Saturday, July 13, 2024
Why you pay more for natural gas AND electricity: The utility mark-up of natural gas average prices over Henry Hub spot prices has never been higher than in 2024, 40% of electricity is generated by natural gas in the US, the largest source
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| A record 672% in the first half of 2024 |
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| 675% in the first quarter of 2024, a new record |
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| 669% in the second quarter of 2024: "Energy prices are coming down" lol |
The rarely uttered but all-important truth: Energy prices lie at the root of all price pressures
Energy-heavy transportation and warehousing operations saw prices fall in the early and final purchasing stages of their business, PPI data showed. That indicates that supply-side pressures are easing, Kurt Rankin, senior economist with PNC Financial Services, wrote Thursday.
“The downward-trending energy PPI pace, which lies at the root of all price pressures in the US economy, implies that the second half of 2024 will see diminishing cost pressures from producers’ own energy bills, as well as the cost of shipping goods to retailers,” Rankin wrote.
The final two paragraphs, here.
Don't be fooled. High energy prices remain the main drag on the economy.
A presidential administration biased against fossil fuels, which still accounted for 81% of primary energy production in the US in 2022, is shooting itself in the foot when trying to fight inflation and explains the persistence of the problem which most elites predicted would only be transitory.
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| Gasoline prices remain Obama-like, not Trump-like in the first half of 2024 |
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| Natural gas prices remain highly elevated in the first half of 2024 and ticked up again |
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| Electricity in the US has never cost more than under the recent, lunatic Biden administration |
Friday, July 12, 2024
Michigan's bigshot Democrats shun Joe Biden at Detroit appearance: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Gary Peters, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Sen. hopeful Elissa Slotkin, UAW President Shawn Fain
What a bunch of phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rollas.
But at a critical juncture when Biden needs to consolidate support, key Democratic leaders in the state were notably absent Friday.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is co-chair of Biden’s campaign, was out of the state. Sens. Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is vying for Michigan’s open Senate seat, were also not there. United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, whom Biden actively courted during last year’s strikes, was traveling for a conference.
Rep. Hillary Scholten, who is seeking reelection in a battleground district in western Michigan, is among the lawmakers who’ve called on Biden to step aside.
More.
Gallup: For the first time in nearly two decades, a majority of Americans want immigration levels to the U.S. reduced rather than kept at their present level or increased
Here:
Significantly more U.S. adults than a year ago, 55% versus 41%, would like to see immigration to the U.S. decreased. This is the first time since 2005 that a majority of Americans have wanted there to be less immigration, and today’s figure is the largest percentage holding that view since a 58% reading in 2001. The record high was 65%, recorded in 1993 and 1995. ...
The shifts in attitudes have come after monthly illegal border crossings reached record levels late last year. ... Gallup’s monthly measure of the most important problem facing the country finds immigration consistently ranking among the top issues this year. ...
A slim majority of 53% favors expanding the construction of walls along
the U.S. border, the first time a majority has been in favor of that
policy.
Hurricane Beryl made landfall just before 5 AM on July 8th, four days later 1 million are still without power in Texas, mostly around Houston, mostly customers of Center Point Energy
CenterPoint reported $867 million in profits for 2023, down 14% from 2022.
The company has asked state regulators to approve around $2.2 billion in resiliency investments for 2025 through 2027, during which time it will have to continue to focus on expanding the system as well. It expects to keep adding about 2% more customers each year.
More.
Thursday, July 11, 2024
LOL Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee withdraws conditional endorsement of AOC for insufficient anti-semitism
NPC is withdrawing our conditional endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, although she will remain endorsed by our New York City chapter. ...
Many members have supported national endorsement while at the same time demanding that AOC demonstrate a higher level of commitment to Palestinian liberation, self-determination, and the immediate end to the heinous genocide in Gaza committed by Israel that aligns with DSA’s positions and expectations of socialists in office.
We recognize that AOC has taken many courageous positions on Palestine such as co-sponsoring several House Resolutions (3103, 786, 496), naming Israel’s genocide as well as opposing House Resolution 894. However, members have raised their concerns regarding a number of her votes, including a vote in favor of H.Res.888, conflating opposition to Israel’s “right to exist” with antisemitism. AOC also co-signed a press release on April 20, 2024, that “support[s] strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems”
Finally, AOC recently hosted a public panel with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, lobbyists for the IHRA definition of antisemitism. On this panel, she conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions. This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israeli apartheid and genocide through political and direct action in recent months, and in decades past.
More.
In the first half of 2024, overall prices are up 3.2% year over year on an average basis, and core prices are up 3.6%
Prices on some important things you use everyday made new record highs.
