment
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Flagler Beach Planning and Architectural Review Board
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board
Hammock Community Association Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
Free Tax Preparation Services in Flagler County
Public Safety Coordinating Council Meeting
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee Meeting
Conversations in Democracy
For the full calendar, go here.
“And to make matters worse worse, gas lines themselves helped beget gas lines. A typical car used seven tenths of a gallon an hour idling in a gas line. One estimate suggested that America’s motorists in the spring and summer of 1979 may have wasted 150,000 barrels of oil a day waiting in line to fill their tanks!”
–From Daniel Yergin’s The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (1992).
Skibum says
It is the beginning… and the end. It’s now.. and forever. La de da… War is a terrible thing, I guess, but it’s a beautiful thing too, don’t you think?
Oh, you there – my bigly brain tell me your shoe size is 9 3/4. Have I got something for you!
Oh, what did you say, honey? No, not you, sorry. I don’t do women, just us macho men get the new shoes.
Laurel says
This ass is f**king up the world.
Sherry says
trump is playing the stock market like a pinball machine. He’s corruptly cunning enough to know that he can send the stocks sharply up or down by using even his nonsensical utterances. If you think he’s not personally increasing his wealth by calculating the impact of his words, you really are indoctrinated and at his cruel mercy.
trump doesn’t give a damn about you! When oh when will you get that???
Ray W. says
Nuclear Engineering International, which bills itself as an industry journal dating from 1956, published an article about an American startup that has designed a small modular nuclear reactor, named Gravity, that fits within an eight-inch-in-diameter, 6,000-foot deep borehole.
Using low-enriched uranium (3-5 percent), the reactor heats water to 315 degrees C, give or take, to provide steam sufficient to operate a surface turbine. Output per turbine is 1.5 MWe. Ten such reactors, with ten surface turbines, spread over a small surface area, would provide sufficient electricity to power a data center.
Surface nuclear reactors require a containment structure. Placing the small modular reactor 6,000 feet deep in the ground provides a natural rock containment structure.
Surface nuclear reactors operate under high steam pressure. Placing the small modular reactor 6,000 feet deep in the ground under a 6,000-foot tall column of water naturally provides 160 atmospheres of reliable hydrostatic pressure in which to operate the reactor.
Deep Fission, the company behind the project, claims that these natural geographic conditions cut project construction costs by 70-80 percent, compared to costs to construct surface small modular reactors.
Should inspection, repair or replacement of a reactor be required, a cable attached to the reactor pulls the reactor to the surface.
According to an Interesting Engineering article, Deep Fission has test locations in Utah, Texas and Kansas. Plans project operable test reactors by July 4, 2026.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Innovation abounds. Ingenuity motivates. But does the regulatory framework exist to prevent containment breach, the age-old nuclear power story? Apparently, that 6,000-foot tall tower of naturally replenishing pressurized water in the borehole will never fail.
Sherry says
OOPS! You are not crazy! Prices were most definitely going up. . . even before the War! And, President Biden did not cause it! Queue the Maga Indoctrinated with their trump excuses:
WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation gauge closely monitored by the Federal Reserve moved higher in January in the latest sign that prices were persistently elevated even before the Iran war caused spikes in oil and gas costs.
Prices rose 2.8% in January compared with a year earlier, the Commerce Department said Friday, slightly below December’s increase in a report that was delayed by last fall’s six-week government shutdown. The shutdown created a backlog of data that is nearly cleared.
Yet excluding the volatile food and energy categories — which the Fed pays closer attention to — core prices rose 3.1%, up from 3% in the prior month and the highest in nearly two years.
On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3% in January, while core prices jumped 0.4% for the second straight month, a pace that if sustained would lift inflation far above the 2% annual target set by the Fed.
Ray W. says
Hello Sherry.
The BEA released earlier today its update of its earlier estimate of GDP growth during the fourth-quarter of 2025. Growth in the quarter originally estimated at 1.4% was revised downward to 0.7%. GDP growth for all of 2025 was revised downward from 2.2% to 2.1%. GDP growth for 2024, in comparison, was 2.8%.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Studies continue to come out showing that removing immigrants from the American workforce negatively impacts GDP growth.
Sherry says
@ Ray W. Absolutely!
