Have fun paying the A/C bill this summer.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Biden restarts Obama's war on new coal leasing ended by Trump . . . just in time for the election
In one of its biggest steps yet to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the Biden administration announced Thursday that it will end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States.
Climate activists have long pushed
the Interior Department to stop auctioning off leases for coal mining
on public lands, and they celebrated the decision. It could prevent
billions of tons of coal from being extracted from more than 13 million
acres across Montana and Wyoming, with major implications for U.S.
climate goals. ...
Last year, the Powder River Basin generated 251.9 million tons of coal, accounting for nearly 44 percent of all coal produced in the United States. Under the bureau’s [Bureau of Land Management] determination, the 14 active coal mines in the Powder River Basin can continue operating on lands they have leased, but they cannot expand onto other public lands in the region. ...
The Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign estimates that 382 coal-fired power plants have closed down or proposed to retire, with 148 remaining. ...
Trump ... pledged to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas exports
in a second term . . .. He also pledged to
start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
and to lift restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
Friday, May 17, 2024
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Biden's chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, Jared Bernstein, doubles down on inflation being 9% when Biden took office, a statement now fact-checked to death since Biden incorrectly stated it
Jared Bernstein is emblematic of the malarkey in the Biden administration.
He's called an economist, but has no economic credentials. Bernstein took his college degrees in music and social work.
Neil Cavuto savages Bernstein here.
Separately, this short Q&A with Bernstein about printing money and lending it is just epic.
It was all inflation, running at 3.4%: Advance retail sales in April up 3% year over year, but flat from March to April
You're just shelling out more for the same stuff, not buying new stuff.
“Today’s retail sales report reflects a pullback in consumer spending that retailers have called out in recent earnings reports,” said Claire Tassin, retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult.
Compared with last April, sales were up 3%, but the Census Bureau doesn’t adjust the data for inflation, which came in at 3.4% on an annual basis in April, according to the latest consumer price index report. That suggests that the sales gains from a year ago are “entirely attributable to inflation, not increased consumer demand,” Tassin said.
Barron's, reproduced here.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
McDonalds stages value theater, in partnership with Coca-Cola lol
McDonald’s $5 value meal is coming in June — and staying for just a month:
Coca-Cola added marketing funds to the equation to make the deal more appealing, CNBC reported Friday. In a statement, Coca-Cola said: “We routinely partner with our customers on marketing programs to meet consumer needs. This helps us grow our businesses together.”