Trump cuts vehicle fuel economy goal to 34 mpg by 2031 from 50 mpg by 2031 under Biden

 CNBC.

AI says the current US light duty vehicle fleet gets about 26 mpg.

Owner-occupied housing is in short supply, in part because of pandemic-related panic-buying by 5.4 million in 2020, not because of a post-pandemic illegal alien surge under Joe Biden

 ... we flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants who were taking houses that ought by right go to American citizens ... Under the Biden administration, the price of a new home literally doubled in four years. ...

-- The ever-ridiculous J. D. Vance, here

Hysteria is everywhere on this issue.

Owner-occupied housing is hardly higher today than it was at the 2020 peak. 

Buyers became hysterical in 2020, seeking isolation. Vance is hysterical in 2025, playing immigration politics. The Fed went hysterical in 2008 slashing interest rates, and it took fourteen years and pandemic-related inflation just to get them to snap out of it.

The Fed's ZIRP after the Great Recession drove down mortgage interest rates to sub-five percent, averaging less than three by 2021.

As everyone knows, when you lower the long term price of a mortgage, you can "buy more house".

That's the major culprit driving prices higher, making housing more expensive, that and the 2-year rule. It took more than a decade of zero interest rate policy to bring us to this pass. It has not been and will not be remedied overnight, especially by its new cheerleaders in the Trump administration.

Cutting interest rates will only make housing more expensive. 

New housing is indeed soaring, but people need to get a grip. The median sales price of all housing in the United States is up 30% since 2020, not 50% like it was in the five or six years right after 2008.

A better government tax policy on housing is called for. The biggest problem is that the mere 2-year owner-occupancy requirement for capital gains tax exclusion has turned housing into a commodity since 1997. It was a big mistake to make housing so fungible. The answer lies in applying the brakes to that, so that the emphasis is on housing as a home as opposed to as a speculative investment driving prices for all types of homes irrationally higher.

The old policy allowed the exclusion only once in a lifetime. You sold your house when you retired and enjoyed life living off the proceeds mostly tax-free, usually in a down-sized arrangement or as a renter. Otherwise during your working life, when you had to sell to move, you had to purchase at least sideways, or up in price so that your gains went into the new place, not into your pocket. That's how housing became such a tempting source of pent-up capital in the first place. There was an incentive to maintain a ladder of housing values upon which people could move more freely, mostly up but also down.

We need to go back to some form of that arrangement.

But our leaders seem to have no imagination for it. They can't see that what we did in 1997 was a revolution. A bad revolution.

Sad! 

 

Hey Ed, did Biden taking the fall in July 2024 keep Dems united?

 

Schumer May Need To Take the Fall To Keep Dems United

Ed Kilgore, NY Magazine

 

The commie progressives cracking up the Democrat Party = the fascist regressives cracking up the Republican Party. 

Clooney made a mistake by pushing out Biden

 

 Clooney: Dems Made Mistake By Nominating Kamala w/out Primary

 

One nutball era takes over where one left off: Trump's big ugly bill had no money in it to replenish the Strategic Oil Reserve gutted by Joe Biden, at a time when WTI is half the price it was in 2022

 US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve

... The previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after Russia, one of the world's top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now holding nearly 409 million barrels. ...

 

Trump's tax and spending bill included about $171 million for the SPR oil purchases and maintenance, much less than the $1.3 billion that had originally been in the legislation. Buying more oil for the SPR will likely require the passage of new legislation. ...

 

Buying a million barrels is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance costs are eating up most of the $171 million. Joe Biden reduced the reserve by 244 million barrels during his tenure.

 

A reserve of 600 million barrels would run the country for only 30 days in a real emergency, max. 

 

We are governed by imbeciles, who think we currently have about 50 national emergencies. 

 

 

 

Delusional Donald Trump thinks Joe Biden was in charge of the FBI on Jan 6, 2021

 That's the thing about Donald Trump. Even when he's in charge he's not.

Undemocratic progressives, but I repeat myself, utterly blew it by betraying Joe Biden in summer 2024

Imagine Joe Biden is president today.

All eyes would be on progressive policy standard-bearer and VP Kamala Harris at this point in Joe Biden's second term, had he run and won, because of his illness headlined below.

Progressives would have been sitting in the catbird seat for the foreseeable future, advancing their agenda on climate change, renewable energy, higher taxes on the rich, and higher spending on healthcare.

The Democrat failure to stick together in 2024 was a crack-up worthy of 1968, the damage from which Democrats did not recover until 1992.

Just 270,000 votes across four states were the difference between the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in 2024, and that was for the disloyal Kamala Harris.

Progressives have proven themselves unworthy of the name Democrat by their actions in usurping Joe Biden's presidency, and Kamala Harris proved it by her words in her memoir when she framed Biden's decision to run for re-election as entirely personal and therefore reckless, when 14+ million Democrat primary voters for Joe Biden thought otherwise.

14 million primary voters, ignored. That's what progressives stand for. They respect democracy no more than does Mad King Ludwig.

Biden is receiving radiation and hormone therapy to treat his prostate cancer

Guess which of these two headlines is up at Real Clear Politics this morning

 Trump Is Weaponizing the Government Against His Enemies. It Doesn’t Mean He’ll Succeed.

Biden's Disturbing Weaponization of DOJ

 

 

 

 

Kamala Harris owed everything to Joe Biden, so stabbing him in the back like this means she's finished

She says she was hypnotized by Joe Biden lol, I mean by Dark Brandon, just like the 49ers were on February 11, 2024 at 10:46pm ET.