I see it as a combination of trump’s ill fated polities. Certainly his tariffs will eventually come home to roost permanently. Add in the trump war at a cost of over $ONE BILLION a day! Such sound economic decision making (sarcasm). . . from a shoot from the hip, unhealthy, emotion driven, egocentric place.
What could possibly go wrong?
Ed P says
Hello Ray W,
Would a 43 day government shut down, about 1/2 of the quarter,
have weakened economic growth. CBO estimated about 11 billion worth permanently loss, meaning it won’t rubber band back in first quarter.
I totally agree the deportation efforts will tamp down GDP. But it has the potential to raise real wage growth, reduce housing pressures and in no small measure, save US taxpayers some portion of the net $150 billion dollars it’s costing.
We both understand, legally or illegally, they can’t all stay. That’s just reality.
What do you propose we do?
Ray W. says
Hello Ed P.
Yes, the immigrants can stay, except those who commit crimes of violence or of moral turpitude. America is facing a decline in native-born births, and the decline will not magically reverse itself. In 2007, as I recall the demographic studies, the birth rate of American women dropped below replacement rate; it is still dropping.
Focus on the worst of the worst immigrants. Prosecute them for what they do. Imprisoned them or deport them.
That two-year-old girl who came here with her parents 40 years ago? The one we all know. The one who educated herself and married, birthed children, supported her church family, worked hard for her employer, helped her community. Find a way to help her become an American citizen. She is far better a person than some of those many vengeful and hateful and dishonest people we have hired to pursue her.
I repeat again the story my now-deceased aunt told of her family farm in North Carolina. One year in the late 50s, a young Mexican immigrant couple came to her farm to harvest tobacco. They stayed. She and my uncle worked with immigration officials to secure lawful residency and then citizenship. Another couple arrived, then a third. All became citizens. They had children who acquired an education and started their own adult lives. The parents remained on the farm until her husband suddenly died. The farm is now part of a housing development. No one could tell her these families were filled with anyone other than decent good people.
When I prosecuted people, I accused them of crimes they committed, not of crimes others had committed.
That immigrant who repairs or replaces in the late summer heat roofs of homes after storms strike? Help him become a citizen. That server in a small family-owned restaurant who is working for the future of her extended family? Help her become a citizen. Ronald Reagan understood a long time ago that Latino or Latina immigrants innately held true conservative values and that they would vote Republican if given a reason to do so. Many of today’s Republicans, those among us who no longer hold conservative values, who no longer understand Reagan’s message, have come to believe that hatred and vengeance toward others are virtues. Others of the no-longer conservative bent have come to believe dishonesty is an asset. No wonder they now fear the naturalized immigrant vote!
Jonathan V. Last, long a conservative voice, recently opined in a The Bulwark editorial that those millions of Trump voters who are unfazed by his scandals are “unbelievably stupid.”
Amid a backlash, Last clarified his position:
“Maybe the problem here is my use of the word ‘stupid’ as a catch-all when what I’m really talking about is a basket of failings. … There are people who understand what Trumpism is and affirmatively want a post-liberal society. And then there are those who would say that they don’t want authoritarianism, but threw in with Trump anyway.”
According to Last, this second grouping of voters comprises four subgroups.
First are those who “by accident” are ignorant of current events and what they mean.
Second are some who “choose not to understand” current events.
Third are people who “choose toxic information sources and so have a warped understanding of the world.”
Fourth are the ones who prefer “tribal”, or partisan, values above stopping Trump’s worst excesses.
Last explained:
“Perhaps ‘stupid’ is the wrong descriptor and ‘rotten’ is more accurate. … A voter who would rather stare at his Facebook feed for two hours a day rather than read one or two stories from the front page of ‘The Atlantic’ is rotten. A voter who thinks trans athletes are a more pressing issue for the federal government than the breakdown of the rule of law is rotten. A voter who does not want to understand the relationship between interest rates and inflation is rotten. A voter who does not care to know that the percentage of federal funding that went to USAID is tiny – and that the number of lives lost because of the destruction of USAID is huge – is rotten. … What we are talking about is depraved indifference.”
Make of this what you will.
Sherry says
Wonderful statement Ray W. . . . Simply Wonderful!
You have voiced what those of us who still live in “fact based/highly principled” realities understand about the benefits of migrants and humanity in general. Hopefully your “down to earth” pleas will not go completely unheeded. Miracles do happen!
Laurel says
Perfect, Ray W!