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| core inflation |
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| overall inflation |
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| gasoline in the first half of 2024 is still Obama-like under Biden, not Trump-like |
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| the high price of home heating, water heating, cooking, clothes drying ticked up in 1H2024 |
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| new high for chuck roast |
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| new high for all purpose flour |
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| fricken chicken came down a half penny: six bucks for a three pound chicken |
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| new high for a loaf of healthy bread |
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| new high for a pound of hamburger |
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| new high for the electricity to keep everything running |
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
The chutzpah of this guy: George Clooney takes $28 million of Democrats' money and gives it to Biden on June 15 and three weeks later says My Bad
Phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rolla.
People forget that Joe Biden came in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire in 2020 and was still neck-and-neck with Bernie in the primary popular vote until March 14th
Democrats ended up with Joe because the alternative was a lefty, Bernie, who would surely lose to Trump.
The same calculus applies today. Possibly win with cognitively challenged Joe, or lose with lefty Kamala Harris.
Joe was extremely unpopular in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Joe endeared himself to Iowans by calling them fat liars.
And he endeared himself to New Hampshireites by calling them lying dog-faced pony soldiers.
The common thread is the projection. It's Joe who is the liar, along with all his accomplices in the DNC and the media.
Flashback June 30, 2004 NBC NEWS: One in ten students encounters sex abuse, schools are places where abusers come to prey
More than 4.5 million children are forced to endure sexual misconduct by school employees, from inappropriate comments to physical abuse, according to an exhaustive review of research that reads like a parent’s worst nightmare.
The best estimate is that almost one in 10 children, sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade, are targets of behavior ranging from unprofessional to criminal, says the report for Congress by Charol Shakeshaft, a professor at Hofstra University’s School of Education.
... the American Association of University Women, whose surveys of students were at the core of the new report, stood by its research. ...
The report describes schools as places where abusers come to prey, targeting vulnerable and marginal students who are afraid to complain or unlikely to be believed if they did. It describes adults who trap, lie and isolate children, making them subject to unwanted behavior in hallways, offices, buses or even right in front of other students in class. And the offenders work hard to keep kids from telling, threatening to fail or humiliate them.
More.
Rate of public educator sexual misconduct is 10 times higher in a year than in five decades of abuse by clergy, two thirds of the predators are male, most of the victims are high school females
Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, according to multiple studies. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America. ...
“In any given year they have failed to report thousands of these situations, and instead they’ve papered them over, acted like it’s not an issue,” former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told RealClearInvestigations. Stunned by a 2018 Chicago Tribune investigation that found 523 incident reports of sexual misconduct by employees of the city’s schools during the past decade, DeVos during the Trump administration launched the process of including specific questions about such cases in the Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, a process it undertakes every two years. Previously, the Office for Civil Rights asked only general questions about sexual misconduct incidents, without a breakdown of alleged perpetrators.
The Biden administration initially sought to remove those questions, saying it wanted to avoid data duplication, but it backtracked after fierce criticism it was doing so as a sop to teachers unions. Consequently, the question will be included on future questionnaires, but, as of today, the Department of Education “has no data,” a spokesperson told RCI. These days, from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, even a cursory review of local news reporting brings disquieting revelations of teachers accused of or arrested for alleged sexual relations with a student. ...
Pointing to research from Hofstra University that found roughly 1 in 10 students in K-12 schools have suffered “some form of sexual misconduct by an educator,” Terri Miller, head of the advocacy group SESAME (Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation), said the number of victims is staggering.
More.
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Trump's RNC strong-armed the GOP platform committee, weakened its abortion provisions, pared it down from 66 pages to 16
“The 2024 platform is a decent
statement of campaign priorities, but not necessarily the enduring
principles of a party,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family
Research Council. “Unfortunately, the process was unbecoming of
constitutional conservatives which did not allow the document to be
amended or improved.” ...
Gayle Ruzicka, a platform committee member from Utah, said the RNC staff “didn’t allow” a discussion on the language the platform used on abortion.
“I had planned to go up there to try and make an amendment and they said we could make amendments,” she said, adding that she had been on platform committees several times and found it “very unusual.”
“They didn’t even give us a chance to read it before we voted on it,” Ruzicka said. She didn’t know exactly how long they had before voting — staff had taken her watch, phone and laptop — but it was “maybe a couple of hours” filled by speakers.
“I’m very frustrated. I think we were treated very poorly. We spent a lot of money to get here. We were supposed to have the opportunity to study it and read it. We didn’t get even a chance to read it first,” Ruzicka said. “They gave it to us, but we kept waiting to go to our committee and then they didn’t ever do committees.”
More.
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