Juggling Dynamite

Remember when the cigarette industry argued and advertised that their products were actually good for the chest and funded research and politicians that championed their cause? Here we are again…See: Congress infected with climate change deniers.

99% of scientists agree that climate change is real and caused by human activity. How is it possible that 6 in 10 Americans are represented by climate deniers? Here is a direct video link.

Electric vehicles are a massive part of the efficient transportation evolution, self-driving cars will be too, but shared transportation is critical in lowering urban congestion and increasing capital efficiency ie., less cars need to be bought, less car loans and much less spending on maintenance and repairs– huge savings for consumers.

Uber didn’t start out with grand ambitions to cut congestion and pollution. But as the company took off, co-founder Travis Kalanick wondered if there was a way to get people using Uber along the same routes to share rides, reducing costs and carbon footprint along the way. The result: uberPOOL, the company’s carpooling service, which in its first eight months took 7.9 million miles off the roads and 1,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the air in Los Angeles. Now, Kalanick says carpooling could work for commuters in the suburbs, too. “With the technology in our pockets today, and a little smart regulation,” he says, “we can turn every car into a shared car, and we can reclaim our cities starting today.”  Here is a direct video link.

Weak demand and epic global supply, but as with oil, a falling U$ and speculative trading have been goosing copper prices over the past month.  The higher prices rise, the more incentive to producers to ship even more excess supply…a self-defeating circle in the end.

Barclays Commodities Analyst Dane Davis weighs in on the copper rally. Here is a direct video link.