Years ago, I worked for an engineering firm that went to Miami Beach for smoke testing of sewer lines. My jobs were both directing traffic, and handing out flyers explaining what smoke testing was. People needed to know as it could effect their plumbing!
It was July, and I spent the days in the heat and sun, walking all over Miami Beach. Even with deodorant, well, you can imagine. I was treated very poorly by the merchants I was trying to notify of the coming event.
Red faced with heat exhaustion, I walked up to an open air, Cuban restaurant to hand out the flyer. A young lady got her grandfather, who spoke no English. She interpreted for him and told me to sit down. They gave me a Cuban coffee, and a glass of ice water, on the house! Why? The old, Cuban entrepreneur saw that I was a hard worker, and appreciated that fact.
I have never forgotten. Simple acknowledgement of hard work, from one to another.
Laurel says
I apologize if I’m posting a comment twice. Either I’m posting twice, or not at all from my phone. Switched to laptop.
Anyway, perfect comment Ray W.!
Years ago, I worked for an engineering firm that was smoke testing the sewer system in Miami Beach. My jobs, at that time, were directing traffic, and handing out flyers that explained what smoke testing was. This information was important, as it could have effected businesses’ plumbing!
I spent a couple days outside in the July heat. Even with deodorant, well, you can imagine. I was treated very poorly by the local merchants, even told to leave one place. Red faced with heat exhaustion, I walked up to an open air Cuban restaurant. The young lady there, went and got her grandfather, who spoke no English. She translated for him, and told me to sit down. They gave me a Cuban coffee, and a glass of ice water, on the house! Why? The old Cuban immigrant, and entrepreneur turned citizen, recognized, and appreciated a worker. His understanding of hard work was translated to me. I have never forgotten. A simple gesture of appreciation for a person willing to work in a harsh environment.
I grow tired and weary of those who claim others are, somehow, living off the system. I suspect it may be the opposite, those who may not want to work so hard, but want the recognition.
Ed P says
Ray W,
Perhaps you are correct in being compassionate to the immigrants while being rational about the U.S. work force./birth rate. But don’t remove your grandchildren from the formula. Let me explain.
When expulsion vs remaining in the country is monetized, it could quite possibly be a financial toss up. On the surface you actually make sense.
Either way the financial burden is going to be passed along to that next generation. It will be trillions.
Here’s the rub: Amnesty would be even more costly.
Is it compassionate to allow 10-20 million immigrants to remain living here but be left in limbo?
A blanket amnesty would bankrupt social security and possibly our country by moving the immigrants from net contributors to net beneficiaries. As they age, they will need more health care they can’t afford. Who cares for those who age out beyond the laborious jobs they hold? Who feeds and houses them?
Additionally, the less educated individuals tend to receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. That has to be taken into calculations. It’s not racist or bigoted, it’s reality. It’s the facts.
It certainly “feels” better to naively believe it will just work itself out. These untenable costs will fall upon our grandchildren. That’s not the legacy I want to leave. Tough decisions.
Distill it down to our children’s and grandchildren’s future. Isn’t the American Dream difficult enough already?
This is what I meant when I asked what you would do to solve the open borders debacle.
Ray W. says
Hello Ed P.
There never was an “open borders debacle.” There was, and still is, a political fantasy cast as a debacle.
Prior to onset of the pandemic, posted job openings, meaning open jobs that weren’t being filled, never crossed 8 million. By 2022, the number of posted job openings hit 12.2 million, a figure more than 50% higher than had ever before been listed. Available native-born Americans simply did not exist in such numbers. The only way to fill the record demand for new workers was through immigration. Some of the inflation of the day was caused by employers competing over too few workers. We needed immigrants in their millions to fill the insistent demand. Immigrants filled the open jobs and spent what they earned. What the immigrants spent created more and more new jobs. The unemployment rate in time hit a low of 3.4%, which is borderline inflationary. The immigrants paid taxes. Many of them will never receive benefits related to those taxes paid.
Thus, there was never an economic open borders debacle, there was an economic open borders boon.
Here is how George Will recently put the issue, in a March 13th Washington Post editorial column.
Will, no liberal voice, opined that the current administration errs by not recognizing the value of immigrants to the nation.
