Trending Down

It seems that I am seeing a lot of charts trending down recently.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The amount of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of the United States.

I thought the SPR was established in case of a major supply disruption due to war or natural disaster.

I am guess rising gasoline prices and inflation were viewed as a natural disaster for Biden.

In the meantime the price of oil has increased for five straight weeks and is close to $80/barrel. 

It was $67/barrel a month ago.

Another natural disaster?

Time to start raiding the SPR again?

Federal Government Receipts

Federal government tax receipts were down a massive 7.3% in June on a trailing twelve-month basis compared to the comparable prior period.

With inflation up substantially during that period compared to the prior period, you would expect that alone would have pushed government tax receipts higher.

Credit: https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1680600268054966272

Inflation seems to only be affecting federal government expenditures that have increased by 9% over the last year.

Poppy Growing in Afghanistan

I always wondered why the United States could not rein in the opium production in Afghanistan when our military was controlling the country and we were funding almost all of its government bureaucracy and infrastructure.

It seems that the Taliban have figured out a way to do it.

Credit: https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1679682782459744259

You Need to Learn to Code

Existing Homes for Sale in the United States

Credit: https://twitter.com/DisruptionHedge/status/1682369474580697088

Covid Vaccinations

Those willing to be vaccinated against Covid has dropped to almost zero.

In fact, the CDC stopped reporting vaccination data in mid-May.

The last update looked like this for all doses administered.

Source:https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-delivery-coverage

The trend line for the bivalent booster looked like this when the chart was discontinued.

You are not considered fully vaccinated by the CDC unless you have this dose.

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccine-delivery-coverage

When the reporting ceased a mere 17% of Americans had submitted to the bivalent booster dose in the nine months it had been offered.

It seems that at some point people make up their own mind on what is, or is not, beneficial to them rather than being told by the government what is.

The Federal Reserve

The Fed is losing billions of dollars on payments to commercial banks on reverse repos and other payments as interest rates rise.

Of course, they can just print more.

I think it is time to stop.

In more ways than one.

This and That---July 28, 2023 Edition

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

Carbon Emissions Per Capita

Carbon emissions per capita in the United States is now lower than it was before World War II.

Keep in mind that prior to World War II not even 50% of U.S. households even owned an automobile.

As late as 1970 nearly two-thirds of households only had one vehicle.

Today there are more vehicles in the United States than the number of households.

Credit: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/

There are over twice as many vehicles per capita as there were before World War II but carbon emissions per capita is lower than it was at that time?

Despite this, we are told it is necessary to ban the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles to limit carbon emissions?

And the liberals want to now ban gas stoves and gas water heaters.

Seeing this you should understand why the progressives are not intent on merely limiting carbon emissions.

Their view is that we just can't focus on total carbon emissions. We have to reduce the population as well.

Population control is almost as important to their long-term agenda.

Working From Home

Working from home became a popular alternative for many businesses during the Covid pandemic.

Since social distancing restrictions declined many employers have been struggling to get their employees back in the office.

There are many who argue that those who work at home are more productive than those who go into the office.

However, the recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Annual American Time Use Study for 2022 disputes that notion.

In 2022, 34% of Americans reported doing some or all of their work at home and 69% reported doing some or all of their work at their workplace.

The average number of hours worked per day for those working from home---5.4 hours.

The average number of hours worker per day working at their workplace---7.9 hours.

A direct excerpt from the report.

Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/atus.pdf

You would think that knowing this data that the federal government would be working to get as many of its employees back in the office at it could.

After all, this is data from a federal government agency.

It shows a drop in productive work hours from 7.9 to 5.4 hours per day from office to home work---that is a decrease of almost 33% in hours worked at home versus the office.

However, the latest federal government data shows that government offices are all generally empty of workers.

On average, only about 20% of federal government office space is being utilized.

Source: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106200.pdf

Workers at home are not getting as much done.

Federal government is paying rent on office space that is not being utilized. 

Another example of your tax dollars at work.

The Institutional Trade-Off

There might have been real logic in how society handled some situations in the past.

California Nightmare

The Mamas and Papas recorded the song California Dreamin in 1965.

The song's lyrics began like this.

