Elections have consequences, especially this one.
A decision has been made – never mind who made it – to make owning and driving a car much more expensive in the very near future.
Even if you don’t buy a new one.
One of the tenets of the Biden Harris campaign theology was fossil fuels bad – and “green” alternatives good. Whether they are, in fact, good, is one question. Whether they will dramatically increase the cost of driving is beyond question.
One way cost will increase will be indirect, via a decrease in supply – which necessarily raises the price of anything there’s high demand for. Motor fuels are in high demand. Whether you liked the Orange Man or not, the fact is he increased the supply by increasing production, a thing which the Joker-smiling creature (when he isn’t wearing his Face Diaper) promises to decrease production of. How much he fulfills that promise will determine how high the cost of motor fuels goes up.
Partially.
It is also likely he will further uptick them via new taxes on the finished product, in order to discourage the buying and burning for the sake of the “greening.” Maybe you didn’t like the Orange Man. Hopefully you will like paying $4 for a gallon of gas. Possibly a great deal more. The Green New Deal envisions the end of fossil fuels – by force.
Via taxes, which aren’t voluntarily paid.
This is what was voted for – or rather, how the votes were counted for.
Another thing that’s coming courtesy of who was declared the winner will be the greatest leap forward in mandatory MPG minimums – federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy “standards” – ever imposed on the car industry. Which is to say on the cars which will be available on the market going forward.
As well as those which will no longer be available at all.
The Orange Man, whatever you think of him, made an effort to dial back the federal mileage minimums which all car manufacturers are required to comply with – along with the punitive fines applied to the car buyer (via the car’s sticker price) for not-complying with them.
His predecessor left office in 2016 after having “midnight judged” a regulatory change that almost doubled the existing minimum MPG that all new vehicles had to average – or else buyers get punished for buying the offending vehicle via “gas guzzler” fines embedded in the cost of the car – from about 35 MPG to almost 50 MPG, along with a tripling of the fines for not making it to almost 50 MPG.
His successor – who is his predecessor, rebooted – will restore and possibly increase the mandatory minimums as well as the fines.
The consequences of this will be – as the Orange Man might have said – yuge.
Whatever you think about the merits of getting cars to average 50 MPG, it is inarguable that getting them to do so will add thousands of dollars to the cost of the car itself – to pay for the hybrid drivetrain that will be needed to achieve it. There is not a single new non-hybrid available right now that even approaches 50 MPG – on the highway. A few small cars manage 40 – just barely – and only on the highway.
Their average mileage – their city mileage plus their highway mileage – is in the mid-low 30s.
There is not one truck or SUV that gets much higher than 30 MPG on the highway. When you factor in their city mileage – which is how federal mileage standards are calculated – their average is in the mid-high 20s, severely noncompliant.
There is no way to make them compliant – without making them partially or fully electric.
Which Ford and GM anticipated via the pre-election reveals – an industry term – of electrified versions of their large trucks and SUVs.
You can get an idea what this will cost you easily enough. The base price of a new half-ton Ford truck, the F-150, is $28,940. The estimated cost of the electric version of the same thing will be south of $70,000.
GM’s electrified Hummer will start at $112,000 but the good news is that a $70,000 version is coming.
For those who can afford it.
The man with the joker smile can, of course – being well-paid by people who have no choice about paying him and by people who are happy to pay him because he can be used to make others pay them.
For instance, Ford and GM – who will be in a position to make you pay for their electrified alternatives by leaving you no alternative. (The non-electric versions of trucks like the F-150 may be available for awhile, but their cost will increase via fines to parity with the electric version while their cost-to-drive will be higher than the cost to drive the electric version, via punitive taxes on increasingly scarce gasoline.)
The Orange Man, whatever his deficits, was trying to make it so that you paid less. But that was voted down.
Or so they tell us.
. . .
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The Covid 19 year planetary blockcade. All Commercials now made of pre-blockade ticky-tacky and all look just the same.. https://files.catbox.moe/am6lh0.mp4
Nicht so schnell!
“Biden is back down to 259 electoral votes over at real clear politics as of three or four minutes ago.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2020/president/
Made a mistake.
Wer ist diese Seite ? R C P https://www.princeton.edu/~paw/web_exclusives/more/more_20.html
Let’s see how they feel about their retirement being erased by inflation. Wiemar level inflation. Upon reading correspondence from that event one thing explodes off the pages. It did not happen gradually. One week there was significant inflation, and the next it was exponentially increased, to the point of being paid twice a day, so you could send the wife out to buy groceries at noon before the prices went up.