“Two dissimilar government agencies have inadvertently combined to clarify the immigration debate”, he wrote. “Stomach-churning excesses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned many Americans’ abstract political preferences into something uncomfortably concrete. And the Census Bureau has demonstrated that the nation needs immigrants as much as they need the blessings of liberty. … Given a clear binary choice – for or against deporting immigrants who are here illegally, most Americans favor deportation”, at least when the act is abstract to them.
But, Will notes, immigrants form “23.6% of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) workers.” 15.9% of nurses are immigrants, as are 28.4% of home health workers.
Will referred to the recent Cato Institute study spanning three decades from 1994. From this study, Will writes, immigrants “generated more in taxes than they received in benefits.”
He added that immigrants “created a fiscal surplus of $14.5 trillion in real 2024 dollars”, a fiscal surplus that includes $3.9 trillion in fiscal savings in interest payments that never had to be paid.
To Will, “[i]migration – risk-taking for improved opportunity – is an entrepreneurial act.”
Yes, Ed P, you are correct that immigrants would be far less beneficial to both the fiscal purse and GDP growth if they were to be permitted to become citizens, but beneficial they would remain. But immigrants are not an economic liability.
I, too, like George Will, have read the Cato Institute study. Even the immigrants who do become citizens contribute more to the fiscal purse and to GDP growth than do the native born, mainly because they participate at a higher rate in the labor force and because they do not consume as much in the way of educational resources because they arrive, on average, as young adults, and not as children.
If we, as a nation, remove immigrants, the future economic cost very well may be higher than the future cost of naturalizing them.
As an aside, a 2022 study from a Washington-state-based research group estimates that within five years, as many as 31% of Mexican immigrants return home and another 9% or so transition to another country. Immigrants from less stable or more distant countries return at lower rates. How this impacts your future scenario may warrant consideration. Years ago, the NYT published a story about immigrants who never intend to become citizens. They work to send money home to family members who buy farms or businesses and build structures in which the immigrants intend to live and work when they return to their home villages.
I have written of this before. My son-in-law, part of an engineering team, travelled many times to a Mexican natural gas power plant to perform periodic maintenance. Each time, the engineers pitched in to hire a particular local family to cook meals for them for however many weeks they were there. Each time they returned to maintain the plant, they saw a house taking shape. First, a foundation. Then a wall. Then, another wall. He said the food was plentiful and delicious.
Yes, there is great political value in demonizing immigrants, in expressions of warnings that downplay their economic worth. George Will understands that Americans are looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Ed P says
Ray W,
Your theory that it wasn’t a debacle is white wash. Most illegals are not vetted.
The border was actually over run on occasion. Open borders can never be a policy if a nation is to remain sovereign.
You continue to conflate prior border crossings with the 2020-2f024 crossing.
There isn’t any comparison. Focus on the last 20 million crossings first. Non English speaking, low skilled, unvetted individuals.
Your post makes it sound as if it was a strategic, planned event. It certainly was not. If it had been handled properly, then it would be a plus.
The reality is 60% of these immigrants are on some form of welfare. They are a net $150 billion dollar expense to taxpayers.
You can’t include dreamers in the formula, or anyone who has been here for decades, they are already baked into the equation.
Those above facts aren’t demonizing the immigrants but the politicians who allowed it to happen. It was and is a man made crisis that was nothing short of brutal on those making the journey. Trafficked, robbed, raped, starved, killed, detained, and now deported.
Where’s the compassion in those actions.
You have not analyzed the financial ticking time bomb coming if nothing in done. Check out what the total federal debt is projected to be in 2040 and 2050 without action.
Dig deeper, accept reality, peel back the layers for your grandchildren’s sake.
Doing nothing or a mass amnesty program is a MATH problem. Neither one works.
It’s simple arithmetic.
It’s not a liberal or MAGA issue, it’s an American Issue. Immigration was not the problem, unfettered, unregulated mass migration of 20 million over 4 years is the problem
Sherry says
Thank you yet again Ray W.
A truly excellent analysis and explanation of the many benefits of immigrants. Hopefully your sage wisdom will influence some people in their voting decisions.
Tony Mack says
Well, perhaps this is an opportunity to implement a tactic from the Reagan playbook:
The Reagan administration’s asylum program aimed to provide refuge for individuals fleeing persecution, particularly focusing on those from Central America and Indochina. This included increasing refugee admissions and implementing policies to protect vulnerable populations during his presidency.