All the leaves are brown (all the leaves are brown)

And the sky is gray (and the sky is gray)

I've been for a walk (I've been for a walk)

On a winter's day (on a winter's day)

I'd be safe and warm (I'd be safe and warm)

If I was in L.A. (if I was in L.A.)

California dreamin' (California dreamin')

On such a winter's day

It did use to be a dream to be in L.A. or California.

It has become a nightmare.

Look no further than the latest state revenue figures for personal and corporation tax collections.

Personal income tax collections are down 34% in fiscal 2023 thru June compared to the same period last year.

Corporation tax collections are down 37%.

Have that many high income earners have left the state?

Are we seeing the effects of an economic slowdown in the state?

Did stock compensation not pan out over the last year?

Whatever the cause, this looks to be a nightmare for California.

While personal and corporation taxes are down, total disbursements by the state increased by 16% between the two fiscal periods.

What happens if we see a real recession in the next 12 months?

No California Dreamin is in the forecast.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

The big news on the movie front is the fantastic box office numbers the Barbie movie has brought in the first week it was out.

Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has already grossed $500 million in less than seven days in theaters around the world.

It has grossed more than $200 million in the United States.

It just goes to show the consumer power of little girls (or that of little girls that grow up to be big girls).

All I can say is that I hope Ryan Gosling negotiated a nice percentage of the gross in his contract to be willing to put on that wardrobe.

I ran across another interesting factoid on the power of little girls recently in seeing the lifetime franchise revenue that Hello Kitty has produced.

My young daughters loved Hello Kitty back in the day.

My granddaughters do as well today.

However, I was astounded when I saw this comparison of what Hello Kitty has brought in versus the combined lifetime franchise revenues of James Bond, Spider-Man and Marvel Cinematic U.

Source: https://twitter.com/TrungTPhan/status/1648786249233334273

   

Thank heaven for little girls, indeed!

It Is Mind Blowing

There has been a lot of media attention on what is supposed to be an unprecedented summer heat wave in the United States and other areas of the world. Of course, it is attributed to man-made climate change.

Source: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/07/the-scorching-summer-of-2023-reaches-mind-blowing-high-temperatures/

It has been hot in parts of the Western United States, in Southern Europe and parts of China.

However,  in the United States overall only 41% of U.S. climate stations have reached 95 degrees this summer.

Credit: https://twitter.com/BeeLineBlog/likes

That compares to a 10-year average of 76%.

The summer is not over, and the percentage will clearly increase over the next six weeks, but does anyone believe we will get anywhere close to the high temperatures we experienced in the 1930's.

In that decade at least 85% of US Climatology Network Stations routinely hit 95 degrees.

In addition, is the trend line of high temperatures (red line) since the 1930's increasing or decreasing?

This is a map of temperature anomalies in the North America for the last 45 days which encompassed most of June and July.

This largely shows how cool June was this year in the United States across much of the nation.

Credit: https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1682896053807517697

It did get warmer in July for parts of the country.

This is a map of the temperature anomalies in the United States for the month of July (thru July 17).

Credit: https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/1681843663276593159

This is the map for the same period in July, 2002.

Credit: https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/1681843663276593159

It is not as warm in 2023 as it was in 2002.

The average temperature anomaly is about .2 degrees cooler in 2023 than it was in 2002.

The average maximum temperature is about 2 degrees cooler in 2023 than it was in 2002.

However, we are hearing that the temperatures are mind blowing and unprecedented.

This is after 800 million additional tons of carbon emissions have been produced since 2002.

I would not even want to calculate what that numbers has been since the 1930's.

What else do you notice in the maps above?

It has been hotter than normal in New York City and Washington, D.C. in July but it has been cooler on average in flyover country.

Where is the media based?

They are hot so they need to tell you that you are hot even if it is not true.

Despite the recent heat wave that gripped Arizona and also affected the Las Vegas area, at the end of June Las Vegas had gone a record 291 consecutive days without one day of over 100 degree temperatures.

Are we really seeing "mind blowing" summer heat?

One more example.

This is the forecasted temperature anomaly map for Europe for the last 10 days of July.

It is warmer than normal in Italy and Greece. However, look at the rest of Europe.

