Category Archives: Our Economic Mess

This Just Doesn’t Make Sense!

Posted on by Standard 1

I live out in the boonies – a rural area in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina. And everywhere I drive out here I see big reels of fiber optic cable waiting for a crew to come along and dig trenches to install it.

Thanks, taxpayers, for ponying up the $50 billion plus to fund this misguided attempt to bring modern life to us hicks in the sticks. But your congressmen should have asked us before they wrote the contracts and checks to their big tech buddies.

When I carved out a spot in the woods for a new house and shop, I pondered how I was going to get internet and television service out here in the middle of nowhere. Satellite TV was and is available, of course, and we had been satellite customers before. But as the satellite carriers lose market share to streaming TV services they raise prices to stay in business, so satellite TV has become crazy expensive.

Unfortunately, the cable companies who pig out on taxpayer broadband funds have not reached our neck of the woods, and would not tell us if, or when, they would get here.

So we put a dish in our yard for TV, and a second dish for HughesNet satellite internet service. At the time HughesNet operated at the speed of dark – barely functional for email and maybe some web surfing, but forget about any kind of streaming. Another option was a cellular network hotspot, but we did not have towers close enough to make that practical either.

Then Elon Musk came to the rescue with his StarLink service – fast, reliable, and affordable. It replaced our cable and internet services with REAL high-speed rural broadband at half the cost of the fiber optic cable service our federal government is subsidizing. (Musk has donated Starlink devices to disaster areas all over the globe, providing free internet service in areas with no functioning infrastructure on the ground.)

SO WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT STILL SPENDING SO MUCH OF OUR MONEY PUTTING IN OBSOLETE FIBER OPTIC CABLE WHEN STARLINK IS THE PROVEN FAST AND EFFICIENT MODERN WIRELESS INTERNET ALTERNATIVE?

Probably for the same reason they insist on replacing powerful, plentiful, affordable carbon-based energy with solar and wind electricity that can’t possibly meet our needs at any cost. Our government does not run like a business, continually maximizing profit and performance. No, our government officials only seek to pay off their lobbyists and campaign contributors. Once a spending program is approved by Congress, there is no turning back. Those dollars will be spent as allocated, regardless of whether it makes economic sense.

Now, take this senseless $50 billion broadband boondoggle and multiply it. How many more obsolete and nonsensical programs are burning through our limited tax dollars and exploding our debt?

Last year South Carolina’s Republican legislature gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer cash and incentives to VW to build an electric RV plant. The electric vehicle industry is flopping like a dying fish now, as it has become clear that even with taxpayer incentives electric vehicles will never be feasible. As obsolete EV production plants close all over the globe, new tech research shows hydrogen power may be the energy source of the future.

Godspeed to you, President Trump. You are the first president in many generations who looks at government spending from the taxpayer’s viewpoint, seeking real efficiency and transparency. And Elon’s DOGE effort was not wasted. It exposed, but failed to stop, the crazy wastefulness in our government spending.

If only our Republican legislators would see the light.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well, the blues jumped a rabbit and run him a mile
The rabbit sat down and he cried like a child
The blues said son you got to learn one rule
Don’t place no trust in a educated fool
Educated fool, educated fool
Educated fool, educated fool

EDUCATED FOOL – Boz Skaggs

Hey Moe! How About Them Tariffs?

Posted on by Standard 1

Today’s stock market activity looks like the work of three men: Larry, Curly and Moe.

This morning news reporters breathlessly claimed that President Trump has put a hold on his promised tariffs against imported goods. Then the markets went crazy as nobody could decide if the reports were accurate (no, he didn’t – yes, he did – wait, is this fake news or not?). Financial advisors and political pundits flip-flopped like catfish in the bottom of a boat. I saw the DOW and NASDAQ drop 3% and then bounce back to 2% gains inside of 15 minutes.

All of this gyration makes clear that the stock market is not a real economic indicator. And that the news and political folks play on our emotions constantly. And that our level of economic sophistication, not to mention our attention spans, have atrophied to something like the third-grade level.

In reality, nothing in the economy is different today than last month. But the mere mention of any Trump initiative is sure to send everybody into a tizzy. Those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome believe that he is hell-bent on destroying our country (and the world), because he is a Nazi Fascist Orange Man who wants revenge for being treated so badly by so many for so long.

The fact is, our stock market has been wildly over-valued for a long time, and the recent downturn is no different from any correction before. Remember that nasty inflation during the Biden years that caused prices to go crazy? During all of that inflation, the stock market continued to float higher and higher. Analysts touted greater sales and profits by our domestic businesses. But sales were up only because of inflated prices, not because more units were being produced and sold – each dollar in the system was worth less. And profits were higher because sales were higher.

This disconnect between production and prices caused the stock market to blow up artificially, and sooner or later it had to pop.

Maybe the threat of tariffs scared some people into a doom-and-gloom selloff. But folks, it was going to happen anyway, just like it has many times before. And the market has always recovered before, usually in a matter of a few months.

Trump is just shaking things up and trying to drag the world economy back to some semblance of sanity where our debt doesn’t increase by a trillion bucks every couple of months, 20% of working-age men aren’t home on disability, and we don’t send checks to people who died 50 years ago.

Watching all this chaos, I can’t help but chuckle a little bit. Nyuk, nyuk nyuk.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Hey Moe! Nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!
We-be-be-be-be-be!
Oh, wise guy!
We never miss a chance to get up and dance
We’re doing the Curly Shuffle!
THE CURLY SHUFFLE – Jump ‘n the Saddle Band


Draining the Swamp – Trump 2.0

Posted on by Standard Reply

The first few weeks of Trump 2.0 has been exhilarating for long-suffering conservative Americans. Early reports of young brainiacs with their AI algorithms revealing mountains of waste, fraud and inefficiency are music to our ears. Volunteer auditor-in-chief Elon Musk and newly-confirmed director of Office, Management and Budget (OMB) Russ Vought hit the ground running – no, they hit the ground flying at hypersonic speed! They are determined to streamline performance, knock down the debt and deficits, and get rid of federal flab. As Trump would say, they are attacking the Swamp with a speed and ferocity “no one has ever seen before”.

So far, so good. Trump 2.0 has already:

  • eliminated DEI departments, programs and costs
  • attacked woke and politically weaponized practices
  • exposed inappropriate spending, targeting foreign and domestic outlays that taxpayers would never approve
  • required federal employees to show up for work and prove their merit
  • closed the borders to illegal immigration and started deportations
  • negotiated favorable foreign trade arrangements
  • promised to get rid of unnecessary and duplicative departments, unused buildings and unneeded personnel
  • identified opportunities for upgraded technology and efficiency

But all this swamp-draining optimism seems eerily familiar. I recall a similar feeling at the beginning of Trump 1.0, and found an old article I wrote about it eight years ago. My enthusiastic and well-intended predictions turned out to be embarrassingly inaccurate.

For one thing, my article focused on one of many less-than-stellar Trump cabinet appointees, Mick Mulvaney. Mick was plucked by Trump from his gig as SC legislator to seek and destroy federal waste and corruption via the OMB. It didn’t happen.

When we first met, Mulvaney impressed me. He was very bright, had a real grasp of Tea Party conservative principles, and walked the talk as a founder of the fledgling House Freedom Caucus. And he hired Russ Vought, a friend and mentor from Heritage Action, as his right-hand man. But I got a chill when I asked Mulvaney if he could implement zero-based budgeting to get our spending under control. He said I should forget about reducing spending. “Our budget is so huge and complicated that nobody in government will even try to cut spending – ever.” Mulvaney said that the only way to reduce the debt, which was about $10 trillion at the time, was to outgrow it by revving up the economy and tax revenues. Tax revenues grew rapidly, but spenders gonna spend – and some of them will spend $2 for ever $1 taken in.

Needless to say, Trump’s success at draining the swamp was about as real as my photo-shopped picture of Mick wrestling an alligator. The swamp creatures from the left and right were bigger and badder than Trump 1.0 bargained for, and he got his nose – and ours – bloodied.

But nobody ever said Trump is a quitter. He recognized his errors, he listened to good advice, he meticulously studied and planned, he literally dodged bullets, and he returned victorious to implement Trump 2.0. The stakes are higher this time around as our debt has ballooned to $36.5 trillion and is growing by a trillion bucks every 100 days. We don’t yet know if our Republican Senate and House will support Trump 2.0 or prefer the fetid smell of the swamp.

Last November American voters peered over the edge of a steep cliff. At the bottom we saw the extinction of our freedoms, our prosperous and moral civilization, and the future of our children. We turned away from the edge and now have One More Last Chance before we’re through.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Give me just a one more last chance Before you say we’re through I know I drive you crazy baby It’s the best that I can do We’re just some good ol’ boys, a makin’ noise I ain’t a runnin’ ’round on you Give me just a one more last chance Before you say we’re through

ONE MORE LAST CHANCE – Vince Gill

January 20, 2025 – Mixed Emotions

Posted on by Standard 1

What a historic day as President Trump is inaugurated to be our 47th president. The story is Braveheart revisited – pushed to the edge of the cliff, we let out a primal scream, and charged behind our leader into the teeth of our evil enemy. To victory!

The last four years has been nothing less than an existential battle for those of us who are engaged in the war to save our nation and culture for our children and future generations. I find myself in a swirl of mixed emotions today and am recording them for future reflection.

THANKFULNESS – thanks to God for answering prayers and for His perfect plan. Salvation is there for those who will accept it and it is our responsibility and honor to preserve and share that good news.

CELEBRATION – Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble! We have taken a daily beating from the press, from our political adversaries, from every institution in society. But we kept fighting, knowing that truth and justice always wins out in the end.

BROTHERHOOD – We had to stick together and keep each other inspired, informed, and encouraged in the face of withering attacks from a relentless enemy. For some of us it was a four year battle, but many of us have been in the trenches since the Tea Party days almost twenty years ago. I am so proud of all of my brothers and sisters who have led – and followed – when the going was tough.

HUMILITY – Our battle isn’t personal, although the other side wanted it to be. It’s tempting to shame and embarrass our vanquished opponents as they did to us. But some of those who have not been on our team just didn’t know any better. We should celebrate today and then get to work for all of our fellow citizens, because we know better and we are better than the few evil ones that did so much damage.

ANGER – I will try to release the anger I have toward those evil ones and will cut their sheep followers some slack. But it will take a while because of all the personal carnage they caused. And justice must be meted out to those with evil intent, as a deterrent to future villains. It will be hard to forgive those who arrested innocent protesters like my nephew on January 6, 2021 at the cost of prison time, loss of careers, homes, and savings. I’m confident that TODAY President Trump will pardon them all. He promised me.

DETERMINATION – I doubt most people know how close we came to losing our precious American way of life. Let’s make damn sure we don’t get pushed to the edge of that cliff again.

Onward! And may God continue to bless America!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Let’s grab the world by the scruff of the neck
And drink it down deeply and love it to death
So button your lip, baby, button your coat
Let’s go out dancing, let’s rock and roll
You’re not the only one with mixed emotions!

MIXED EMOTIONS – the Rolling Stones

Change – Get Used to It!

Posted on by Standard 1

Now that I am officially an “old fart”, I find myself looking back and comparing our current economic situation in America to what it was.

Some have a Forest Gump attitude about life. “It’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get.” My philosophy is more like what we used to say about the weather in Montana: “if you don’t like it, wait five minutes and it will change.”

My history is pretty typical of most American men of my age. I got a good education, was raised with a solid work ethic, and was able to maneuver through the risks and opportunities of a generous American free market system to enjoy a fair degree of comfort and security. While there were rich folks and poor folks, most were in the middle – working hard and enjoying a good standard of living.

I look around now and see a really different landscape. Those who are doing well are doing very well. But there seems to be a greater proportion of poverty, drugs, and empty-headed wandering every year. The middle class has been hollowed out.

The “poor” are not starving. In fact, obesity is now normalized to the point that most commercials feature fat people dancing. In ever-growing numbers, today’s economic lower strata are totally dependent on the government for basic needs and a fair amount of wants. Addiction to drugs, alcohol, and digital entertainment has destroyed the drive to improve standards of living. The “working poor” are as hard to find as two-parent families.

I live in a beautiful rural area of South Carolina, and we are bracing for rapidly accelerating population growth. Big business wants and needs what we have – space, great climate, and an apparently available, affordable work force. But I’m not sure I understand the prevailing economic formula that is driving this exodus to the sticks. Can cost-effective employees, able and willing to work, be found when the government (a) will provide them a secure and somewhat comfortable living without leaving the couch, (b) continues to increase the cost of labor through inflation and perceived “fairness” laws, and (c) no longer provides the quality of education required for employees to function profitably?


Government (mostly at the federal level) has become so bloated that it consumes nearly half of our annual GDP and the interest on our $36 trillion debt is not helping. Along with that, the unholy alliance between big government and big business has pretty much destroyed private business as we know it. The Amazons of the world dominate what is left of the private economy.

America is at a crossroads right now. If we can succeed at shrinking big government and stopping its rampaging overreach, maybe we can level the playing field of economic opportunity for all Americans.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Just gotta get used to it
We all get it in the end
Just gotta get used to it
We go down and we come up again

Another Tricky Day – the Who

A Bright Sun-shiny Day

Posted on by Standard 1

Whew!

After four years of teetering on the edge of a cliff in a hurricane, Lady Liberty can finally take a deep breath. There is hope for our nation’s survival as a functioning democratic republic.

I had been saying for some time that Trump’s support level nationwide – among the common people, not just the urban jet set – had to be nearly 80%. I can be prone to hyperbole, but I’m now feeling pretty good about that projection. After the election, now that the sun has come out, it seems that everybody loves Trump and is singing Make America Great Again.

Let’s not be naive, there are still forces of evil hell-bent on destroying our president, our country, and each of us personally. But there are also many gleeful sheep peeking out of the shadows who were afraid to show their faces before November 6. An estimated 50% of Christians did not vote, and that entire voting bloc (about 67% of Americans) is now relieved that somebody else carried Trump forward to rescue and restore their values. Add their numbers to the popular vote he actually won, and you are nearing my 80% claim.

A surprise to me is that widespread vote fraud was either not attempted or was suppressed by aggressive counteraction. I had expected a 10% to 15% cheating advantage by the left, but only a few questionable maneuvers were revealed this time around.

So, now what? Can we really turn this big ugly ship around?

Here are just a few ways that the new Trump America can emerge from the malodorous swamp and start smelling like roses very quickly:

Stop all government payments to and for non-citizens. ALL of them. The ones who are draining the most funds will leave. Start enforcing our border laws and restrict inflow to work visas only.

Stop allowing 94%+ of federal workers to “work from home”. Many already have second jobs and will quit their government jobs. Many will be eliminated by DOGE because they have proven they aren’t needed at the office. Government employment can be easily reduced by 50% or more. Easily. No really, read that last sentence again.

Implement zero-based budgeting in agencies and force Congress to present a real budget, on time, every year as required by law. The last time they did that was 1996. Make every agency actually balance their books and account for every dime. After all, that’s what the IRS requires of us.

Stop all payments to NGOs. All of them. If their functions are not important enough to be handled by our federal employees, we either don’t need the programs or the federal employees. NGOs are at the core of most of the embarrassing and egregious corruption in our federal government.

I could go on all day. But that’s a good start. Let’s enjoy the sunshine and get to work!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day

I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW – Jimmy Cliff


Whistleblower Reveals Government is Too Damn Big

Posted on by Standard 1

Warning: the following reading material contains NUMBERS. If you are allergic to numbers, or if numbers make your eyes glaze over and your head throb, you were probably educated in government schools. You may wish to exit this page and check out the latest Taylor Swift news.
[correction 10/31/24: my numbers re: presidential campaign spending were off by one comma, s/b $1.8 billion and $356 million.] Sorry, my eyes glazed over!

Okay, the whistleblower is ME. I used that to get your attention, since whistleblowers are in fashion right now. But I think I have discovered the cause of all of our problems: OUR GOVERNMENT KEEPS GETTING BIGGER WHILE OUR PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTION GETS SMALLER.

Our government has become so huge – in terms of employees, dollars received, dollars redistributed, dollars consumed in administration, dollars spent, and dollars wasted by errors and corruption – that it no longer fits our constitution or the economic formula that made us the greatest nation on Earth. Most Americans don’t understand that government does not produce anything or create any wealth. That only happens in the private sector, and sadly our private sector doesn’t create much of anything any more.

For those of you still with me, here’s are the promised numbers:

According to USAFacts.com, when President Trump left office in January of 2020, there were 2.86 million federal employees. In October of 2024 under the Biden/Harris administration that number had ballooned to 4.0 million, a staggering increase of 40%! And this does not even begin to consider the growth in state and local governments, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) fed by the Democrat machine, or the employees bought with taxpayer money that enriches crony corporations for “projects” that never seem to get done. Meanwhile, the labor participation rate in my state has dropped from nearly 70% in the mid 1970s to 57% in recent years. Government employment gets bigger while private employment shrinks.

Stats from Microsoft’s CoPilot: As of 2024, Federal employees earn, on average, $144,000 in total annual compensation. 68% of federal employees “work from home” full or part time. (First year Marines, by the way, earn $24,204 annually, and they don’t get to “work from home”!).

Back in 2012 I ran a little test to see if federal employees actually show up at work. My contention was that no federal employees other than secretaries who can’t escape are at work after 2:30 pm on a weekday or 1:00 pm on a Friday. So I randomly called several federal senior employees at 2:30 pm on a Tuesday. They were all “away from their desks”. I’m sure this test would bring the same results, or worse, today.

In 2023 government spending reached 34.4% of GDP. From 1900 until 2023, government spending averaged 25.68% of GDP.

Our national debt is now $34 trillion, up from $16.8 trillion in 2019. That’s more than double in five years. Lately I find myself repeating, “Do you know how hard it is to spend a trillion dollars? It takes a lot of people, effort, corruption, and time!”

Spending on the Biden/Harris 2024 presidential campaign has reached $1.8 billion. Trump has spent $356 million. Yes, that is trillion with a “T”! Where did all that Biden/Harris money come from? Any chance that some of it slushed through the recent multi-trillion-dollar spending bills to NGOs, unions, and crony corporations and found its way right back to the Democrats?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why so much of our private earnings is going to government and people who want to be close to big-government money. Or why there seems to be Corruption in every corner of every government office. “The consistent fear of government corruption shows a deep mistrust in government, with many Americans worried that powerful interests may be influencing it,” said Steve Pfaff, Ph.D., a sociology professor.

If Willie Sutton, famous bank robber in the 1930s, robbed banks because “that’s where the money is”, he would certainly be a US senator today.

In the heat of the current campaign, everybody is focused on personalities – who is dumb, who is mean, who is the next Hitler, who is going to give free stuff to everybody.

Nobody mentions the real problem: our government is TOO DAMN BIG!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Big money goes around the world
Big money give and take
Big money done a power of good
Big money make mistakes

Big money got a heavy hand
Big money take control
Big money got a mean streak
Big money got no soul

BIG MONEY – Rush

How Do They Spend ALL THAT MONEY?!!

Posted on by Standard 2

Our annual government spending is $6.5 trillion. Our debt is $34.7 trillion and rapidly growing. CLICK HERE TO LOOK AT THE LIVE DEBT CLOCK. It reveals some eye-popping statistics. Click on the individual fields to get more information. For example our debt is more than double that of China with less than a quarter of their population.

If you wonder why there is so much crazy stuff going on in the government lately, consider how hard it must be to legitimately spend $6.5 trillion dollars. I mean, that’s a humongous number! Our 435 congressmen are only in session for about 150 days a year, so they have to work really hard to get rid all of that money. Each congressman has to spend $100 billion every day they show up to work! Wow, no wonder they are so exhausted they can only work part time.

It is so hard to blow through that much money that, after giving some to foreign oligarchs for their wars and corruption, and taking as much off the top as they can without being obvious, our congressmen have to start passing it down to state governments as “grants”.

But it’s hard for state governments to spend that much money too, because they already have $2 trillion of their own money to get rid of. So the states pass some of their taxpayer money down to the local governments as “grants”.

But the locals already have their own $2 trillion, so it’s hard work for them to spend even more.

Yup, that’s $10.5 trillion of our hard-earned wages going to government at all levels each year. How the heck can we expect our overburdened government employees to keep track of all that money?


The South Carolina state comptroller just discovered $1.8 billion that has been sitting in a “clearance” account on the state’s books for 5 years. And they have no idea where it came from or where it should go!

This from a state legislature that just gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer cash, tax incentives and other spending to a foreign electric vehicle manufacturer while American EV companies are closing plants due to lack of demand and profitability.

Our government is not working the way it was designed. The constitution was set up as a way to keep the government out of our private business as much as possible – to let us make and spend (or keep) our own money without interference. But it wasn’t long before politicians figured out they could buy votes with OPM (other people’s money), and before you knew it half the country was living on OPM without having to make their own. And the government doesn’t even need to collect taxes, they can just print money and build debt indefinitely. Can you say inflation?

It’s just too hard for our government leaders to actually have to make things work. So our city governments grab grants to buy abandoned properties on Main Street and fund more music and art fairs. Our counties take grants to work on “economic development” by giving tax abatements to speculators as roads and bridges fall apart. And our federal government funds foreign wars and endless caravans of illegal aliens, but our own military can’t keep our ships afloat, our fighter planes flying, or enough trained personnel who are not in gender transition.

It can’t go on much longer. The debt clock says we have $267,000 of government debt per citizen plus another $75,000 of personal debt. We are all already busted!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I’m busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I’m busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won’t lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county’s gonna haul my belongings away cause I’m busted

BUSTED – Ray Charles

The Green New Deal is Dying

Posted on by Standard 1

Decades ago liberal political and cultural leaders found a topic that would frighten weak-minded people into doing things that are clearly illogical and against their best interests. “Global Warming” became the cause celebre of leftists worldwide, and has been used – often in conjunction with other concocted concerns – to bully people into accepting Marxist control over their lives.

For years we have been warned that the polar ice caps would disappear, the oceans would rise swamping coastal cities, the rain forests of South America would disappear, countless animals would be extinct, the air we breathe would be destroyed all because of fossil fuels or carbon dioxide or cow farts or something . . . it has been utter doom and gloom for all of my life, and I’m no spring chicken.

The goal of the Marxists is to shut down all energy sources that existed before they decided global warming was a thing. Petroleum has got to go, too “dirty”. Hydroelectric? Fish don’t like it. Nuclear power? The Russians melted down a nuke plant once. Coal makes people’s faces dirty. And there must be something wrong with natural gas, there is so much of it and Trump likes it.

Despite technological advances and resource discoveries that turn all of the Marxists’ fears upside down, they have persisted in trying to convert the world to new energy sources, whether they work or not, for the purpose of gaining control over our personal behavior.

Well, the new energy sources don’t work. And the world has begun to figure this out.

At the same time we are discovering that “renewable” electric energy sources are far less efficient and abundant than conventional power, we are converting our energy use to electric only.

Ford Motor Company did more to advance the standard of living for average citizens than perhaps anyone else in history by making gas-powered vehicles affordable for the masses. Then they were pushed by Marxists in government and other institutions to shift production away from internal combustion and toward battery-powered EVs. Now the car companies have announced that they are, again, cutting back on EV (electric vehicle) production, due to lack of demand.

It seems that consumers have figured out that even with huge taxpayer subsidies to both the buyers and the sellers of EVs, battery-powered vehicles are still no bargain. The range of an EV is about 300 miles, more or less, on a battery charge, and electricity is not free or readily available when all the power plants have been replaced by inefficient wind and solar and neighborhood grids can’t support the additional loads required to charge many cars overnight. The batteries must be replaced when worn out (eight to twelve years), at a cost of up to $15,000 plus installation. So the value of a used EV depletes quickly. The old batteries are a landfill disposal nightmare. The batteries require rare earth minerals to produce. Batteries don’t work well in extreme heat or cold. EVs weigh significantly more than gas-powered cars, so they are tough on tires and roads. Car battery fires are daunting for firemen, and EVs are proving much less reliable than gas-powered cars. Let’s not forget the sticker price for EVs is significantly higher than gas burners, and manufacturers are still losing a ton of money.

Any time the government has to bribe producers to make something, and/or consumers to buy something, you can bet it will end up being a bad deal for everybody, except those who take illicit advantage of somebody else’s forced investment. Free market supply and demand is perfect – producers are encouraged to make products that buyers want and can afford.

Last year the South Carolina legislature gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives and cash to Volkswagen/Scout to build a new EV manufacturing plant in the Palmetto State. The spending bill was pushed through rapidly and with little or no transparency and apparently not a lot of critical thought. One year later, car companies are cutting way back on production and plans for battery plants are being scrapped. The failure of South Carolina’s investment in the EV industry is predictable and it will be held against elected officials who voted for it.

Yes, people have wised up and the Green New Deal is now old news. It has been replaced by the Next New Pandemic.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well you could search the whole world over
And never find another like it
It's got a built in lifetime guarantee
It's a one time only offer
And darling once you've tried it
You're gonna fall in love with it you'll see

Have I Got A Deal For You - Reba McEntire

The Economy is Fine – Inflation is Only 3%!

Posted on by Standard 1

Yeah, right.

The CEO of McDonald’s acknowledged a drop in sales due to increased menu prices. Customers have noticed and criticized the price hikes, especially the nearly $18 Big Mac combo. The company aims to focus on affordability in response.

Chris Kempczinski discussed this strategy on an earnings call, highlighting a shift towards making their offerings more affordable in 2024. Despite a 3.4% growth in global same-store sales, it fell short of the expected 4.7%. Rising inflation has particularly affected low-income customers, leading to a decrease in patronage.

Daily Patriot Report – 2/7/24

Since 2020, home prices are up 45%. Car insurance has increased by 36%. 

Some other mind-numbing stats from the Heritage Foundation:

Unless you are one of the elite, jet-set, Davos/WEF “beautiful people”, you know what’s going on. The middle class will soon be completely hollowed out as our federal government borrows trillions of dollars from our grandchildren, pouring it on their friends and oligarchs around the world, while inviting millions of third-world sparrows to our once-prosperous eagle’s nest.

We all know that there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Our current administration is immune to embarrassment when it comes to issuing statistical propaganda. And their partners in crime, big tech and big media, are quick to cover up any bad news before it reaches the “smelly Wal-Mart people” they so detest.

I went to college before they were liberal indoctrination camps. My business and accounting mentor, a very wise and accomplished semi-retired CFO from Boston, taught me a succinct and powerful lesson he called “the test of reasonableness”: whenever you are given a number that someone is using to try to influence you, question it in your mind and apply some simple math. If the rough-cut calculation doesn’t make immediate sense, you are being conned! 

Hey Biden Administration! Credit card debt is through the roof. Nobody can afford to buy a new home. Working-class shoppers pick up an item, see the price, and sadly put it back on the shelf. Your inflation numbers do not pass the test of reasonableness.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

ENJOY SOME FINE ROCKIN’ BLUES BY JONNY LANG –

Lie to me
It doesn’t matter any more
It could never be
The way it was before

LIE TO ME – Jonny Lang