Household debt
Oil
Canada top choice for oil-importing countries in part due to quality, aligned values
A new Ipsos poll shows that not only is Canada the number one choice for countries that import oil, the top ranking is in part due to alignment of shared values.
“People do prefer to get their oil from countries such as Canada, Norway, the United States, that have strong records of democracy and environmental safety.
“When we’re seeing a lot of conflict in areas that have traditionally produced oil, such as Russia, and concerns around countries such as China, the poll demonstrates that globally the world is looking to Canada and other countries like us to produce the and supply the oil that they need.”
Canada ranked number one, with Norway and the U.S. in second and third, respectively.
The fact that Canada ranks highest amongst all these countries, when it only sells to the U.S., and makes up just four per cent of global oil production, says a lot about Canada’s reputation, said Richard Masson, executive fellow at the University of Calgary and chair of the World Petroleum Council in Canada.
He added that Canada’s high regulatory standards and comprehensive law lets “people understand that there’s no shortcuts taken here that would result in environmental harm.”
And despite the federal government’s plan for zero emissions by 2050, Masson said it is possible for Canada to stay on top of the energy production leaderboard, despite the decrease in need for oil and gas. One thing that needs to be answered, he said, is whether Canada wants to be one of the world’s preferred suppliers or will let others fill that role.
This week’s fun finds
Inside the Very Real (and Very Complicated) World of Luxury Water Collectors
The water sommelier movement—yes, that’s the term—has been growing in the US and around the world for years now. In fact, some argue that the seltzer boom has opened a door for a mineral water renaissance. These water sommeliers taste bottled waters as if they’re fine wines, expounding upon the waters terroir and “virginality,” or a water’s level of protection from its surroundings. They help to design bespoke water menus for restaurants; they judge contests in which bottled waters compete on taste, texture, and mouthfeel; and they collect bottles of tasteless water from icebergs that cost as much as $300 (more on that later). Some of them have even led Zac Efron and Anna Kendrick through a lengthy water-tasting class. Swishing, swirling, and slurping are par for the course in the fine water universe. It all sounded, quite frankly, ridiculous to me. Which meant, of course, that I had to learn every single thing about it.
Fine water, as I quickly learned it’s called, is an industry that spans the globe. Sparkling, seltzer, and mineral water sales reached $3.5 billion in sales between 2019 and 2020 in the US alone. Water sommeliers are trained in programs around the world—from the Associazione Degustatori Acque Minerali in Italy to the Doemens Academy in Germany to Japan’s Aqua Sommelier Association. In the US the Fine Water Academy has seen a steady increase in attendance of approximately 10% to 12% per year since its founding in 2018, with a notable spike in 2020. Currently, the self-directed course that lasts about two months has 50 students in attendance. Program websites describe rigorous training, the curricula detailing hours of water tastings, final exams, and, in the case of the Doemens, many, many “hydration breaks”—short recesses to sip on your favorite water.
It may start as a hobby, but becoming a water sommelier is serious work. Both Epperson and Barrak-Barber described the intensity of the training programs they attended at the Fine Water Academy and Doemens Academy, respectively. For Epperson, a 16-week, self-directed course priced at $2,200. For Barrak-Barber, a two-week intensive, which cost $2,500 not including lodging and travel costs to Germany. The class required 10 to 12 hours of study a day, she said. “Rigorous training, and a lot of tears preparing for the final exams,” Barrak-Barber said. “It was way more intense than I thought it was going to be.”
These courses give students foundational lessons in water tasting: Does the water feel oily or clean on your tongue? What flavors do the blend of minerals in the water, or total dissolved solids (TDS), leave on your palate? Students also learn and are tested on how to pair waters with food—a very mineral-forward water can bring out the saltiness of a steak, for instance, but its strong flavor would overpower most fish dishes. They learn the proper procedure for presenting and pouring water out of bottles tableside—make sure the label is facing out, hold a glass by its stem so that the heat from your hands won't warm the water, and never, ever use ice cubes because their impurities would pollute the taste of the water. “It’s a lot like wine,” Barrak-Barber said.
The US Treasury’s daily reports of government financial transactions turned up a surprising data point on Feb. 28, 2023: The deposit of $7 billion in the category of “estate and gift” taxes. It was the highest collection of that kind of tax since at least 2005. It’s possible that more than one enormous tax bill happened to be processed on that day, but that would still be remarkable.
A Treasury spokesperson says this was not a reporting error, and a spokesperson for the Internal Revenue Service says it is unlikely this would be caused by processing a backlog of returns in one day. Privacy rules prevent government officials from discussing the specifics of any tax return.
Based on the tax rate, that $7 billion payment implies an estate or gift of some $17.5 billion. However, the Tax Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C, has estimated that estates typically pay a 17% effective tax rate after exemptions and other forms of avoidance. Even if only 50% of the estate was taxable, that’s a potential value of $35 billion. Even the lowest estimate would make the estate’s owner one of the 100 richest people in the world, according to Bloomberg News.
Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of Berkeley whose work has focused on tax policy and the ultra-wealthy, says there are a few plausible hypotheses: “A very rich person who was missed by Forbes, a large gift, a delayed payment by some billionaire who died several years [ago] (perhaps a result of enforcement efforts).” The gift tax can also be triggered by divorces involving spouses without American citizenship, but payments within a year of a divorce are generally excluded.
Forbes’ 2021 list does note the death of Sheldon Adelson in Jan. 2021; the casino tycoon’s fortune was estimated at $35 billion. That’s about the right magnitude, but unless ProPublica is sitting on the answer in its collection of leaked IRS data, we may never know.