Credit: https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1682548219455107074

There has also been a lot of media attention directed to the Canadian wildfires and the smoke that has been blowing across much of the northern and eastern parts of the United States this summer

The narrative is that this also is the result of climate change.

However, if that is the case how is it that the climate change causing the wildfires seems to stop at the border?

The United States is currently seeing one of the lowest number of burn acres caused by wildfires that it has seen since the 1930's.

Source: https://twitter.com/TonyClimate/status/1681917530372440064/photo/1

 

Mind blowing summer heat?

The only thing that is mind blowing is that so many people believe the climate change narrative.

They appear to not have the slightest idea that the climate has been changing for eons.

Just a glimpse at climate history around the world and the slightest amount of critical thinking is all that is needed to understand that something is amiss with the climate change agenda.

Neil Armstrong---Hero and Mortal

54 years ago today Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon.

It was the culmination of a remarkable combination of innovation, ingenuity, technology and courage to achieve what humans had dreamed about for centuries.

Today's blog post I am republishing about Neil Armstrong that I first published four years ago.

It is not about Armstrong's historic walk on the moon.

It is about the events at the end of Armstrong's life.

There are some important lessons therein for all of us.

This post should resonate even more today than when I first wrote it.

Since that time we have seen a worldwide pandemic.

We saw thousands put on ventilators that we now know did not help patients recover from Covid...it most likely accelerated their death.

We saw the same with the drug Remdisivir which was the drug used in most hospital protocols for Covid patients. Many patients who were put on the drug ended up with kidney issues that were more severe than the Covid they were being treated for.

We saw the medical establishment tells us over and over that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective and that they prevented disease and transmission.

That proved to be untrue.

Did the benefits of taking the vaccine outweigh the risks?

Does anyone even know three years later?

However, everyone was assured over and over again by the medical authorities that it was necessary and there was nothing to worry about.

We are privileged to enjoy the medical infrastructure and professionals we have today to treat and support us.

However, despite the expertise and experience of these medical professionals, they are not all knowing.

They may be caring but they will never care about your body and health as much as you will.

Beware of trusting authority figures too much.

Ask questions. Do your own research. Seek other opinions.

Remember the story of Neil Armstrong.

He cheated death innumerable times in his life.

However, he could not escape the consequences of not asking the right questions and taking the right actions when it came to important decisions about his health when it mattered the most.

Being A Smart Patient

(originally published July 30, 2019)

Neil Armstrong survived 78 combat missions in the Korean War, was a test pilot for the X-15 and flew to the moon and back as the first man to step on the moon. However, he did not survive a trip to a suburban Cincinnati hospital in 2012 where he had open heart surgery at age 82.

Neil Armstrong and the X-15, circa 1960
Credit: NASA

In the aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing the New York Times and Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Armstrong's family had gotten a $6 million settlement from Mercy Hospital-Fairfield related to the care that Armstrong received in conjunction with that heart surgery.

That cash settlement had been kept under wraps as part of the legal agreement until a whistle blower recently sent supporting documents to the papers. Armstrong's children and grandchildren received the payments after they threatened a lawsuit alleging that the hospital had not met the standard of care in its treatment of the former astronaut and test pilot.

Armstrong's death appears to have resulted when a nurse at the hospital removed epicardial wires protruding from Armstrong's chest while he was in a step down unit after a temporary pacemaker had been inserted to regulate his heart after the bypass surgery. In doing so the pericardium was torn and the cavity sac around the heart starting filling with blood. That blood choked off the function of the heart before the hospital team could correct the problem and Armstrong suffered irreversible brain damage. It was alleged that the problem could have been corrected if a cardiothoracic surgeon and operating room had been on standby.

What I found baffling in the story is why would Neil Armstrong, one of the most famous people on earth, would go to a modest suburban community hospital for open heart surgery?

It is particularly bewildering considering that Armstrong, an aeronautical engineer by training, was someone you would expect to be both analytical and meticulous in his preparation in dealing with risky situations.

Sadly, Armstrong was human and he probably did what most of us do when a decision regarding health care in concerned. He took as gospel what his physician told him. He might have also consulted with his family or a few friends. He probably did not seek a second professional opinion. He likely did not consider getting care at any place other than the Cincinnati area where he lived.

