Category Archives: Economics

Miscellaneous economy stuff

Some Basic Arithmetic

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Washington State has spent $143 million to get homeless folks out of camps from state property near roads and housed.

About 1,300 people were swept from roadside camps as of July 31, with roughly 430 of those rejecting help getting into temporary or permanent shelter. That means it took $165,000 per person to clear the camps and house 870 people.
The department says 126 people have successfully exited the program into permanent housing….

Washington has 25,200 homeless folks (that makes Washington’s homeless population the fourth largest in the nation, for those of you keeping track at home). Those exited from the program represent less than 10% of those 1,300 swept. The State’s Progressive-Democratic Party Governor, Jay Inslee, says he needs more money:

This is a preview of Some Basic Arithmetic. Read the full post (326 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

Greedy UAW

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The United Automobile Workers Union, per its president Shawn Fain, is threatening to strike the three automakers GM, Ford, and Stellantis (nee Chrysler) simultaneously after midnight Thursday (as I write Thursday midday). The union is demanding

  • 36% pay raises over the next four years
  • raises to correspond to the cost of living
  • an end to tiered-wages for factory jobs
  • a 32-hour work week with 40 hours of pay
  • pension increases

Some of those would seem legitimate, or at least open to discussion, and typical union wants that most employers could find some sort of agreement on. The pay raise demand is egregious, and the demand to be paid for hours not worked is simply greedy, glorified featherbedding.

This is a preview of Greedy UAW. Read the full post (400 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

But, But—Bidenomics is Working

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That’s the claim of President Joe Biden (D) as he insists our eyes are lying, and we should believe him, instead. These two lede paragraphs say otherwise:

Surging inflation gobbled up household income gains last year, making 2022 the third straight year in which Americans saw their living standards eroded by rising prices and pandemic disruptions.
Americans’ inflation-adjusted median household income fell to $74,580 in 2022, declining 2.3% from the 2021 estimate of $76,330, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. The amount has dropped 4.7% since its peak in 2019.

This is a preview of But, But—Bidenomics is Working. Read the full post (324 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

The Judge Got It Wrong

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Matthew Whitaker, former Acting US Attorney General, disagrees with a Puerto Rico bankruptcy judge’s ruling regarding the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s bankruptcy and the subsequent handling of the utility’s creditors. He wrote in his Fox Business op-ed that

[US District Judge Laura Taylor] Swain…concluded that special revenue bondholders do not hold a secured claim on current and future net revenues. As The Wall Street Journal explained in March, “A federal judge curbed Puerto Rico bondholders’ rights to the electric revenue generated by its public power utility.”
Furthermore, the ruling stated that the original legal obligation of the borrowers is not the face value of the debt, but rather what the borrower (in this case “PREPA”) can feasibly repay.

This is a preview of The Judge Got It Wrong. Read the full post (309 words, estimated 1:14 mins reading time)

Buying Battery-Operated Cars

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My then-new gasoline-powered 2022 Ford Escape and my wife’s new 2023 Ford Maverick hybrid, each one level down from Ford’s top tier, each cost in the low- to mid-$30 thousands. Joanna Stern, The Wall Street Journal‘s Senior Personal Technology Columnist, evaluated a number of battery-operated cars under $60,000 to see which one of those she liked best. The ones she looked into were the Ford Mustang Mach-E, Tesla Model Y, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.

This is a preview of Buying Battery-Operated Cars. Read the full post (350 words, estimated 1:24 mins reading time)

Electrifying Transportation

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A Wall Street Journal editorial centered on California’s idiotic push to fully electrify cars and trucks—yes, including heavy duty freight trucks—within the next dozen years, has this tidbit, which is canonical in exemplifying such foolishness anywhere in the US:

One trucking company wanted to install charging stations for 30 trucks at a terminal in Joliet, Illinois, only to be told by local officials they would draw more power than the entire city.

And this, specific to California and its already existing green ideology:

In January northern California utility PG&E told a charging provider that one of its large fleet customers couldn’t charge its trucks on summer afternoons owing to a power crunch.

This is a preview of Electrifying Transportation. Read the full post (253 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Drug Price…Foolishness

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President Joe Biden (D) and his associates over in Medicare have identified the drugs of which he’s willing to pretend to negotiate the price. The particular drugs aren’t important; what matters is the precedent being set regarding the Progressive-Democrat-run administration’s view of what constitutes negotiation in Party’s lexicon. Readers interested in which drugs are targeted for now can find the list at the end of the linked-to article.

What’s important here is this.

This is a preview of Drug Price…Foolishness. Read the full post (424 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Increasing Choice

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New Jersey’s Progressive-Democratic Party Governor Phil Murphy’s Newspeak definition of increasing choice as he applies it to vehicles he will permit his subjects the citizens of New Jersey to buy goes like this:

“There’s a lot of misinformation about what this order does,” his climate director Catherine Klinger said in an interview with ROI-NJ that was published this week. “It requires that new vehicle sales in the state are zero emission by 2035. More than 50% of vehicles that are sold in the state are used. And there is absolutely no change to the used vehicle market.”
If you like your Jeep Cherokee, you’ll still be able to buy a used one….

This is a preview of Increasing Choice. Read the full post (232 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

Achieving Energy Security

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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm thinks it would be good for our energy security were we to eliminate the 60% of our oil-centered energy that we import and switching over to 100% clean electricity by 2035.

It’s true that wiping out that 60% of our oil imports would help our energy security, but only if it’s done right. We shouldn’t be importing any energy, much less from enemy nations or from nations vulnerable to enemy nations. The right way to eliminate those imports is to release our own oil—and natural gas and coal, come to that—producers to produce from our own, domestic, hydrocarbon-based sources. It’s highly important, too, to get the regulators out of the way of our producers’ ability to produce nuclear power. Sadly, though, Granholm—Energy Secretary Granholm, mind you—seems unable even to say the words “nuclear power,” or at least she never does say them.

This is a preview of Achieving Energy Security. Read the full post (300 words, estimated 1:12 mins reading time)

SEIA’s Response to Bidenomic’s Tariffs

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors correctly noted the internal—and intrinsic—contradictions in the Biden administration’s “renewable” energy demands and its trade policy. The administration is pushing ever harder to shift our economy, for good or ill (mostly ill IMNHO), to energy sourced to non-carbon-based, but renewable only—nuclear need not apply—producers. Then comes Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary, and her decision, backed by that same Joe Biden, to apply tariffs as high as 254% to solar power-related products imported from five People’s Republic of China enterprises, never minding that these companies are American domestic solar power producers’ primary sources of the needed articles.

This is a preview of SEIA’s Response to Bidenomic’s Tariffs. Read the full post (295 words, estimated 1:11 mins reading time)