I was wondering what happened to cars like the CRX HF:
“Well, the Hondas of the mid-to-late 80s weren’t saddled with the weight of dual airbags, anti-intrusion door beams, etc. The highest-MPG Honda was the two-seat CRX HF. In 1989 it had a 62 HP engine, manual transmission only, needed 12 secs to go 0-60, and EPA estimates were 49 MPG city/52 MPG highway. (That’s using the estimates of the time. Today, cars are rated under a new formula, and the CRX HF would have scored 37/47.) ”
https://www.liveabout.com/50-mpg-honda-3974650
Some insight on PA
https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-paul-kengor-the-pennsylvania-voting-curve-doesnt-line-up_3569060.html
Hi Tom,
Sure,of course. But does it matter? Has it mattered that the Wuflu doesn’t kill 99.6 percent of the population? That almost all of the “cases” don’t even have symptoms? That those who die were already near death?
None of it mattered. Why should who voted – or didn’t?
What matters now is power – period. You either have it – or you don’t.
Morning Eric,
I don’t mean to be nit-picky but, if the WuFlu killed 0.4% of the population, it would truly be devastating, over 1.3 million people! The current mortality rate for the WuFlu (based on unreliable reported deaths) is around 0.067%, it doesn’t kill 99.933% of the population.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Thanks, Jeremy – for that as well as your earlier brilliant dissection of the OM’s capitulation on Corona!
Eric, do you think this will inflate or buoy values of existing vehicles? In other words, if 2500 diesel truck cost new goes up 40% to comply with commie regs then used existing inventory will become relatively more valuable than it was, yes? Been thinking about getting a full size truck for a while now wondering if I should buy new today, take section 179 writeoff while it still exists and own it 20 years…
We have seen how the “woke” mobs pretty much paralleled the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution this summer. Well, issuing a decree that all cars will get 50 mpg is akin to the Great Leap Forward, under which Mao simply ordered peasant farmers to quit the rice paddies and start producing steel in “backyard furnaces.”
Millions starved.
It’s incredible to see that China has become an engine of economic progress in the past 30 years, while we have become Maoist.
I take it you’ve read the classic None Dare Call it Conspiracy??
Lived in China for almost 5 years and the people who experienced the Glorious Cultural Revolution still won’t talk about it. I saw the faded propaganda graffiti out in the countryside.
Bad news is that you’re right. This summer’s run up with the statue destruction (funny how none of them went to topple the Georgia Guidestones) and cries of destruction of old ideas parallels it quite well, as well as the garbage nonsense filling their “minds.”
The good news is that today’s China youth is the FURTHEST THING FROM WOKE. For them, it’s all about getting married, making money, helping their parents, et c. When I lived there the personal freedom was an order of magnitude higher than here. They don’t have an income tax, social security, et c.
So after the rats start feeding on each other (as they’re already doing as BLM/Pantifa is crashing Biden victory parties lol) and the orcs in Cirith Ungol knock each other off, the succeeding generations should be much nicer.
Hi Michael,
THat’s interesting about China; I’d love to visit but likely never will because flying has become intolerable. Bad enough that I had to allow a government creep to evaluate the heft of my package- but the Diapering is unendurable. I am not surprised to learn that it’s freer in everyday terms over there than here. The West appears bent on suicide. The why for this could fill several volumes…
Hi Eric,
Let me know if you make the trip, I’ll do my best to make it an awesome trip for you. I’ve been reading your site since 2011 and laugh out loud constantly. Avoid the nationalistic north (near Beijing) with its smog, ugly scenery, and bad food. Head to the softer, money-driven south with the natural beauty, newer cities (Shenzhen is awesome to visit), and much better food.
No diapering in China at the moment, though the slaves did lock down hard (and liked it), what is what I expected. I did not expect the servile obedience here in the “USA.”
Yes, it is much freer and more common sense too. If you’re a foreigner, (barring an unlucky visa raid if you’re teaching English “illegally” for example), chances are slim you’ll ever talk to a cop and if you do, they’ll want to take your picture and say “Hah-low!” Or they realize you don’t speak Chinese and just give up.
We should hang in there. I left for China in 2014 thinking all was lost, but then Orange Man came on the scene and gave me hope. I’m back for the fight, for the moment. At least 70 million Americans voted for Trump and should resist if the Other Side is trying to coerce them into masking and needling, or so I hope.
Hi Michael,
I will – and, thanks! I stopped flying within the U.S. and attending press “long leads” for the new cars a few years ago because I won’t be going through a scanner with my hands up or having some government geek’s hand down my pants. I am grateful I had the chance to travel abroad before the “enemies of freedom”- i.e., the government – made travel by air a degrading experience in submission training.
You can be sure Joe and Kamala will be carted around in a nice new electric Suburban. Air Force One has a fuel capacity of 54,000 gallons of jet fuel, so they will be instant hypocrites when it comes to carbon consumption. Granted indulgences for me, but not for thee.
