greennewdeal

iPods, Smoking, and Combustion Engines

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Did you or do you own an iPod?  Did you ever smoke cigarettes?  Will you trade in your gas guzzler when the time comes for an electric vehicle(EV)?

Yesterday the mother of all companies in tune with what people want/need, Apple, ended production on the tunes machine that changed how we listened to music-the iPod.

Why did they discontinue the iPod?  It’s pretty simple.  Apple and its competitors innovated.  You can listen to music, podcasts, etc. right from your phone from a variety of sources better known as apps.   The sound quality is amazing.

The life span of the iPod was a short but successful 20 years or so.  Innovation changed the game.

Cigarettes, regardless of brand, went from “smoke them if you got em” during WWII, to sexy in the ’60s, to the surgeon general warning us in the ’80s about how bad they were for your health, to frowned upon in the ’00s, to almost extinguished in the ’20s.

The lifespan of Winston, which “tastes good like a cigarette should,” was multiple generations.  Medical science changed the game.

In 1886, Carl Benz began the first commercial production of motor vehicles with internal combustion engines. By the 1890s, motor cars reached their modern stage of development.

The gasoline-powered car stands as one of the great inventions ever.  It revolutionized how we got around, how far we could go, and who we were.

And, a quick 130 or so years later it’s in the fight of its life.  EVs cometh.  And so does the government.

Sure, EVs are innovations to gas-powered cars and trucks like the phone is to the iPod.  Sure(we presume), EVs are healthier for our planet like not smoking is to smoking.

But this one feels forced.  Shouldn’t we let nature, innovation, education, and consumer preferences take their course?

“Biden admin’s new NEPA permitting rules will basically stop new oil and gas production,” wrote renowned economist Larry Kudlow yesterday.  “The Keystone XL pipeline is gone.  Alaska drilling is gone. Other smaller pipelines are gone. Those decisions have already been made by Biden’s Energy and Interior departments and his EPA.”

And, now new leases in the Gulf of Mexico have been canceled.  Additionally, Russian oil is off-limits and gasoline at the pump is already at an all-time high.

These new NEPA rules are so restrictive that they will slow down the $1 trillion infrastructure bill they passed including the green infrastructure (windmills, solar).  All projects will be subject to direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impact reviews.

So while we are in a rush to go green, far-reaching regulations were passed that will now make us inspect the government-funded (read as you funded) green infrastructure projects to ensure they’re green.  We’re spending a lot of green for all of this.

Are you seeing red yet?  Your eyes are fine.  It’s probably just all of that government red tape that you are seeing.

Like baby formula, we’d like to see the supply of gas catch up with the demand for gas.  It would lower prices.  That would allow us to keep a bit of what we earn so that when taxes are raised to pay for all of this that government can’t afford, we’ll be able to afford to do so.

Eventually, won’t EVs win out? Capitalism drove us this far so to speak.

Until then, we’d like to “fill er up” a time or two more without going into what’s left of our savings accounts.

 

 

 

 

Ho, Ho, No

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yes DC, there is a Santa Claus.

“With holidays coming up, you might be wondering if the gifts you plan to buy will arrive on time,” President Biden said from the White House yesterday. “Today we have some good news: We’re going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America.”

And ole Joe, one of Kris Kringle’s older elves is here to help.  The White House responded to the roughly 66 container ship backlog by finalizing an agreement for the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach to become a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week operation just like the hours that Santa’s helpers keep this time of the year.

The hope is that nighttime operations will help to break the logjam and get that temporary inflation, which isn’t so temporary, under control.

Want to know a Santa’s secret?  The port has been operating 24/7 for the last 21 days.  Want to know another?   Consumer prices climbed 5.4% from a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday, way above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

Higher energy, food, and shelter costs were prime drivers of price increases in September.   There isn’t too much energy coming into LA’s ports.  And, it accounts for zero shelter cost increases.

Ah, but it’s been said before, and savvy politicians will say it again.  And, again.   Never, ever let a good crisis go to waste.  Alas, the president is trying to use the predicament as a selling point for his policy plans that are undergoing congressional scrutiny.

“We need to take a longer view and invest in building greater resiliency to withstand the kinds of shocks we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out, the risk of a pandemic, extreme weather, climate change, cyberattacks, weather disruptions,” he said.  That’s a mouthful of leftist cookies and milk if we’ve ever heard it.

What’s so weird about this is that Santa and his elves work in the harshest climate of all, the North Pole.  And, we’ve seen over and over, year in and year out that jolly ole Nick guy and his reindeer get to millions of homes, up and down chimneys, and deliver on promises all in one 24 hour window.  That’s a supply chain logistics model to emulate if ever there was one.  And, yet, it doesn’t work this year.  Hmm.

And, lost in all of this is that the ports are but one small piece of the puzzle.  Up and down the supply chain- wages, raw material shortages, manufacturing shortfalls, lack of truck drivers, lack of retail workers, etc all have a role.  Oh, and the government is stuffing money in the stockings hung on the mantle without care.

Rudolph’s red inflation nose is flashing so bright, that the Fed might need to deliver an interest rate lump of coal increase sooner than later.   That, of course, assumes coal is still an allowable fuel source should the Democrats pass the Reconciliation Bill, but we digress.

University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson noted on Twitter the “economy is in a very fragile and unprecedented place.”  “No one really knows what’s going to happen,” wrote Stevenson, a former member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama.