When I was in charge of employee benefits for a Fortune 500 company I spent a lot of time looking at our costs as well as the quality of care that our employees received. We were self-insured for the health care costs of our 10,000+ members so both of these issues were critically important to me.

When you study this issue as closely as I did you quickly discover that health care is one area that high quality care almost always produces the lowest cost care. If you receive the right care, at the right time and at the right place, you generally are going to have the lowest costs. You will not overpay for care that you don't need and you will not have to pay again if the original treatment does not solve the problem or complications arise.

The problem is that it is very difficult for any of us to assess the quality that we are going to get in any health care situation. We can judge bedside manner much better than the technical skills of our doctor. We choose the local hospital because it is convenient and we want to feel comfortable in our surroundings and close to our family if we have a health issue. However, bedside manner and a convenient hospital should be far down any list when considering medical treatment.

I think there is much to be learned from the Neil Armstrong experience that may be helpful to you or a loved on.

I developed an educational seminar for our employees in 2007 to help them become a "Smart Patient, Smart Consumer" that was based on the book You: The Smart Patient by Mehmet Oz, M.D. and Michael Roizen, M.D.

United Healthcare subsequently took the basis of this presentation and made it available to all of their business customers with my permission and that of my company.  You can view that presentation here.

I will summarize a few key points that everyone should keep in mind regarding being a smart patient that I included in that seminar based on the excellent book by Oz and Roizen.  I highly recommend it to everyone.

• You need to be your own health advocate. If you don't feel that you can do that for yourself get someone else to be an advocate for you. Don't be afraid to ask questions and get the answers you need.
• Choose your doctor carefully.
• Make sure he or she is board certified.
• A good way to find a great doctor is to ask ER nurses. They usually know who the best doctors are from observing a lot of them.
• Do not be afraid to seek a 2nd or 3rd opinion (a 2nd opinion results in a new diagnosis about 1/3 of the time but only 20% of patients seek one). You should seek a 2nd opinion every time a doctor recommends surgery. You should also seek a second opinion if your doctor is unwilling to discuss alternative treatment options with you.
• If your doctor is going to do any procedure make sure they have a lot of experience doing it. You don't want someone who does a handful of anything. You want them to have seen a lot and done a lot of similar procedures.
• Choose your hospital just as carefully. Realize that the doctor you choose is going to be tied to a hospital through admitting privileges. A great doctor at an average hospital is not good enough. Make sure you have both.
• Make sure that the hospital you choose is also doing lots of the procedures you are in need of. For example, if it is bypass surgery, you want the hospital to be doing a minimum of 500 per year. You want to make sure they have seen everything so they can deal with anything that might come up.
• The last thing you should want is a hospital that is close to home that will be convenient for you, your family and friends. Your sole objective should be to get in and out of the hospital as quickly as you can. In addition, you should try to limit anyone visiting you as much as possible due to the risks of infection. Find the best hospital for what you need, not the closest hospital.
• Although it is still not easy to get quality measures about doctors and hospitals, there are more resources than ever before that are accessible to consumers. Your health insurance company likely has quality and efficiency ratings on many doctors and hospitals. There are companies like Healthgrades and Grandrounds who are in business to see that healthcare consumers are connected with the best care. The internet is a great place to begin your research but it can't take the place of a good medical professional.

Why is all of this important?

Consider the numbers.

98,000 people die each year due to medical mistakes. 

2 million people contract an infection in the hospital each year.

Of course, Neil Armstrong was just not a number. He was the first man to walk on the moon. However, when he walked into that hospital he was no different than you or me. He was just a man, and he was mortal.

I don't know all the reasons Neil Armstrong decided to undergo his heart bypass surgery at the hospital he chose. However, it seems a curious choice considering what I know.

The news reports suggest that he did not seek a 2nd opinion before he had the surgery. At least one expert witness doctor who was consulted after Armstrong's death suggested that he would not have recommended immediate surgery for the 82 year old Armstrong.

It appears that the hospital and staff were not well staffed and equipped to deal with the complications that ensued.

Arguably the #1 ranked hospital in the world for open heart surgery is just a 4 hour drive away from Cincinnati.

US News ranks The Cleveland Clinic as the #1 hospital for cardiology and heart surgery with an overall score of 100/100.

