Tag: EV sales

14-43 It’s the Economy, Stupid | Stupid Energy Policies

14-43 It’s the Economy, Stupid | Stupid Energy Policies

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Show 14-43 Summary: There are stupid energy policies and then there are Kamala-level stupid energy policies. And they start with a wrong understanding of how the economy works. Not everyone invests in the stock market, not everyone runs a business. But everyone needs energy. Not just energy for your home or where you work but getting there and back. And practically everything bought or sold arrives on a truck. This week, we look at stupid energy policies. If you think things are bad and expensive now, a Kamala win would make things more expensive. And stupider.

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Original Air Dates: October 26, 2024 | Guest: Frank Lasee

This Week – Stupid Energy Policies

The election finish line is within sight and this week we are looking at the economy, which is the top issue for most voters. In particular, we look at one major aspect of the economy: energy. We zero in on what the Biden/Kamala administration has done to energy prices to make things so much more expensive, which of course impacts everything that people buy and not just their utility bills. Mandates, regulations, and ideology is behind it all. They

They are the kind of stupid energy policies you would expect from someone in charge who does not understand the economy. And certainly has never owned a business.

We welcome back Frank Lasee, a senior policy advisor for CFACT and the president of Truth in Energy and Climate, to talk about the stupid energy policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty: modern day Democrats are Hitler. Or at least want policies just like his. Read “Hitler’s Views on Private Property and Nationalization” from the Mises Institute. You’d swear it was from a recent democrat rally.

The Energy Policies that Hurt You and the Economy

It’s simple. When energy costs more, everything costs more. When energy costs less, prices go down. Unless energy goes down, prices won’t. And the Biden-Harris administration declared war on energy. What direction will prices go?

And did you know that you’re paying for green energy — even when you’re not buying green energy? It’s not just your taxes.

Here’s one example. You might know about carbon credits (a tax on energy). But did you know there are regulation credits? Car companies that can’t sell electric vehicles have to buy these regulation credits from EV companies—and then to absorb that loss, the car companies add the cost of that regulation credit to the cost of the gas-powered cars. So even if you’re not buying an EV, you’re still paying for an EV.

That’s just one stupid energy policy.

But here’s the thing. All the “green energy” mandates, the zero-emissions, the carbon credits, the EVs, and on and on? it will have little to no change on emissions. And they know that. Think about it. Why would you force people to spend money on more expensive energy when they could be spend that money on other things that they need or want? Especially if it’s not going to make any bit of difference.

If it won’t make any difference, the only logical reason is if your side of the aisle is getting an awful lot of money. It’s about money. Forcing you to pay more, so their side of the political aisle makes more.

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Show Notes: Research, Links Mentioned & Additional Info

California’s Stupid Energy Policies

  • Newsom’s New Bill to ‘Hold Big Oil Accountable’ – will Fine Local Refineries Up to $1 Million PER DAY, Cause Gas Prices to Spike – Refineries Announce They Are Leaving CA (Gateway Pundit, Oct 21, 2024)*“Price spikes have cost Californians billions of dollars over the years, and we’re not waiting around for the industry to do the right thing,” Newsom said.*The measure will force local refineries to stockpile fuel and if they don’t follow the new regulations they can be fined up to $1 million PER DAY.*The heavy fines will inevitably be passed down to the consumer and cause gas prices to spike.
  • Commiefornia: “For some time, many of us have been ridiculed for suggesting that @GavinNewsom wants to own all California gas refineries. But now we’re seeing it.” Dr. Houman David Hemmati (via X, Sept 26, 2024)
  • California Energy Commission floats the idea of taking over oil refineries. Just like Venezuela. See table 19, Overview of State-Owned Refineries: “The State of California would purchase and own refineries in the State to manage the supply and price of gasoline.” (Emphasis mine.)
  • How will the state manage the slow death of California’s gasoline industry? (Los Angeles Times, September 26th, 2024)

Green Energy Dying?

