Why the rush to complete the job? The state’s almost over the edge already.

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hey y’all, watch this1

California Considering Taking Over Oil Refineries Because It Works So Well in Iran and Venezuela

David Strom, HotAir

“It's not only in the fever dreams of Right-wingers seeing communists behind every bush (hint: it's only every third bush). Apparently, according to the LA Times California's communist-inspired politicians are seriously considering taking over the refining of oil in their state.”

“Russia. China. Venezuela. Iran. More than a dozen countries make gasoline at state-owned refineries. Could California be next on the list?” asked the Los Angeles Times in an article this week. “California policymakers are considering state ownership of one or more oil refineries, one item on a list of options presented by the California Energy Commission to ensure steady gas supplies as oil companies pull back from the refinery business in the state.”

Strom: “I love that lede in the Los Angeles Times so much that I will quote it again:

Russia. China. Venezuela. Iran. More than a dozen countries make gasoline at state-owned refineries.

Could California be next on the list?

California policymakers are considering state ownership of one or more oil refineries, one item on a list of options presented by the California Energy Commission to ensure steady gas supplies as oil companies pull back from the refinery business in the state.

“The state recognizes that they’re on a pathway to more refinery closures,” said Skip York, chief energy strategist at energy consultant Turner Mason & Co. The risk to consumers and the state’s economy, he said, is gasoline supply disappearing faster than consumer demand, resulting in fuel shortages, higher prices and severe logistical challenges.

Gasoline demand is falling in California, albeit slowly, for two reasons: more efficient gasoline engines, and the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road. Gasoline consumption in California peaked in 2005 and fell 15% through 2023, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, now represent about 25% of annual new car sales. By state mandate, new sales of gasoline cars and light trucks will be banned starting in model year 2035.

Strom:

Is it any shock that oil refineries are shifting their production or closing down in California? Of course it isn't. California energy policies are designed to destroy the oil industry, up to and including pursuing a policy to bankrupt them through lawsuits. If the market weren't so huge--12% of the US population--I would recommend that the companies all bail out of the market as the insurance companies are doing. 

It is just too risky a place to do business. Proto-communists run the state.

…. California has EV mandates designed to eliminate internal combustion engines, but there is no way that they can do that in any conceivable timeline. Even when the date hits for banning the new sales of ICE cars, the ones on the roads will still be there and people will find ways to get them. The policy will fail, but the policy risk for companies in the market is enormous. Any company that can should and will insulate itself from the policy risks as quickly as possible. 

As predicted (and as anyone else could have, too)

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8 Oval Avenue in Riverside is reported under contract – 8 days.

I wrote about this when it came on last week:

Irony aside, this one probably won't last, and will in fact sell for more than its listing price

22 Oval Avenue, Riverside, $2.850 million. Built in 1928, it sold for $2.110 million in 2013 and has been upgraded since.

And there’s no available inventory in Riverside.

Not the Bee — literally

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Not the Bee, quoting excerpts from the WSJ article

By some measures, the stakes could not be lower. A red envelope that went missing — or was stolen — from the [Amagansett elementary] school's mailroom [in December of 2023] was said to contain a $25 Amazon gift card, a Christmas-season expression of gratitude from a parent to one of the school's occupational therapists.

Yet the missing card has prompted a police report, accusations of foul play and bullying and a disciplinary trial that has generated some 1,400 pages in testimony from more than a dozen witnesses. Passages read like an Agatha Christie mystery, except there is no antique revolver or pearl-handled dagger.

Not the Bee: “That response alone would be absurd enough, rolling out the court system for a gift card in the amount of a couple of new iPhone chargers off Amazon.

“But the sheer price tag of the endeavor is even more jaw-dropping:”

Meanwhile, based on his published rates, the fees for the arbitrator overseeing the hearing have already exceeded $24,800 — or nearly a thousand-times the value of the missing card — and are sure to rise further.

I get the issue: you don’t want a crook serving as school principal, although, is she is one, she’d be perfectly fit to be a politician, but where are these arbitration costs coming from? I don’t remember what I was paid as an NYSE arbitrator — it might have been just a box lunch, there might have been a small stipend — but this arbitrator must have a relative on the school board.

From debtor, to deadbeat, to the deficit reduction program

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gentlemen, start your bidding

With Patriot Bank breathing down his neck in 2006, James Ferraro unloaded 505 North Street, a/k/a 8 Lindsay Drive to a (dot head, not chicken feather) Indian crook. Iftikar Ahmed for $9,625,000. The unfortunate Iftikar soon found himself in the same awkward, albeit deeper troubled financial waters as Ferraro and departed for his country of origin. Now the g’ummint owns the place, and the U.S. Marshalls Service is offering it for sale at $7,150,00. Here’s the most recent former owner’s story as reported in Greenwich Time in 2018:

Fugitive Greenwich financier to pay $64M for embezzlement

A federal judge ordered a Greenwich fugitive to repay $42 million to Oak Investment Partners he was found to have embezzled, approving as well a $21 million penalty and $1.5 million in interest on the moneys owed.

Iftikar Ahmed has been on the lam since May 2015 in his native India, with the Securities & Exchange Commission having obtained a prior judicial order for a freeze on assets valued at the time at $118 million. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Connecticut had also investigated Ahmed, with his arrest in April 2015 on suspicion of insider trading prompting Oak to examine investment deals Ahmed structured on behalf of the firm.

Oak Investment Partners has offices in Greenwich, Norwalk and Palo Alto, Calif., with the firm investing in technology and energy companies. Oak partners include Ed Glassmeyer, who founded the firm in 1978 with Stewart Greenfield; and Ann Lamont, the spouse of Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont, with the couple living in Greenwich.

Ahmed had been charged with presenting Oak’s partners with investment opportunities in overseas businesses then misrepresenting deal terms, whether with regard to the actual value of the companies or exchange rates and pocketing the difference, and altering documents to hide the subterfuge. Ahmed set up bank accounts in the names of the companies he recommended for investments, according to court documents, then shunted moneys into accounts controlled by him and his spouse Shalini.

Well, Harvard

Ahmed is a graduate of the India Institute of Technology who went on to get an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked for Goldman Sachs Group before joining Oak in 2004.

But wait, there’s still more!

Update from 3 days ago:

Fugitive on the run for 17 years arrested from Croatia

SIALKOT, Feb 18 2025 (APP):A fugitive wanted in dozens of cases including extortion and robbery was arrested from Croatia through Interpol.

According to a police spokesperson, Sialkot police had been looking for Iftikhar Ahmed, wanted in connection with dozens of criminal cases including extortion and robbery. He has been apprehended from Croatia through a coordinated effort involving Interpol. The arrest marks a significant breakthrough in a lengthy investigation, as the individual had been evading authorities for 17 years. A bounty of Rs500,000 (head money) had been announced for his arrest. [Bummer: that’s only around $5,700 in real money — Ed’

How much has Riverside changed over the years? Well, the families I knew there when I was growing up could not have paid a fraction of this one's $108,000 annual rent.

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31 Summit Road, new to the rent rolls today and priced at $8,995 per month. No garage, no basement, 3 bedroom (which in my day would have seen 5-6 kids in two of them).

Understand, I am not criticising this price or the replacement of so many of the former, inexpensive homes in this neighborhood; markets and the character of neighborhoods change, and I’m just noting the transformation.

I should add that owner here did a remarkable job of transforming this house from the “as-is” wreck he purchased in 2020 for $712,500,000 to what it looks like today. Well done.

2020