Note that even with the high ranking of the Cleveland Clinic it still has areas that need improvement. That is why the best advice for anyone is to try to live as healthy as you can to avoid having to visit a hospital.

The Mayo Clinic is ranked #2 with a score of 99.6/100 and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is ranked #3 with a score of 84.3/100.

Only 50 hospitals in each specialty are given a numerical rank by US News. Hospitals near the top 50 are listed as high performing. The remainder of the 550 in which a scorecard is done are ranked from poor to excellent.

Here is the heart bypass surgery scorecard for Mercy Hospital-Fairfield from US News which has an overall rating of average. Was average good enough for Neil Armstrong? Would average be good enough for you?

Mercy-Fairfield gets its highest score on the scorecard for the volume of its heart surgeries. It also gets excellent scores based on patient experience. However, it does not come close to the Cleveland Clinic or the 50 other hospitals that are top ranked by US News.

Remember as well that every time a medical intervention (tests, immunizations, prescription drugs, surgery) is undertaken you are taking a risk. That risk is generally worthwhile because it will make you better in the long run. However, you could end up in worse shape because of the intervention.

To better understand this, consider the research that shows that in every instance in which doctors have gone on strike around the world, death rates have stayed the same or gone down when the doctors were out. There has never been a study that shows the death rate has gone up. Think about that. When the doctors are not involved the death rate actually drops?

This is attributed to the fact that elective or non- emergency surgeries do not get done when doctors are on strike and a surprising amount of mortality occurs following these procedures. Death rates actually rise when elective surgeries begin again.

A 90% success rate sounds good. However, what if you are the ONE in 10 that gets the short end of the stick?

That is why you should do everything you can to make sure the odds are stacked in your favor as much as possible when it comes to healthcare.

Neil Armstrong could have had complications from his surgery or his recovery no matter where he was treated. He could have been hit by a bus or fallen down a flight of stairs.

However, it is hard not to say "what if" in this case.

May God bless the man who made that small step and demonstrated so well what mankind was capable of.

Keep his memory alive by also remembering the advice I have offered about being a smart patient and consumer of healthcare.

Good health to you!

Is It Racist?

The 2023 International Mathematics Olympiad has just concluded in Chiba, Japan.

This is the preeminent math competition for high school mathematics students from around the world.

Students from 112 countries competed.

China took first place.

The United States placed second.

Korea was third.

Source: https://newsroom.maa.org/252373-usa-earns-second-place-at-64th-international-mathematical-olympiad

These are the names of the USA team members.

Canada's team placed 5th.

This is Canada's team that participated at Chiba.

Source: https://cms.math.ca/competitions/imo/

I think it was a good idea to purchase a program if you wanted to follow the action in Chiba.

Interestingly, there is also a European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad that is also held annually and is open to all countries.

I don't know why there is the emphasis on gender as the International Math Olympiad is open to both males and females.

Why is there a need for a girls' competition?

However, China also won this competition.

The United States placed second.

Australia was third.

This is a picture of the first and second place USA and China teams.

However, as a joke, the Chinese girls are holding up the American flag and the USA girls are holding the China flag.

Can you tell?

This is the third place Australia team.

In the world we live in today someone could look at these results and possibly suggest there must be a racial bias in the tests in these competitions.

Several years ago the Seattle public schools declared that mathematics education is racist and "Western math" has been used as a tool to oppress people.

Source: https://www.hoover.org/research/seattle-schools-propose-teach-math-education-racist-will-california-be-far-behindseattle

 

According to Seattle educators, math instruction in the United States is an example of “Western Math,” which apparently is the appropriation of mathematical knowledge by Western cultures. While everyone agrees that two plus two is four, three times three is nine, and that there are three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle, Western Math critics worry about more nuanced issues, such as why we teach kids Western counting and not, for example, how the Aborigines count.

Students will be taught how “Western Math” is used as a tool of power and oppression, and that it disenfranchises people and communities of color. They will be taught that “Western Math” limits economic opportunities for people of color. They will be taught that mathematics knowledge has been withheld from people of color. 

I am trying to wrap my mind around the fact that if "Western Math" is a tool of power and oppression, and if math knowledge has been withheld from people of color, how is it that all the top high school math students in the world are people of color with roots in Far Eastern world countries?