Overview of Reagan’s Asylum Program
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the U.S. implemented significant changes to its asylum and refugee policies. His administration aimed to maintain America’s tradition of welcoming those fleeing persecution.
Key Features of the Asylum Program
Refugee Admissions: In FY 1982, Reagan set the refugee admissions ceiling at 140,000, focusing on Indochinese refugees escaping violence.
Family Fairness Actions: From 1987 to 1990, Reagan and George H.W. Bush used executive actions to protect spouses and children of individuals legalizing under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) from deportation.
Legalization Provisions: The IRCA allowed undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before January 1, 1982, to apply for legal status, which indirectly supported asylum seekers by providing a pathway to legal residency.
Impact of the Asylum Program
Increased Refugee Population: The foreign-born population in the U.S. grew significantly during Reagan’s presidency, reflecting the success of his asylum policies.
Legislative Support: The administration’s approach to asylum and refugee admissions was supported by various advocacy groups, emphasizing the need for humanitarian assistance.
Reagan’s policies laid the groundwork for future immigration and asylum discussions, balancing national security concerns with humanitarian obligations. Even their sainted Ronnie saw the light from time to time…
BillC says
Trump is living in fantasy land. Why are “soldiers” now referred to as “warriors”? That’s because it fits better into the view that war, to Trump, is like a fun video game filled with glorious avatars stripped of humanity. Soldiers are humans with a history of real suffering and death. Warriors are cartoonish exaggerations, like his trading cards. To quote Trump : “Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.” In other words “so what”.
Sherry says
Right on Bill C!
Maga president “Bone Spurs” didn’t serve. trump’s kids certainly will not serve. Therefore, who cares. . . sacrifices must be made. . . as long as trump and his family don’t have to make any. Same for many members of Congress. Bring back the draft and you’ll see how quickly decisions change when the decision makers have family skin in the game!
Besides. . . many in the military are immigrants/people of color, so their lives don’t really count. . . right Maga?
Ray W. says
According to The Guardian, shortly after the first big oil shock arising from a 70s-era Middle Eastern war, a young Dane worked with a blacksmith to build a windmill. He sold his design to a company now called Vestas; it is the biggest windmill maker in the world, outside of China.
Denmark, then nearly wholly reliant on fossil fuels for electricity generation, is now 91% powered by renewables.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
There has never been a time in my adult life when America has been energy independent. Yes, in 2019, we became a net energy exporter, but that is not the same thing as energy independence. We still import more crude oil than we export. With refineries spread all over the country, it is less expensive and more efficient to bring oil by tanker to certain refineries than to build pipelines from far away oil fields.
For example, at one time California oil wells produced over a million barrels of crude oil per day. California refineries supplied gasoline all over to the West Coast. Now the amount of crude oil produced in California is below 250,000 barrels per day, which is not enough to supply the remaining West Coast refineries. Fracking does not work as well there as it does in the midwestern shale oil formations. Crude oil now has to be shipped in by tanker. This explains in part why Arizona and California motorists pay comparatively more at the pump.
And gasoline consumption in California has been steadily declining. Why build a new refinery under these conditions? Two California refineries are already in the process of shutting down. A new Texas pipeline is in the permitting process; it will transport gasoline through to Arizona. The gasoline pipeline flow from California to Arizona will be reversed, so that Texas gasoline can been comparatively inexpensively pumped to the West Coast. A new Texas refinery was just announced, the first American refinery in about 50 years. Should EV use continue to expand, perhaps the new refinery will become a stranded asset. Who knows?
Ray W. says
According to a recent Motley Fool story, since 1944-45, nearly every time the labor market experiences non-farm job losses in five out of nine consecutive months, recession follows. The reporter pointed out that the labor market just experienced its fifth month out of nine consecutive non-farm job losses.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
From late 2010 to June 2025, except for March and April of 2020, every single monthly jobs report, regardless of administration, was positive. Six of the past eleven months have seen negative non-farm jobs numbers.
I am not claiming that recession is coming. Every such event, it strikes me, is unique to its causes. But oil shocks commonly trigger recession. Yes, GDP growth is slowing. Inflation persists. Job totals are stagnant at best. Investment is concentrated in only a few industries and sectors. Imbalances arise. Yet, 80 years of almost complete correlation between repeated monthly jobs losses and recession only goes so far. I suggest that oil shocks are a greater correlative factor to recession than are job losses, but perhaps I am wrong.