Everything is carbon based, so there’s that.
Biden has been declared the winner, however, he has to take the oath of office in order to be president, gotta seal the deal, as it were. He ain’t there yet. At the moment, he is President-elect.
It is a voter fraud coup détat the old-fashioned way, they did it by hook and by crook.
President Trump is still President and until the fat lady yodels, Trump will remain President up to that time.
Lots of folks suspect chicanery, feel the election has been stolen, cheapens their vote, been rooked. They will not accept the outcome.
Another travesty of a mockery of a sham going on here.
Doesn’t pass the smell test.
Yes, correct there was provable, certain, massive vote fraud. It is easily provable because that was the intent. They have a hidden agenda…………
Exactly. You can’t convince me that the oligarchy would overlook something like marking only Biden on ballot’s while leaving all other columns blank. The elites haven’t controlled things for this long to hand over an easily provable fraud to an ‘outside enemy’. The house never plays that fast and loose with power.
Yup, I think the idea was always to have half the country not accept the results.
I beg to differ. I think the entire Biden presidency will be dedicated to grooming and paving the way for Kamala to run for president in 2024. Therefore they will go out of their way not to offend or antagonize voters. What the hawks in the Democratic and Republican parties failed to understand so far is that most Americans are centric and hate the extremes.
Hillary lost mainly because she was a woman, and she was white. Kamala is colored, and for that she will lose even worse than Hillary. Mark my words.
I think we’ll see President Kamala before then. It’s likely that senile Joe will bow out within the first year for medical resaons, leaving her situated as President. Either that or the elites that orchestrated this sham “election” will push him out of the way, one way or another. He’s from the old guard and they don’t want him. He was just a vehicle to convey Kamala into office.
Here’s how I see it playing out, assuming Biden gets in:
They will “Weekend at Bernie’s” him for 2 years plus one day, so that Kamala will be eligible to be President for 10 years minus one day, the theoretical maximum.
You have expressed my thoughts exactly. They want 10 years for Commie Harris to wreck what’s left of America. So for just over 2 years they will try to keep Clueless Joe capable of fogging a mirror.
You did add a nice touch that I hadn’t thought of: the “Weekend at Bernie’s” reference was most excellent.
Thing is, the Pedophile assclown never really won, no matter what fake news claims
Its gonna be challenged, Orange man will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was fraud and he’ll win.
Still, it’ll take time, but in the end, Orange Man’ll be declared winner and your article will pertain to a parallel universe of ourselves
“[Orange Man’s] predecessor left office in 2016 after having “midnight judged” a regulatory change that almost doubled the existing minimum MPG .” — EP
It’s a familiar bipartisan race to the bottom. Rather than placing curbs on abuses of executive power, such as this summer’s $40 billion diversion of FEMA funds to unemployment relief, Biden instead will “build back better” on the Orange Man’s bold executive-order precedents and ESCALATE them:
“President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on Jan. 20. He may have to lean more on executive actions that he had once hoped. Pushing major legislation through Congress could prove to be a challenge.”
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Biden-plans-immediate-flurry-of-executive-orders-15710258.php
So when Congress gets in the way, just bypass it entirely. This is the road to executive dictatorship. Lawyer Joe will use it aggressively. But lawyer Kamala already is having the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State of 28 Feb 1933 translated into English for use as HER first executive order, after Old Frail Joe fades away or is actively faded.
Electric power engineers — those bold souls who “look behind the outlet” — already know that an all-electric fleet will require a massive upgrade of the electrical grid, AT THE SAME TIME as the grid is being deprived of stable base-load generating capacity by green energy mandates.
Joe himself has promised “half a million charging stations” from sea to shining sea. It does not occur to a single Democrat that the government didn’t need to build gas stations for our current fleet. But even if Democrats had succumbed to such Wrongthink, Obama the Glorious deftly restored credit to benevolent government: “They [oil companies] didn’t build that.”
Just as Parisians went a little crazy with the guillotine in 1789, sometimes executing random people in the crowd, green power likely will lead to Kommandant Kamala spreading the land with carbon-free electric chairs to silence leeches, hooligans and saboteurs.
SMILE when you see Big Sister … OR ELSE.
Charging stations, electric chairs: with a suitable step-up transformer, they can be used for both.
LET FREEDUMB RING!
Executive orders are only supposed to pertain to members of the executive branch of government. The president cannot order you or I to do anything unless we work in the executive branch or are in the military.
At least that’s the way it is supposed to work. At this point all of the limitations on power have been thrown out the window.
If they can pass decrees that countermand the laws of molecular biology – that face diapers and lockdowns stop viruses from spreading – surely they can decree that heavy, Stuntman Mike-styled safety caged steel vehicles can travel 50+ miles on a gallon of gas. But I’m not sure what the problem is here – if you don’t like gas, just plug in your car, since electricity comes from an outlet in the wall. See how cheap and easy that is?