  • Harris Shifts Her EV Mandates Into Reverse—Until After the Election (The Daily Signal, October 23, 2024)
    • “The push to electrify trucking is even more unhinged. Electric trucks are very expensive to buy and have terrible payload capacity and range.”
    • “Almost everything anyone buys gets shipped on a truck at some point, and the shipping industry will have no choice but to pass these enormous costs downstream.”
    • “Electric vehicle mandates will lead ‘to little to no change’ in greenhouse-gas emissions.”
  • Amazon plans to power Eastern Oregon data centers with nuclear reactors (OPB, Oct 23, 2024)
  • Offshore wind looked like a sure thing for Oregon — until it wasn’t. What went wrong? (OPB, Oct 23, 2024)

Related/Additional

The Irrationality of Western Energy Policies (Watts Up with That, October 21, 2024)

Dumb & Dumber: Germany Wins Prize For World’s Most Idiotic Energy Policy (Stop These Things, Feb 20, 2022)

Biden’s Energy Policy – Dumb and Dangerous (AMAC, July 25, 2023)

 

 

14-06 Why Bidenomics is Bidumbnomics | Mainstream Media is Lying

14-06 Why Bidenomics is Bidumbnomics | Mainstream Media is Lying

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Show 14-06 Summary: This week, it’s all about cutting through the mainstream media propaganda about the economy. Especially the lies about Bidenomics. Because it’s more Bidumbnomics than anything. Bidumbnomics is a good way to kill the economy, interfere with markets, and promote products and ideas that don’t work and cost more. Bidumbnomics are dumb economics policies that require dumb people in the media to not ask questions and keep people misinformed about how bad things really are. Like not questioning the miracle January 2024 jobs report. Or looking at the failure of 100s of billions wasted on “green energy.” (It’s not green.) Plus, Oregon is not immune. Oregon democrats also love Bidumbnomics. Spend more. Tax more. Ignore reality. Like Oregon democrats’ plan to raise statewide property taxes and do away with the current caps on property tax increases.

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Original Air Dates: February 10th & 11th, 2024 | Guest: Jonathan Williams

This Week – Bidenomics is Bidumbnomics

All you need for dumb economics policies like Bidumbnomics to be perceived as “working” is to have a willing media to spread government propaganda. And the media needs to be dumb enough about economics to not ask any questions about what they’re told. And certainly not do any kind of even simple analysis.

That way, the media keeps people uninformed. Because if people really knew how bad things were, they would be demanding answers. And politicians never want that. They want compliant sheep people who stay out of the way. Miserable peasants.

Dumb economic policies like Bidumbnomics depends on people staying quiet. But EU farmers won by speaking up.
Public outcry works! (click image for full-size)

Why? Because when people do know what their politicians are actually doing, and the actual outcomes of their schemes, people tend to revolt. And, yes, public outcry really does work.

Take a look at the win in the EU when farmers had had enough. The public joined them. And now the EU gave in to their demands.

Farmers win! “Why Europe’s green plan balked on farming”

Bidenomics is Bidumbnomics Examples

Look no further than the boondoggle of Biden’s dream of a wind farm in every pot. Bidumbnomics sank several 10s of billions of your money into expensive wind farms. Especially very expensive offshore wind farms. But these expensive Bidumbnomics boondoggles have done so poorly, despite all that free cash from U.S. taxpayers, that multiple wind farm companies have cancelled contracts. And they were willing to do so because the economics of it was so poor that unless they get free cash it was a better deal to cancel the deal.

Think of that. Companies willing to take a loss of 100s of millions rather than go through with it and lose even more. And in the case of one company, they took a 4 billion loss.

Now that is Bidumbnomicsat work. Waste companies’ money, waste taxpayer money, and all for products that are less effective and more expensive to ratepayers.

Wow.

An Actual Economist Breaks Examines Bidumbnomics

We welcome back Jonathan Williams, the executive vice president of ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council. Jonathan is also their chief economist. And we walk through the truth about that blockbuster January jobs report. It turns out, it is more fantasy than fantastic. See this great analysis from ZeroHedge: “Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In Recent History“.) And we all know this fantasy will be corrected downward in a month or two after they got their useful idiots in the media to repeat their headline to the point where most people will think Bidenomics is working.

But to be fair, not all economic news in the mainstream media is propaganda to prop up Bidumbnomics. Sometimes, it’s more of a confession. Like Jerome Powell appearing on 60 Minutes. Who told America that we just can’t spending like we are.

But other times, it is definitely propaganda. We take a look at the slumping EV (electric vehicle) sales. After spending, yet again, 100s of billions of taxpayer dollars on the EV boondoggle, including mandating sales quotas, Bidumbnomics strikes again. EVs sales are way down.

Don’t miss the terrific article mentioned during the show about the impact of government interference in a normal market. “The West’s Humiliating Electric Car Climbdown has Begun“

And even in Oregon, they are nowhere near their lofty goals of 250,000 EVs by 2025.