 

It's pretty wild how they don't see that their guy is the leader of a heartless America

A president for all the people, the bi-partisanly hateful public!

 

Dems Show America How Heartless They've Become

Michael Goodwin, NY Post

 

Trump last night, on the eve of the Charlie Kirk memorial, pre-celebrating the death of Joe Biden from cancer: 

 

 

Trump is The Decider Bush 43, Obama, and Biden wrapped into one: junking due process, designating people terrorists without evidence and ignoring the evidence when they are, censoring speech, and generally making a mockery of the rule of law

 

Biden gutted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 200k barrels over 12 months in 2022, Trump's been in office 8 months and has done BUPKIS to refill it

 Spot WTI averaged nearly $95/barrel in 2022.

In 1H2025 it averaged $68.

The price fell again in August to an average just under $65, too.

Trump could be refilling at cheap prices, but he's too busy with nonsense.

 

LOL I don't recall candidate John Fetterman being upset AT ALL with Joe Biden playing the authoritarian card on September 1, 2022

 

Fetterman: Comparing People To Hitler Will Incite Somebody To Take Them Out

 

... Well, I mean, I'm consistent about that. You know, any kinds of extreme rhetoric, left or right, is, is really dangerous. ...

 

 

 

... Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic. ... They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fanned the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. ...

 

 

The fiscal year is rapidly coming to a close, and Trump has spent us $1.973 trillion deeper into the hole with one month left to go, compared with Biden's last year at $1.897 trillion through August

 

Meanwhile ...

... [Charlie] Kirk, who had millions of social media followers, co-founded the non-profit Turning Point USA in 2012 as a teenager, which he dubbed a 'national student movement.' 

Its mission is to 'identify, educate, train and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.' ...

 

Biden killed off the Keystone XL pipeline, costing Alberta over $1 billion, construction workers over $2 billion, and the economy billion$ more, so Trump killing off wind is simply to be expected

 

Under Joe Biden we had a proposal to tamper with the Supreme Court, under Donald Trump we have an actual attempt to tamper with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Open Market Committee

Trump's firing of Lisa Cook is the actual power grab we only feared from Joe Biden. 

 

How Trump could give the Fed a MAGA makeover:

 ... Fed watchers say a Trump-appointed majority on the Fed Board could then exert greater influence over future decisions on interest rates by using a little-known process.

While it’s typically a routine event that gets little attention, every five years the Fed Board must approve the new terms of regional Fed presidents, who vote on a rotational basis on interest rates.

That event is coming up soon, with the terms of all 12 regional Fed presidents scheduled to expire – simultaneously – at the end of February.

That means, in theory, a Trump-nominated Fed Board could reject regional presidents, for whatever reason they wish, or no reason at all.

“The President could push his majority to reject reserve bank presidents unless they agree to back lower rates and are comfortable with more White House influence over monetary policy,” Jaret Seiberg, financial services policy analyst at TD Cowen Washington Research Group, wrote in a note to clients this week. “That would give Trump a more cooperative FOMC,” he wrote, referring to the Fed’s rate-setting committee.

While the Fed chair gets all the attention, decisions on interest rates are voted on by all 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee. The committee consists of the seven members of the Fed Board, as well as five regional Fed presidents: the New York Fed president and four rotating regional presidents. ...

Trump adds $1 trillion to the national debt in record time and S&P Global underscores its own irrelevance by maintaining the U.S. AA+ credit rating

 Trump tariff revenue expected to offset tax bill impact, S&P says in U.S. credit rating hold

... "We could lower the rating over the next two to three years if already high deficits increase ..." lol.

 These people are afraid of Trump.

They don't want to be singled out for Trump's daily Two Minutes Hate.

They don't want to be the next Jerome Powell, or Lisa Cook, or Volodymyr Zelensky.

Meanwhile year to date the Trump deficit is running $112 billion ahead of Biden's last deficit. DOGE so-called spending cuts and Trump Tariffs have done nothing to reduce it.

 

 

 

The Trump administration's Howard Lutnick doubles down on the state capitalism of the CHIPS Act of Joe Biden

 

Lutnick says Intel has to give government equity in return for CHIPS Act funds

 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “So we’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under the Biden administration. We’ll get equity in return for it.” ... 

Lutnick said any potential arrangement wouldn’t provide the government with voting or governance rights in Intel.

“It’s not governance, we’re just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration, for the American people,” Lutnick said. “Non-voting.”

Intel declined to comment.

Lutnick also suggested that President Donald Trump could seek out similar deals with other CHIPS recipients. ...

“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving them money for free,” Lutnick said. “Donald Trump turns that into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action.’ ” ...

Um, I don't think getting an equity stake was anywhere in the bill.

Just another example of Trump executive branch overreach, but will the supine GOP Congress care? 

Trump's deficit year to date is $112 billion higher through July than Biden's through July last year, up 7.4%

 

Trump invokes emergency powers yet again, takes over DC police for 30 days under Home Rule Act over non-existent crime surge except against his own people, deploys National Guard

This is pissing-match security theatre: "If Biden can do it so can I".

 

Trump puts Washington, DC, police under federal control, deploys National Guard

 

... his emergency control is set to expire after a maximum of 30 days, according to the statute. That can be extended, but only if Congress passes a law authorizing it.

While Trump has frequently complained about crime in the district, violent crime there has fallen to a 30-year low as of January, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. ...