They’ll just drop the speed limits again. This time below 45 MPH. Whatever it takes to “flatten the curve” of climate.
Which may turn a page in politics. Unions are a significant component of the Communist…..I mean Democrat party. They will not take kindly the loss of however many thousands of jobs related to the auto industry there will be. If there is one thing that modern politics thrives on its money. And the auto industry involves a lot of it. I don’t see how the Democrats can survive the loss of it. As Bill the rapist correctly surmised, “It’s the economy stupid”, and this one is going nowhere but down. There is nothing productive in any of the ventures the Democrats promote.
Hi JWK,
Yes, but there is a cure for this – Sickness Psychosis.
In normal times, OM would have won by a landslide as most people were doing ok if not appreciably better under his regime than the prior. But then hypochondria was weaponized and legions of Corona Karens and Kevins fell into line behind the “new normal,” whose leader is the Hair Plugged Man. Economic considerations do not matter for these mental patients; only that they are “kept safe” and that “the spread” is “stopped.”
Besides, we can just pay people that don’t have jobs with a handy dandy crypto currency once they finalize that. It will be glorious. Why work when you can get paid to do nothing?
I actually am of the opinion that this D administration–if they do in fact “win”–will not do much. They are preparing for down the road.
If Trump ends up winning, that’s not necessarily good because the house always wins.
That’s true. But I still don’t see a way for money, the life blood of politics, to magically appear. Yes, it can be printed without limit but there is a rule. Money can be printed, wealth cannot. More money, with less wealth equals money worth less. Will trillions be spent on campaigns, or paid in bribes? I see no way out of this without abject poverty, across the board. Even the bank cartel will fail. Which is exactly what they are trying to prevent now. Fiat currency always fails, always, and it takes the counterfeiters down with it when it does. We will get sound money again, if we don’t starve to death in the meantime. Fiat currency has always been a local thing before. It’s not this time.
Agreed. When I say they won’t do much, I’m talking the first couple of years. I see them trying to play out a lull, if you will. I could be totally wrong. The one thing I know of for certain is that I know very little for certain.
Not only has fiat currency not been global, it hasn’t ever been digital to the extent that it is right now. The only thing known is that it will end badly.
Unfortunately, that’s a feature, not a bug. Company scrip will be what the serfs in the company town get as long as they do what they’re told. Everything they’re told. When we “men of small wealth” get hungry, we sell off wealth. When they trash the economy, they can grab it for a pittance.
As to it getting corrected by a crash, I suggest you look at India and the proportion of wealthy to grindingly impoverished.
I don’t see a lull. Even the propagandized will wake up at some point- the bum’s rush will continue and accelerate. More mandates, more bans, tighter control, and always less freedom and more despair.
Our struggle is not with the forces of this world. It is with absolute evil.
Because people didn’t have the faith and principle to stand up to and defy every single instance of tyranny until it was big enough to succeed on its own.
Hi Ernie,
These two statements of yours are most apt:
“Our struggle is not with the forces of this world. It is with absolute evil.”
Indeed. Though not religious I am beginning to believe there is something more than merely human evil at work here. It is too sophisticated, too global – literally. I quote Hellboy’s adopted father when confronting the villain Karl Ruprecht Kroenen: I see the puppet… where is the puppeteer?
And:
“Because people didn’t have the faith and principle to stand up to and defy every single instance of tyranny until it was big enough to succeed on its own.”
In a nutshell. I’ve tried to tell people this for lo the past 30 years. From sssssssssssssssssssafety checkpoints to the TSA to … this.
Indeed. It’s just a mask. It’s just a seat belt. You have to wear it because only stupid people dont. Pay your taxes. Pay your chile suppo’t. Drive 55. Those third world savages who cut up their women’s privates have a better culture than you do. Ad f**king nauseum.
Bow and worship your master.
Some of my ancestors were Irish- and the ancient Irish warriors had a weapon called the gae bolga- designed to be used as a last ditch, thrust into the belly of a victorious opponent while kneeling before him. I kind of like that. We’re heading for that kind of world again.
Hi Ernie,
Amen. I think of my wild Teutonic ancestors, who held off the legions. I especially think of Arminius – who did a number on three legions and ol’ Varus in the forest.
That’s what I’d like to see happen to these Diaper Freaks.
The unions are full of people who are over 55. They’re getting ready to retire. They got theirs. More importantly, they’ve benefitted from bailouts, regulatory-induced inflation and automation.
They have no idea the chaos they’ve unleashed and doubt they’ll connect the dots when their fixed income lifestyles are crushed.