Ray W. says
A news outlet with which I am not familiar, Energy News Beat, published a story about the first and second of 30 Gulf oil and gas lease auctions mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill.
On December 10, 2025, BBG1, the first of the 30-mandated auctions on 15,247 previously unleased blocks, covering some 84 million acres of shallow- and deep-water seafloor, drew 219 bids from 30 oil companies on 181 blocks, meaning most of the bids were unopposed. The government pre-set the royalty rate at 12.5%, the lowest permitted by law, and the lowest rate set since GW Bush-era lease auctions. The total sums bid? $279.4 million.
On March 11, 2026, BBG2, the second of 30 mandated auctions took place. 15,066 blocks were up for bidding. Once again, the royalty rate set by the government was the lowest rate permitted by law, 12.5%. This time, in the middle of the biggest oil and gas interruption in history, 13 companies appeared; they submitted 38 bids on 25 blocks, meaning most of the bids were unopposed. The total sums bid? $46.98 million.
The reporter opined that the fact that a widely advertised bid for blocks in Alaska’s Cook Inlet had drawn zero bidders might reflect some form of fiscal discipline imposed by oil companies during BBG2. And, energy companies may have used much of their budgeted exploration funds in the first Gulf auction.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I don’t know why oil companies are not bidding more seriously on prime seafloor oil and gas-bearing blocks. Maybe they are acting as seriously as circumstances warrant. I am not an oil company executive. At best, I am a curious student. But I can read.
The government is setting the auction royalty rates at 12.5%, the lowest permitted by law, and energy companies have barely competed with each other to bid on only 206 of over 15,000 seafloor blocks. They didn’t even show up at all for last year’s Cook Inlet auction. Two coal lease auctions last October each drew one bid so low that both of the bids were quickly invalidated and the auctions cancelled.
I checked. Gulf seafloor leases are good for between five-to-ten years, depending on depth. They can be extended on certain conditions for three years.
Ray W. says
Boca Raton, for the first time in three decades, on Tuesday elected a Democratic mayoral candidate. The original count had the Democratic candidate holding a six-vote lead. After a machine recount followed by a hand recount, the lead now stands at five. According to the reporter, the losing Republican candidate has already suggested without presenting any evidence that the city-wide election was rigged.
Make of this what you will.
Sherry says
@ Ray W
Why, Maga doesn’t need any “evidence” for anything. . . they just follow their lord and master, trump. His attitude is that anything that is contrary to the Maga playbook and “Project 2025” is . . . let’s see. . . “rigged”, “a hoax”, “a witch hunt”. . . etc. etc. etc.
Maga is obedient to their master!
Laurel says
I’ll tell you what I make of it! I lived in Boca Raton for nearly 20 years, and this is major! There’s no way this was rigged! This is a town that is very strict about nearly everything. While working there, I heard of complaints that a white, restaurant sign had a “sheen.”
Yeah.
A sheen. Trust me, nothing gets by those people.
Dennis C Rathsam says
TRUMPS Apruval ratings are up, Democrats are down. I will say,Dems should listen to what Federman is saying!!! He doesn’t drink thier donkey piss
Laurel says
Oh my goodness, that’s hilarious!
I’m just impressed that he successfully created a link with the word “apruval” in it. My phone auto corrected, and I had to rewrite it!
Sherry says
Hey Laurel. . . take a look at the chart Maga posted. OMG, Maga can’t even understand that his own chart shows trump’s “disapproval” rating is NOT coming down. It’s still very high! What in the world. . .??????
Laurel says
Sherry: He was holding his phone upside down.
Laurel says
Dennis was reading his phone upside down.
Sherry says
Perhaps “everyone” will be able to understand these polls showing trump well underwater and Congressional Democrats on the rise. Personally I really can’t understand why the weak, bumfuzzled Democrats are doing better, but I guess everything is relative.
Bo Peep says
Yeah kind of reminds me about Minnesota’s mostly peaceful protesters during the last administration
Sherry says
OOPS! Here’s the link to the latest polls. Many different one, but they all show that the majority of those polled DISAPPROVE of the job trump is doing. . . take a look:
https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls
Pogo says
@Tens of thousands of words
… because trump was elected by people who didn’t vote, or voted for a third choice when the only choice was life or death for everyone.
Eat up…