All of this leads us to this story that earned headlines last week where New York City is going to pay almost $2 billion to prospective teachers who could not pass the school district's old teacher certification test.

Source: https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyc-to-pay-1-8-billion-over-old-racist-teaching-exam-but-blacks-performed-poorly-on-newer-exams-too

Settlement amounts for some individuals could approach $2 million.

These amounts also do not include possible pension payments that might also be owed. The settlement pays the failed teachers full pay from the time they could have been teaching. In some cases this goes back almost 30 years.

A federal judge had earlier ruled that the test was racist because 90% of Whites passed the test but only about 50% of Black and Hispanic teachers did.

However, even after the test was reformed, the disparate pass rates were still evident.

The new test, the Praxis exam, which is used by a number of other states, showed that African American applicants had passing rates 35% lower than White test takers.

New York City is already spending about $38,000 per student and yet the majority of students are not proficient in Reading and Math test scores.

What do you do these days when someone can't pass a test?

You get rid of the test.

“In 2017, New York State scrapped its requirement that teachers must pass a literacy test ‘because just 46 percent of Hispanic test takers and 41 percent of black test takers passed it on the first try, compared with 64 percent of white candidates,” the book said.

Teaching exams are notoriously easy, essentially measuring whether the teacher could pass the class she is teaching. Praxis’ creators said that “All of the content and skills in the three Praxis 1 tests … cover skills that do not exceed a high school level.”

In the meantime, while we spend time arguing about whether this or that is racist, Asians with two-parent families, a focus on education and a strong work ethic, ace all the tests and take home all the medals.

Not Ready For Prime Time

I find the political establishment's infatuation with electric cars to be very interesting.

Governments around the world are attempting to mandate the future use of electric cars.

This is supposed to be an important step to wean ourselves from vehicles that run on fossil fuels and help to protect the world from climate change.

Policies have been enacted to provide generous subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles at the federal level in the United States. 

Lawmakers in the EU, Canada and Australia have already approved bans on the sale of gas-powered cars in 2035 and forward.

At the state level in the United States, California is requiring that all new cars and light trucks sold in the state must be all-electric beginning in 2035.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1152627751/new-cars-in-california-must-be-zero-emissions-by-2035-can-the-power-grid-handle-

By the end of this decade, California is requiring that 68% of new vehicles sold in the state must be zero-emissions. That is just 7 years away.

For California to be able to charge all of those electric vehicles it needs to triple the amount of electricity it currently produces.

Who wants to wager whether that is going to occur in the next decade or so?

Beyond the obvious disconnect between mandating EV's but not having the power generation infrastructure to support the conversion, all of this sounds like something you would have expected in the the Soviet Union or Communist China when government economic planners would solely determine what was produced and what was available to be purchased by consumers.

Predictably, the results were disastrous.

Both had to abandon their communist economic policies in favor of a market-based approach.

These types of mandates have no business being government policy in the United States of America.

I am all for cleaner, more efficient and cost-effective forms of energy or transportation. However, it makes absolutely no sense to ban proven energy sources or to mandate EV's.

They simply are not ready for prime time right now.

What Biden and the Democrats want us to do would be akin to banning horses and mandating the purchase of automobiles in the early 20th century because horse manure was polluting all of the country's roads.

Did we mandate gas stoves in all homes in the late 19th to limit the use of firewood to heat people's homes because of smoke pollution in the late 19th century?

Or electricity to insure that we did not continue to kill whales for the oil that was used in lamps of the day?

Technology advances solved these problems but we did not ban what worked to keep the world going in the meantime. 

The new technology was adopted naturally by consumers when it made economic and commercial sense  as it became apparent the new alternatives were demonstrably better.

Electric vehicles may someday be proven to be superior to internal combustion powered vehicles.

However, that is not where we are today.

Putting Tesla aside, there is little consumer interest in most electric vehicles currently.

For example, consider electric vehicle sales in the United States in the first half of this year.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of EV sales by individual models in the first 6 months of 2023.

For context, there were approximately 8 million vehicles sold in the United States in the first half of 2023 with EV's accounting for just over 5% of all sales.