Oregon Democrats Embrace Bidumbnomics

Speaking of Oregon, the democrat governor and democrat-controlled house and senate want their own version of dumb economics. Like ignoring people’s economic reality to impose their ideology. And mainly, that’s more spending of taxpayer dollars to reward the political allies. There is never enough money to spend all they want on everything they want.

The answer? Raise taxes. And not just a little. They want $3 billion in more taxes. And, as if they haven’t driven enough people away, they want to eliminate and caps on statewide property taxes.

The only reason why even more Oregonians haven’t driven away is their EV must have run out of charge. Maybe that’s why Oregon wants to mandate even more of them.

But wait, it gets worse. Not only do Oregon elected democrats want to spend more, Tobias Read, the democrat in charge of Oregon’s Treasury wants Oregon’s PERS to make less money. By forcing Oregon’s investment into “Net Zero.” Uh, Toby, in case you missed it due to Bidumbnomics government propaganda media, but Net Zero funds are losing money by the day. Intelligent investors are getting out of Net Zero funds, not in. Perhaps Oregon’s PERS being in the hole by a mere $28 billion just isn’t enough?

Tune in to get the info you need. to be better informed on economics and real economic policies. So when your legislator wants to go full Bidumbnomics, you have the info you need to convince them otherwise.

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Research, Links Mentioned & Additional Info

  • Jonathan’s organization is ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council. Find out more at ALEC.org.
    • Encourage your representatives to join ALEC! There are state and city memberships. Help elected officials understand economic problems and the real solutions available to get out of them! Send them this link: https://alec.org/membership/.
    • And you too can join as a private-sector member!
  • You can follow Jonathan on Twitter at @TaxEconomist.
  • Farmers win! “Why Europe’s green plan balked on farming” (Semafor, via Yahoo News, Feb 7, 2024)
  • Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In Recent History (ZeroHedge, Feb 03, 2024)
    • All job gains in the past year have been part-time workers (+870,000). Full time have decreased by 97,000
    • Native vs Foreign-Born workers . All job creation in the past 4 years has been for foreigners. Zero job creation for native since 2018
  • The West’s humiliating electric car climbdown has begun” (The Telegraph, via Yahoo News, Feb 2, 2024)
  • Bidumbnomics in Oregon: “PGE and why the EV revolution is stalling” (Oregon Catalyst, Feb 4, 2024)
    • “In 2019, Senate Bill 1044 set a target of 250,000 registered Zero Emission Vehicles on Oregon roads by 2025. … [But] the number of Oregon-registered zero emission vehicles on Oregon roads as of September 2023 (with less than a year and a half to go) was just 70,000. … The likelihood that this number will grow to 250,000 over the next 12 months is nil.”
  • Plan to make Oregon retirement fund carbon neutral relies on industry, Wall Street doing the same (OPB, Feb 7, 2024)
  • HJR 201 is a Statewide Property Tax (Taxpayer Assoc, Feb 5, 2024)
  • “1,287 testify against Statewide Property Tax (HJR 201)” (Taxpayer Association of Oregon, February 14, 2024).

For further reading on Bidumbnomics

 

14-04 The Plain Truth in Green Energy: All Things Green Go Red

14-04 The Plain Truth in Green Energy: All Things Green Go Red

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Show 14-04 Summary: Frank Lasee, the president of Truth in Energy and Climate rejoins us to dig a little deeper into hydrogen (and, in particular, so-called “green hydrogen.” EVs are failing in the marketplace and their sales are tanking. We talk about the truth in green energy — that it wouldn’t exist without massive government bailouts, subsidies, and free cash. And we talk about the rise of the hydrogen-based economy. Get ready for it. Maybe because the public has started to catch on to the green funding scam.

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Original Air Dates: January 27thg & 28th, 2024 | Guest: Frank Lasee

This Week – Truth in Green Energy

We welcome back Frank Lasee—a former Wisconsin state senator, senior policy analyst, and president of Truth in Energy and Climate—to talk about the truth in green energy. And, like so much about “green” it’s all red at its heart. As Frank calls it, it’s “soft socialism.” It would not exist in the marketplace without huge amounts of free taxpayer cash.

Remember how Leftists shrieked about bailouts for the “too big to fail” banks? Funny how they’re completely silent now about bailouts and subsidies for everything “green,” isn’t it. Probably because the Left gets massive amount of funding for its political allies. At the taxpayers’ expense.

