Most moats are overrated, and the most durable moats are found in industries where chance of technological disruption is minimal (rails, airports), regulatory hurdles are insurmountable (tobacco), & growth is so low it doesn't attract competition (old industrials)

A Tomahawk can sit sealed inside its launch canister for years. Its jet engine has never run, and its flight battery isn't sitting there permanently charged. When the missile is finally selected, the ship supplies power, loads the mission details and wakes up a machine designed around the assumption that almost everything has to work correctly the first time. Then it changes character completely. A dormant lithium thermal battery activates, and a Mk 135 booster burns roughly 146 kg of solid propellant to throw the 1.5 tonne launch package out of the ship. Within a few seconds the wings are out, the booster is gone and a tiny Williams F415 turbofan has taken over. Once running, even the battery is no longer needed, a generator driven by the engine powers the missile's electronics. The F415 produces only about 650 lb of thrust. That sounds nowhere near enough for something this heavy, but the engine isn't carrying the Tomahawk. At cruise speed its small wings generate the lift, the turbofan only has to replace the drag. Roughly 500 kg of dense JP-10 fuel gives it the endurance to keep doing this for more than 1,000 km while flying extremely low. Tomahawk has also kept getting smarter without changing that basic architecture. Modern versions can be retargeted after launch, loiter, and even send back an image from an area they pass over. More than 2,300 have been fired in combat since 1991. That may explain its longevity better than any specification. America has spent four decades upgrading the electronics, navigation and payloads inside Tomahawk because the machine underneath still works just fine. With those upgrades, it remains one of the most capable weapons in the subsonic cruise missile class.

America is extremely rich. In terms of household final consumption per capita, every state is richer than every foreign country. Sub in anyone, and they'd be in 51st place. In fact, plenty would even be behind American territories like Puerto Rico.

Latest Hormuz oil flow run shows more than 13.5 MMbpd clearing the Strait as of yesterday on a 7dma (and as regular readers will know, day-ago numbers are usually an undercount) By far the biggest rise has come from Saudi Arabia's new Gulf loadings blitz. (Data via Kpler)

Please enjoy our latest episode on Corning in the 21st century, particularly the roles that its products play in the technology and information ecosystems

Fun episode on Wayne Hiuizenga, the original Brad Jacobs pushkin.fm/podcasts/business…

Latin and Italian are the languages most conducive to singing and I cannot be convinced otherwise

A+ masonry

the compounder bro nightmare. EPS 80% higher, stock 25% lower.

Before the black paint, bare titanium.

Long John Silver's is my 🐐 fast food. Growing up in an old school Catholic family that didn't eat meat on any Fridays we ate it quite a bit. Plus, those hush puppies are 👌

It's getting to the point where trying to convince someone he or she should own bonds is like trying to convince someone to own energy in 2020

Freight railroads run a 140,000-mile network in the United States and put about $25 billion a year into it, and the country has two mills that roll their rail, in Columbia City, Indiana, and Pueblo, Colorado. Pueblo's new mill delivered its first 100-metre rail to Union Pacific in July, four times the standard length, from a site that sold UP its first rail in 1882.

German immigrants in the 1840s: