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Biden Pandemic Economy Links from other news sources.

Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts.

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Here’s what you get with Wind and Solar. 2/3 of the country may suffer blackouts. Large swathes of the U.S. could suffer blackouts this summer, according to the annual assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

So as we continue to shut down coal and Natural Gas plants the threat gets greater for summer black outs. Wind and Solar just aren’t reliable. They say wind and solar are less expensive but you see the cost rising nation wide.

Those regions include the entire continental U.S. from Texas to the West Coast, along with large portions of the Midwest and New England.

(Courtesy: NERC)Have we so soon forgotten what happened in California and Texas? Now with more electric vehicles, the strain will be greater.

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Economy Links from other news sources.

Shell Faces Lawsuit Over ‘Pollution Events’ at Cracker Plant

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Source for this article can be found here.

Shell Faces Lawsuit Over ‘Pollution Events’ at Cracker Plant. Shell did receive about 1.6 billion in state funds, but spent six billion dollars of their own money to build this plant that sat on  800 acres of old steel mill land.

So now seven years later the environmental kooks want to cause issues. Every time there was a pollution issue, Shell responded and fixed it. But that’s not good enough for the loons.

The plaintiffs want the court to order Shell to “take all actions necessary” to obey federal and state law, asses civil penalties of up to $117,468 per day for each violation of the Clean Air Act, assess penalties of $25,000 per day, per violation, of the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act and enjoin Shell from operating the plant unless it is compliant with the CAA and the APCA, the complaint states.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Who really pays to phase out diesel in California?

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By 

If the United Nations passed a resolution requiring California residents, and only California residents, to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per year in fees in order to show leadership to the rest of the world on an issue of importance, we would hope Californians’ elected representatives would raise an objection to that.

After all, the cost of “leadership” shouldn’t be borne by the people of one state, especially when the cost hits low- and middle-income families hardest.

Yet that is exactly what’s happening, except the dictate isn’t coming from the United Nations. It’s coming from California’s own state government.

California prides itself on its leadership on the issue of climate change, but perhaps officials should spend less time bragging and more time adding up what their decisions are actually costing California households.

The unanimous vote by the California Air Resources Board to impose a forced phase-out of diesel trucks is the latest example.

“Ten years from now, when we look back to this day … we can say that California has changed the world,” said Gideon Kracov, a Los Angeles-based environmental attorney who sits on the air resources board.

The price of changing the world now includes a ban on the sale of new diesel trucks in California starting in 2036 and a requirement for large trucking companies to convert their fleets to electric models by 2042.

During a seven-hour meeting ahead of the board’s vote, officials of city and county governments spoke out against CARB’s zero-emissions deadlines, calling them “impossible.”


The cost of “leadership” will put new pressure on already stressed city and county budgets. Local governments will have to replace fleets of trucks used for every government service from garbage pick-up to street repair. Charging stations will add additional costs. Who will pay for it all? Taxpayers, of course.

CARB’s mandated conversion to zero-emissions trucks will also raise the price of commercial transportation, with UPS and Amazon just two examples of companies that will incur significant additional expenses to operate in California.

Even the air board staff had to acknowledge that California’s charging infrastructure is inadequate to support all-electric truck fleets statewide. Significant upgrades will be needed, posing challenges for utility companies. Who will pay for it?

The cost of upgrading charging infrastructure on the utility side will be borne by all ratepayers. Under a new rate structure mandated by state law, customers of investor-owned utilities including Southern California Edison will pay a higher fixed charge on their monthly bills, a charge that will include the cost of infrastructure upgrades. The law requires income-based tiers for the fixed charges, in an effort to lessen the burden on lower- and middle-income households.

Another way to lessen the burden on lower- and middle-income households is to stop pretending that Californians can afford this accelerated transition to all-electric transportation.

Southern California Edison CEO Steven Powell told our editorial board recently that California by itself cannot affect the global climate, but said the state’s leadership will have an impact.

Californians deserve transparency and accountability for the cost of the measures the state is taking to provide that leadership, but state lawmakers have delegated too much authority to unelected regulators. Elected officials must do more to oversee agency decisions that will have significant consequences for consumers and taxpayers.

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COVID Economy Reprints from others. Uncategorized Unions

Unions destroy the California housing market.

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This editorial board routinely decries the failure of state lawmakers to address some of the biggest issues that confront California, but we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the state’s continuing commitment to loosen the encrusted housing-construction rules that create years-long delays to build important new projects.

The latest two governors have signed dozens of housing-related bills — the most significant of which reduce housing regulations and zoning requirements. One of the earliest ones is 2017’s Senate Bill 35 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. Although we generally disagree with his politics, we can’t deny that Wiener has been a force of nature on the housing front.

SB 35 created a template for housing reform. It gives developers have a right to build their properties without going through the long and subjective local approval process provided the projects meet some basic standards.

For instance, the streamlined projects must be multi-family projects located on an urban infill site and conform to general zoning and design standards. The projects also must contain certain levels of affordability and conform to a long list of other standards. Developers also were required to pay their workers union-level wages.

Obviously, we prefer a wider loosening of standards, but negotiating any serious reform that might actually pass in the state Capitol means confronting the vested interests that hold sway. SB 35 passes our test of offering far more good than bad, even if we have to hold our collective noses at the bad.

Prominent research already has detailed the specific ways that SB 35 has helped cities build affordable-housing and homeless-related projects. However, SB 35 will sunset in 2026 and Wiener has introduced a new bill, Senate Bill 423, to make its provisions permanent.

The legislative sausage-making process never is pleasant, but it’s dismaying to see major unions throw a wrench in that process to achieve self-interested provisions. The bill would eliminate certain union-only hiring regulations because, as CalMatters explained, “there aren’t enough unionized construction workers to build all the new housing California requires.”

Two major unions have admirably backed the bill even though some of the more politically powerful construction unions oppose it, the article adds. Former Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez — author of disastrous Assembly Bill 5, which largely banned independent contracting — attacked the proposed change in her usual class-warfare manner.


Unfortunately, local governments also opposed the law’s extension. Transparently slow-growth efforts by cities such as Huntington Beach to stymie housing construction, however, only reinforce the need for state regulatory pre-emptions.
Regarding union opposition, construction trades already enjoy many government-granted privileges. Trade unions tout the benefits that they offer builders in terms of training and apprenticeship programs. So union workers will naturally grab the lion’s share of new construction jobs, but they want to use the government to grab it all.

“We say, represent and raise all workers up,” Northern California Carpenters Regional Council executive secretary Jay Bradshaw told CalMatters. “It’s an organizing opportunity and we’ll produce housing at all income levels.” We wholeheartedly agree.

Housing streamlining rules such as SB 423 will help the state meet its desperate housing needs – and help all workers in the process. They help cities, too.

It would be a shame if narrow interests derail one of the rare areas where the state has the right idea.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Happy but getting the heck out of California.

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California lost a net of more than 114,000 residents during the last year and about 500,000 over the last three years.

So why are Californians who stayed and those who arrived during that same time among the happiest folks in America?

It might be that they are among the select who can afford to live in this state, where the median housing price of more than $700,000 puts California among the top three priciest places in the nation. Its most populous county, Los Angeles, even tops the statewide median price figure by about $100,000.

Strikingly, research indicates it’s not the most expensive places in California that are happiest. Atherton, whose people average out as America’s wealthiest, does not make the top 10 list of the happiest spots in the nation, while six other California cities are on that list, as reported by the website smartassett.com.

Those six include the happiest city, Sunnyvale, hard by the headquarters of Apple and Google in the heart of the Silicon Valley; Fremont, where most Teslas are built, ranked fourth; with the Sacramento suburb Roseville seventh, San Jose eighth, the Los Angeles bedroom suburb of Santa Clarita ninth and Irvine in Orange County rounding out the top 10.

Among the happiness measures the study used were the percentage of individuals earning more than $100,000 per year, living costs as a percentage of income, violent crime rates, life expectancy and the number of poor mental health days reported.

Sunnyvale ranked first because 62.5% of its residents earned more than $100,000 (highest in the nation) and only 5% lived below the poverty level, third lowest nationally.

No. 10 Irvine ranked high in every category, with more than 45% of residents earning more than $100,000 and living costs consuming just 38% of income. Violent crime is also very low there, at 51 incidents per 100,000 population for the last year, and citizens reporting poor mental health on just 11.3% of their days, with average life expectancy almost 83 years.


By contrast, the happiest place in Texas, the Dallas suburb of Plano, with 288,000 population (about double the size of the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance), saw about one-third of its populace earn more than $100,000 and cost of living expenses eat up 40.3% of income, even though housing prices are far lower than in Irvine.

Some might say that there’s too much emphasis on money in this study. But a 2021 University of Pennsylvania study found a direct link between happiness and income growth.

Another major factor in happiness, as shown by many studies, is marriage: The higher the percentage of married people in a locale, the happier the average person will be.

And among the top 10 happiest cities in the smartasset.com report, the majority of adults were married in all but one — Arlington, Virginia, which came in second on the overall happiness index.

Still, despite its strong showing on happiness, California has seen slightly more than 1% of its people depart for other states over the last three years. Again, the primary factor is money, if the state’s Finance Department is to be believed.


That department hangs responsibility for most of the population loss on housing prices. Prices are too high for most Americans to buy in, even if they sell off fully paid-off homes in other places.
High prices also cause many Californians to sell and move to larger, cheaper homes elsewhere, in many cases pocketing hundreds of thousands in the process. It’s hard to argue with buying larger quarters surrounded by more open space, all at lower cost.

These moves have been eased by the great workplace shift that’s occurred almost simultaneously with California’s largest-ever population losses. With vast numbers of white collar workers now able to work remotely from almost anywhere, and still keep their high-paying jobs, it’s completely expectable that some will move out of state, and some have.

But if legislative strategies designed to make housing here denser come to reality, it’s also expectable that some prices will drop and allow more people to move here and enjoy the lifestyle that makes this state dominate the list of happy places.

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Economy Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

US Regional Bank Stocks Crash – PacWest Down 30%, Western Alliance Down 25%, Metropolitan Bank Down 21%

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Thanks to Gateway Pundit for this awesome article.

On Monday JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon announced the banking crisis was over.

This was after JPMorgan Chase was allowed to purchase the assets from failed First Republic Bank.

On Tuesday, stocks plunged for several regional banks.

1. PacWest, $PACW: -30%

2. Western Alliance, $WAL: -25%

3. Metropolitan Bank, $MCB: -21%

4. HomeStreet, $HMST: -15%

5. Zions Bank, $ZION: -10%

6. KeyCorp, $KEY: -7%

7. HarborOne, $HONE: -6%

8. Citizens Financial, $CFG: -5%

Via The Kobeissi Letter.

 

 

The worst is NOT over.

 

It was another rough day for banks.
Via Reuters.

Los Angeles-based PacWest tumbled by more than 27%. It is ranked 53rd among U.S. lenders with $41.2 billion in assets as of the end of last year, according to Federal Reserve data.

Phoenix, Arizona-based lender Western Alliance, the No. 40 U.S. bank with $68 billion in assets, sank 15% while Cleveland, Ohio-based KeyCorp (KEY.N), the 20th largest bank with $188 billion in assets, fell 9%.

Comerica (CMA.N), a Dallas, Texas-based bank ranked 37th among U.S. lenders with $86 billion in assets, shed 12%. Columbus, Georgia-based Synovus Financial Corp (SNV.N), with $60 billion in assets and ranked the 42nd U.S. biggest bank, lost nearly 7%.

Valley National Bankcorp (VLY.O), which owns Valley National Bank based in Passaic, New Jersey and is the 43rd largest lender with $57 billion in assets, closed 3% lower after shedding more than 20% on Monday.

 

 

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Economy Links from other news sources.

Thanks Joey Boy. Joe Biden and a loon said the economy is great. Only 8% of Americans agree with them.

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  • CNBC’s Financial Confidence Survey, conducted in partnership with Momentive, found most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
  • More women than men admit feeling financially stressed.

Joe Biden and a loon said the economy is great. Only 8% of Americans agree with them. CNBC did a recent survey on people personal finances. Only 8% aren’t worried or stressed out. 70% are totally stressed. The rest are somewhat stressed.

Majority living paycheck to paycheck. Two biggest worries are Inflation and the Economies instability. 59 and 43%. You even have a loon from California claiming they’re able to buy more fried chicken and flavored drinks.

SMH.

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Economy Just my own thoughts Life Links from other news sources. Science

Why Progressives way of doing Green Energy makes no sense.

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Why Progressives way of doing Green Energy makes no sense. China uses coal to puts more toxic gasses in the atmosphere than the US and all the European nations combined. So what does the US and European nations do? Buys Solar Panels from China.

China doesn’t only benefit from not having to pay so-called climate reparations. But they benefit from the entire UN Green New Deal [and] net-zero agenda because the world is going to be looking to China. The U.S. buys over 80 percent of our solar panels currently from China. We rely on China for all the rare earth mining for lithium and cobalt. China is expanding mining operations in Africa — places like the Congo with allegations of underage labor of children of 8, 9 years old by international human rights groups.

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Economy Links from other news sources.

US Credit Card Debt Surpasses $1 Trillion for First Time in History

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Every day you see or hear Progressives say how great this economy. But yet our debt and deficit continues to rise. The poor get poorer and of course the rich always  do well. Don’t believe me, just look at Biden’s bank accounts. US credit card debt surpassed $1 Trillion for the first time in history as more and more Americans have to borrow to get by.

We have  this from ABC.

U.S. consumers’ total credit card debt exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, according to a new study by the personal finance website WalletHub.

Consumers took on an additional $92.2 billion in debt last year, the highest single-year amount since 2007. The average U.S. household owes $8,600 on credit cards, WalletHub found…

 

 

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Economy Links from other news sources.

What happened at SVB? Will this be Biden’s Waterloo?

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What happened at SVB? Will this be Biden’s Waterloo? I find it amusing that the left is now using their old stand by. Things went wrong so it must be Trumps fault. First we had a run on SVB. 40 BILLION in withdrawals in one day would bring down most banks. Also the Fed stopped doing the stress tests on banks in 2018. And it’s coming out that this bank as of late has been mismanaged.

Who was the Fed chief in 2018? If you guessed Powell, you’re correct. Same guy who’s raising these interest rates and caused the inflation to continue. And of course Biden reappointed Powell after Trump admitted he made a mistake appointing Powell in 2018.

“SVB’s institutional challenges reflect a larger and more widespread systemic issue: The banking industry is sitting on a ton of low-yielding assets that, thanks to the last year of rate increases, are now far underwater — and sinking,” wrote Konrad Alt, co-founder of Klaros Group.

Alt estimated that rate increases have “effectively wiped out approximately 28% of all the capital in the banking industry as of the end of 2022.”

Under the Obama- Biden administration, hundreds of banks failed. Is this a repeat of past performance? We have had I believe six banks that have ben shut down. This isn’t over and let’s see how this administration handles things. See the chart below.

Hundreds of Banks failed under Biden and Obama.

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