Maybe Santa could trade in his old, old sleigh. We hear used vehicles are commanding top trade-in dollars these days.

The problem with that is he’d need to buy a pricey new one.

And, those come from China, through the LA port, and are back-ordered until mid-2022 we heard.

WSJBDN?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

What do a botched departure plan, a George Stephanopolous interview, two disastrous press conferences, and a thrice interrupted vacation all have in common?

That’s an easy one.  They’re all bad acts on the biggest international stage at a time that the brightest lights were shining and the world was watching.  And, they all occurred after the fact.

What fact is that, you ask?  That’s another easy one.  President Joe Biden decided to withdraw the last of the troops before providing all Americans (first), helpful Afghans (second), and journalists (third) a safe passage out of what’s left to Afghanistan is that fact.

With Kabul’s airport looking like Chicago’s O’Hare the day before Christmas in a whiteout blizzard, only the checkpoints to get there look tougher than the United Airlines reschedule flights line.

So, WSJBDN? What should Joe Biden do now?  Well, while you mull that over, realize that Kamala can’t be part of your answer.  She jetted off to Singapore a day ago for unknown reasons and likely unimportant ones as well.  When asked a question upon arrival that she should be plenty prepped for, her nervous laughter is a bad “tell” and makes for a poor poker player.  But, we digress.

What Joe Biden should do now, in between naps, is send roughly another 20k troops back into the occupied for 20 years and counting cesspool that Afghanistan is.  He’s sent 6k back in a mere two weeks after he pulled the last 2.5k out.

If you’re going to do a job, well, git er dun dammit.

You’re already pot committed.  Go all in to get all out.  Get it?  He didn’t get it then, but he desperately needs to now.

Saying that you’re negotiating with the same people you fought against doesn’t cut it.  Saying that you don’t trust them doesn’t cut it.  And, most of all, saying that you aren’t sure that you can provide safe passage out of Kabul for our trapped loved ones doesn’t cut it whatsoever.

Sometimes we’re called Ugly Americans.  At least we used to be.  If nothing else we expect strong confidence and dealing from a position of strength.  We have a weak hand right now.  We look even weaker.  Oh to be called ugly again. Those were the days Archie might say.

Then, when the last travel passport is stamped we can line up the flights for every soldier to head back too, but not before.

Only then can we get back to worrying about green new deals, pronouns of choice, infrastructure that isn’t infrastructure, temporary inflation, the resurrection of the insurrection, and most of all the vaccine passports.

Hopefully, Kamala will be back by then.  Because we could use a good booster shot and a laugh.

And soon.

 

 

And the Pendulum Swung

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Sixth grade science teaches us that a pendulum can only swing so far in one direction.  It’s momentum is slowed, then eventually halted, by its center of gravity and gravity itself.  That wise professor Nancy Pelosi gave several freshman Democrats a refresher course in just how that pendulum “thing” works yesterday.

Just six weeks or so after hugs and smiles and poses for group pictures had the Democrat freshman representatives positively giddy about a progressive future without greenhouse gasses and that gas-bag Donald Trump guy able to get in the way, Nancy became the center of gravity.  And, suddenly the swing to the left met gravity.

Alexandria Octavio Cortez (AOC) has The Green New Deal and dozens of other far left newbies had the pitchforks and lanterns.  The hunt for green October and the head (figuratively) of Donald Trump was on.

Nancy cleared her throat and in her best Lee Corso voice, pencil in hand, said “not so fast my friends on the left.”  That’s right.  It took a left coast, left leaning liberal to slow the roast.  She said, “I’m not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”   And just like that the old guard put the new guard in place all the while taking a cheap shot at The Donald.

And just like that the old guard put the new guard in place in 2014.  Then it was John Boehner, who took the gavel from Nancy, and Mitch McConnell who relegated the Tea Party incoming revolution to the last row of the Senate and House floors.   Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and a band of brothers had the music momentum stopped.  These upstarts had gone just far enough.  Rhinos forever!  And just like that the darn center of gravity, like Father Time, remained undefeated.  The pendulum headed back towards the middle.

So, where to from here?  AOC and her nearly 60 new Democrat friends feel empowered by the progressive wave that retook the house.  Surely they can push the Green New Deal.  Cost might be a problem though.  Estimates to actually act on its merits range from 40 trillion to nearly 100 trillion, or between 8 and 25 times the yearly federal revenues tax dollars received.

The cost of a Chick-fil-A meal is far less than that.  Sarah Palin left an aforementioned Tea Party rally in 2013 and proudly bought a couple of no. 1 value meals. It made international headlines as a show of support for the conservative christian right led Tea Party and the conservative christian right leadership of Chick-fil-A.  The restaurant chain was under fire then because they closed (and still do) on Sundays.  Heathens demand that the right give them the right to chicken seven days a week.

Support came to the left led Green New Deal yesterday when noted nutritionist, right coast NY Mayor Bill de Blasio proudly announced that soon NY public school lunches would enact, drum roll please, “meatless Mondays.”  Surely this will be a great first step in reducing those pesky emissions all the while helping our young eat healthier.  Government sure knows how to look out for its tired and its poor who know no better.

Perhaps the long running,successful, cow survival campaign by ChickFilA is now dated.  In place of “Eat Mor Chikin” sparing cows it could be “Eat Mor Letus.”  You would save (not kill) two animals with one slogan.  PETA would be so proud.

Speaking of “Letus,” let us pray that sanity returns soon.

Or, it returns at least before the cows come home.