Our guest’s website is TruthInEnergyAndClimate.com. Great articles and information. And sign up for their newsletter!

This week, it’s all about truth in green energy. Or rather the lack of it. With other green renewable sources on the decline (especially wind), the newest fad in “green” energy is hydrogen.By the way. Green renewable energy is not green. And it’s not renewable. For every one ton of rare earth mined and refined, 2,000 tons of toxic waste is generated. And much of it radioactive waste. And it’s not renewable either. Unless you’re referring to ongoing taxpayer subsidies to keep them going.

Hydrogen. The New Green Energy Fad?

There have been some new breakthroughs, allegedly, in hydrogen. In particular, with using hydrogen as an energy storage medium. Just how real are these breakthroughs? And are they the bridge to a hydrogen-based economy?

Wait, what happened to the EVs? Weren’t they going to save us? Well, it turns out that EVs are quickly losing any momentum and their sales here and in even in green-mania Europe, sales of EVs are tanking. Perhaps it’s because as more people bought them, they realized how inconvenient they are. Or maybe it was the cold snap these last two weeks. Where thousands of EVs had to be towed. Not because they slid off icy roads or crashed. They simply ran out of charge. Or maybe it was because their owners couldn’t run the heater for fear it would drain the battery and they wouldn’t make it home.

Be aware. Hydrogen may be the next green energy scam. Tune in and you’ll hear just how out of touch the Biden administration is. And environmentalists with their convoluted, damn the taxpayers, means to go green on hydrogen.

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Research, Links Mentioned & Additional Info

Articles/Info Mentioned During the Show

  • Frank Lasee’s website is TruthInEnergyAndClimate.com. Be sure to check out this website for great articles and information.
  • Government “accounting” vs GAAP. Article:”Modified Accrual Accounting: Definition and How It Works” (via Investopedia.com, June 4, 2023)
    • Public companies cannot use this accounting method for financial statements, but it is widely accepted for use by government agencies.
    • Public companies cannot use modified accrual accounting because it does not comply with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
  • New Discovery Overcomes Major Hurdle in Hydrogen Energy Economy (Oil Price, Jan 6, 2024)
    • “The new material, a lanthanum hydride compound modified with strontium and oxygen, allows high-rate conduction of hydride ions at room temperature.”
    • Whoops. Then along came winter → “Not quite noted above is that today’s designs need an above freezing environment. All the time, not just when running. For much of the time and much of the world that is killer. Moreover a freeze would destroy a fuel cell, thus even a rare freeze zone would entail considerable risk. The team hasn’t said anything specific yet. But this is promising.”
  • Hydrogen near tipping point to accelerate decarbonization (Techxplore, Nov 15, 2023)
    • THIS → “The U.S. Department of Energy also articulated the prominent Hydrogen Shot initiative in 2021. According to this initiative, the cost of producing clean hydrogen is to come down to $1.0/kg by the year 2030.” But does that $1/kg include the billions of dollars in subsidies to get there? What’s the real cost?
  • How About A Pilot Project To Demonstrate The Feasibility Of Fully Wind/Solar/Battery Electricity Generation? (Truth in Energy and Climate, Jan 25, 2022)

Info about Hydrogen and “Green Hydrogen”

Oregon’s Green Hydrogen Scheme

  • Pacific NW wins $1 billion from feds for ‘Clean Hydrogen Hub.’ Now what? (News from the States, Oct 13, 2023).
    • The hydrogen lobby duped Congress into $9.5 billion for hydrogen hubs and $100s of billions more for subsidies to make it. These hydrogen jobs will last only as long as the subsidies do.
  • Court case on fate of Snake River dams, imperiled salmon postponed (Oregon Capital Chronicle, Oct 31, 2023)
  • Officials tell public newly approved Northwest hydrogen hub will produce jobs, economic benefits (Oregon Capital Chronicle, Oct 31, 2023)
  • Frank Lasse article: “The Expensive Impossibility of Green Hydrogen From Part-Time Wind and Solar” (Truth in Energy & Climate, October 25, 2023)
  • “The fact that the world is desperately short of lithium and cobalt for electric vehicle batteries, at the scale they want to force, is dawning on them”
  • “Wind and solar produce little or no energy 70% of the time.”
    Frank Lasee: Joe Biden’s Hydrogen Slush Fund Means More Dollars Wasted On The Green Energy Boondoggle (ShoreNews Network, Feb 26, 2023)

EVs and the EV Market