Right now there isn't any general consumer interest in EV's.

There is only interest in Elon Musk's Tesla and that is more of a high-end niche luxury model right now.

However, Tesla is aggressively attempting to reach into the middle market by lowering the prices on some of its car models. Tesla has cut the prices for some of its Model Y and Model 3 vehicles at least six times this year. The Model Y price is 20% lower today than it was at the beginning of the year at a list price just under $50,000.

That being said, the mass of consumers are just not interested in EV's at this point.

Electric vehicles are currently piling up on dealer lots (except Tesla) as this Axios article documents.

Source: https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/unsold-electric-cars-are-piling-up-on-dealer-lots

Similar trends are being seen in Europe.

Volkswagen just announced that sales of EV's are running 30% below company forecasts.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/volkswagen-slashes-electric-vehicle-production-102056720.html

Layoffs are occurring in the German plant that manufactures EV's.

A company executive explained why sales are down.

"We are experiencing strong customer reluctance in the electric vehicle sector."

Ford is experiencing similar headwinds in its efforts to sell EV's.

It currently has a 117-day supply of its Mustang Mach-E electric vehicle.

Ford also lost $34,000 on every EV it sold last year.

Ford is now in the process of laying off as many as 3,000 workers to cut costs in its transition to electric vehicles.

Of course, it was just last September that the Biden administration was touting the fact that the EV manufacturing boom was going to create tens or thousands good-paying jobs at companies like Ford.

Worse still is the plight of Lordstown Motors, an enterprise that was going to see electric pickup trucks manufactured in a former GM assembly in Ohio, 

Lordstown filed for bankruptcy last week.

This was another "green" plant that Biden hailed as transformative which was provided with over $1 billion in federal money.

Lordstown Motors is not alone.

Take a look at these other electric vehicle manufacturers which were going to be "the next Tesla".

One automobile company has resisted the political pressure from governments around the world to go all-in on electric vehicles---Toyota.

Toyota's CEO for the last 13 years, Akio Toyoda, has taken a lot of criticism for Toyota's resistance to the EV strategy. He recently stepped down from the top job in the face of pressure from critics and stakeholders for this politically unpopular stance.

However, Toyota's position on EV's has been well considered and researched.

An article in Top Speed provided the background and reasoning for the Toyota position.

Toyota is concerned that switching to pure electric vehicles is not practical in the near future. Outgoing CEO Akio Toyoda held the opinion that EVs are simply “overhyped” and that having too many of them could potentially be problematic. In his view, the lack of supporting infrastructure coupled with the high cost of EVs makes their mass adoption infeasible. But all that is now concealed from the public eye since EVs currently make up only about one-percent of the world’s automotive fleet. If the number of electric cars surges, the reality will start to sink slowly. Electricity demand will top the list of problems to address when EVs flood the market. The U.S alone needs a 40-percent increase in power production to withstand the load demand that EVs will create by 2030. 

Toyota feels that going all-electric will leave a significant proportion of its customers in total darkness. With over 10.5 million copies sold across 200 countries in 2021, no automaker has penetrated the world’s market like Toyota. The company boasts a substantial share of all markets, and more so, in developing countries where charging infrastructure is very poor. These regions cannot afford to put up infrastructure to support EVs by 2035. On top of that, electric cars are very expensive. The government subsidies to incentivize people to buy EVs make them a little cheaper at the moment. However, it’s unknown how long governments will hold on to these incentives, especially when mass production commences. Without incentives, many consumers would not be willing to break their banks just to own an electric car. 

Toyota is not opposed to EV's per se. Their view is that a balanced approach that includes EV's, hybrids, gas-powered and even hydrogen-powered vehicles would be much more effective in reducing carbon emissions.

On the surface, going fully electric looks like a perfect plan to reduce carbon emissions. But Toyota's chief scientist, Gill Pratt, refutes this idea not just by word of mouth, but with evidence from a mathematical model he devised. Pratt’s model revealed that having a blend of gas-powered and hybrid cars on the roads leads to less overall emissions compared to electric-only. This forms the basis of Toyota’s reluctance to go fully electric. The company believes that adopting a diverse powertrain instead of pure electric is more viable. They call it a balanced approach - implying hybrid cars. That’s why Toyota is aggressively pushing to produce hydrogen-powered vehicles too.

