Daily Archives: 25 October 2023

Mandating Supply in the Absence of Demand

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What could go wrong? Look at Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s mandate, through his Energy Department (run by the Secretary who thought it hilarious that we should—or could—produce more oil), that American automakers—Ford, GM, and Stellantis—make only battery cars by 2032. Along the way, look at his Energy Department’s proposed new rule:

The Energy Department in the spring proposed to eliminate the 6.67 multiplier….
Detroit auto makers would be slammed harder than foreign competitors by the regulatory changes because pick-ups and SUVs make up a larger share of their fleet sales. “The average projected compliance cost per vehicle for the D3 is $2,151, while non-D3 auto manufacturers only see an increase of $546 per vehicle,” the Big Three recently told the Energy Department.

That multiplier was an early regulation that made it possible to impute (however accurately or inaccurately) the miles per gallon achieved by internal combustion engines—itself subject to increasingly higher requirements under successive ED regulations—to the “mileage” achieved by battery cars. ED’s proposed rule change—under that D3 regime—essentially eliminates the mileage equivalent multiplier.

Combined with Biden’s requirement that our automakers make only battery cars by 10 (now 9) years from now, results in this outcome:

[U]nder the Energy Department’s proposal, it could make more sense to pay the government penalties than to increase production of EVs that don’t sell. This may be why GM is now throttling EV production, as Ford has also done.

It’s cheaper for the manufacturers to non-comply and pay the vig than it is for them to produce and pay the even bigger cost of not selling a government-required product the buyers—us ordinary Americans—don’t want and won’t buy.

And what does that preference for violating a law say about a culture of routine law-breaking?

Biden and his Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate can’t even get Rule by Law right, much less live within the dreary and inconvenient process of operating within the law—Rule of Law. And we Americans pay the price of that.

Risk Responsibility Transfer?

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Some of the newer generations of Americans are relying increasingly on cell phone apps on their own cells phones that let their parents track their locations.

Gen Z respondents to a recent survey from Life360 said they share their location when they drive, when they go on dates, and when they attend concerts and other large gatherings. Many keep location sharing on at all times.

As Julie Jargon points out in her article, though,

[T]racking may be creating a false safety net for both parents and teens. Knowing where kids are doesn’t necessarily keep them safe when disaster strikes.

The problem is larger, yet. Michele Borba, an educational psychologist—and spokeswoman for Life360:

These kids have been helicoptered, snowplowed, and bubble-wrapped[.]

Indeed. And those kids have no clue how to take care of themselves. Their parents will come bail them out. The kids are transferring more than a small measure of responsibility for their own safety to their parents, and that transfer might—might—make them safer in the near-term, but it leaves them less safe in the mid- and longer-term, especially when they no longer have their parents to rely on because they’ve left their cozy nest.

The problem goes even beyond that once they’ve left their nest. The mindset they’re learning is that someone else always is looking out for them. That someone else, ultimately, is Government, and they no longer are independent actors; they’re wards of the State.