Of course, it seems that no one is interested anymore in logic, practical reasoning and common sense.

You may soon be forced into buying an electric vehicle whether you want one or not.

If you are, you actually may be lucky.

Many others may soon be in a position where they will not be able to own a private vehicle because the price has surpassed their ability to pay or there is simply not enough power in the electric grid available to power it.

EV's may not be ready for prime time.

However, the politicians seem to be determined for their show even though their thesis is contradicted by climate history and to the detriment of the people they are supposed to serve.

Supreme Thoughts

Leftist Democrats melted down after the recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and student debt cancellation.

For example, Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that the Supreme Court took away important constitutional rights in the affirmative action case.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/karine-jean-pierre-accuses-scotus-of-taking-away-important-constitutional-rights-in-affirmative-action-case

I am not sure what rights she is talking about.

Is there a right to be admitted to a college in which you have inferior academic credentials compared to other applicants?

In particular, does one minority group (African-American) have greater rights under the Constitution than another minority group (Asians)?

She infers that the American people are unhappy with the decision and with the Supreme Court in general which the Left is trying to characterize as controlled by an out of touch group of right wing extremists justices appointed by Republican Presidents/

"This is really, really important and I know the American people are really tracking this, as they should be." 

However, recent polling suggests that the Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action is supported by every major demographic group in the United States.

That includes Blacks and Hispanics who are supposed to be the prime beneficiaries of affirmative action policies.

Do you approve or disapprove of the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action?

Whites-- 65% approve/23% disapprove

Hispanics-- 45%/30%

Blacks-- 43%/36%

Male--62%/27%

Female--56%/26%

Age 18-29--49%/26%

Age 65+--65%/29%

Urban voters--51%/30%

Suburban voters--59%/30%

Rural voters--65%/20%

<$50k income--58%/23%

>$100k income--55%/38%

The only demographic groups overall that disapproved of the decision were liberals and Biden voters in 2020.

Liberals--26%/60%

Moderates--56%/23%

Conservatives--90%/5%

Biden 2020 voters--32%/56%

Trump 2020 voters--89%/3%

Source: https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/kpnwbn3sup/econTabReport.pdf#page46

I think this again shows that there is a wide gap between the America Biden and the Democrats want, compared to the views the majority of Americans have on issues like this.

The narrative that the Supreme Court is out of touch and the justices are disconnected from each other on major issues of law is also belied by the facts.

Many Democrats are using this narrative to support a view that the Supreme Court should increase the number of justices or be reformed in some way (term limits, age limits, etc).

For example, Joe Biden criticized the Supreme Court last week by saying it was "not a normal court".

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/29/joe-biden-affirmative-action-supreme-court-reaction#:~:text=Joe%20Biden%20slammed%20the%20US,student%20diversity%20in%20higher%20education.

Not normal in that it is not finding "rights" in the Constitution that simply do not exist except in the minds of a liberal jurists?

However, in the Supreme Court term that just ended, 50% of all its decisions were actually unanimous.

89% of the cases had at least one liberal justice in the majority.

Only 8% of the decided cases were 6-3 decisions along ideological lines.

That simply does not look like a Court that is off the rails in any way.

As to the argument that this Supreme Court is somehow throwing out precedent and the principle of stare decisis...

Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis

The data actually shows that the Roberts court has followed precedent at a much higher rate than what the experience has generally been in the past 80 years with the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court...one more example that the narrative and rhetoric of the Democrats is not supported by real facts.

However, that will not stop the Democrats from repeating the narrative over and over.

It is no different with the Biden's administration's current massive messaging effort promoting "Bidenomics" that I wrote about recently.

Facts mean nothing.

The message is all that matters to them.

On the economy. Affirmative action. Or the Supreme Court.

They want voters to trust the message rather than the facts.

If you doubt that consider this excerpt from an Associated Press article on why Biden and his surrogates have coined the phrase "Bidenomics" and have been repeating it over and over in the last week.

Repetition is the underlying principle in effective propaganda.

Source: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/repetition-lie-truth-propaganda/

That is a supreme thought to always keep in mind when assessing what is happening around us with comments about the Supreme Court or anything else.