How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

I haven't bought gasoline in a few weeks so no update there.

But I did notice that my electric rates are up another notch. I pulled an old bill to compare: up 22.5% in the past 17 months.

I seem to recall that the President campaigned on making gas and electricity "a fraction of what they are now."

Well, 6/5 is a fraction, so I guess that's a promise kept?

 

I'm not in the energy industry or agriculture. Using fossil fuels for fertilizer on farmland to grow corn to turn into alcohol to use as a fuel seems ...er...unintuitive.

I used to know a fellow in the paint industry. He insisted on cars assembled in Japan because their enviro laws allowed a better formula (something about more solids maybe?) that allowed a better finish without "orange peel". I'm sure this involved some terrible chemicals, but Japan decided they wanted a car industry.

Maybe making industrial regulation so odious that we mostly drive our production to markets happier to have them wasn't the better long term strategy. Having only legacy refineries seems like a problem that will only grow with time.

 

I just returned from traveling in a country where 95% of new passenger car sales are EV-only.

Downtown Oslo was spookily quiet for a bustling modern city. There was no shortage of activity, but the surprisingly low level of motor vehicle engine noise really grabbed my attention. There were still some ICEs on the street, mostly some legacy transit buses and delivery trucks that had not yet been replaced. And a few very loud motorcycles bragging by winding up so everyone could hear them a mile away. And a handful of expensive sports cars.

It was a very pleasant change from the last time I was there, in the 20-teens, when BEVs were already quite prevalent but not yet anywhere close to near-universal.

 

... and solar plant after solar plant, very far ahead of the U.S.

China added more new solar production capacity in 2025 alone than the U.S.'s total installed capacity since the inception of solar PV.

 

yeah, who cares about the environment. let's go back to poisoning our air, soil and water. too many people anyway, and no one cares about the healthcare ramifications or costs

 

Toyota's EV Sales Just Jumped 136% In AmericaYahoo Financehttps://finance.yahoo.com › technology › articles › toy...

 

Yes, oil was pumped faster under Trump-47 than ever before.

But oil was also pumped faster under Biden than ever before, including Trump-45.

More was pumped under Trump45 than ever before, including Obama.

But oil was also pumped faster under Obama than under any President except Nixon. A yyuge increase over Bush.

The fact is, U.S. production has been generally ramping up for almost two decades, apart from that hiccup called the Pandemic.

 

I'm trying to decode the message

 

Don’t spoil their blast from the past agenda to keep fabricating bad things about Biden. Have a heart, even when they have none.

 

For a very long time, our local WNBA team was completely free of the various DV and other legal problems that our former NBA team members had been habitually getting in to. That is no longer true, though the W's issues still haven't come close to matching the scale of the M's.

 

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Can we agree to disagree, greed was the mother of capitalism, capitalism itself never invented anything, it stole what it could by not paying a fair price to the person inventing or discovering the thing the campanists got rich on .... Rudolf Diesel was never paid, Tesla was treated like shitte until the mind failed, the list is never ending.
If you really want to see what a proper democracy can product, check out inventions made in Australia, you will be amazed by what was actually invented by Aussies in Universities and the CSIRO, that American's think they developed ..... WiFi, Blackbox recorder just to mention a few ..... It might surprise you that Google maps started in Australia.
Your list of the 10 great name a shame is a perfect example, if these are the principles you hold high, then that explains why the US is in the position it is in and how someone like DJT got elected twice .....
Land of the free ..... take off the blinkers ...... try to think for yourself beyond the brain washing pumped into you from childhood ....

T1 Terry

 

Seriously, did you bump your head or something, look at the number of nuclear power stations that were started and went belly up because the base costing was fraudulent and it escalated from there. Didn't they have a nuclear plant ready to throw the on switch on Long Island, only to have it torn down because it couldn't meet regulatory requirements?
If the USA had all the money that was wasted on hairbrained fraudulent costing, only to be abandoned because reality bits hard, the USA would have the debt crisis it has now .....

T1 Terry

 

Every taco vendor on the street corner making money off his tortillas & beans - that he bought for a cheaper price. The Jeweler or shoe salesman rent stores in a heavy traffic area in hopes of making a capitalistic dollar. Just as their landlord does. It's not greed, it's so they can pay their bills - a lot of the time.
Lots of different reasons to make money. Lots of people project their reasons on others.
That said, some people actually do work because they enjoy it. Electronics, welding, mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, even teaching those different crafts can be fun while you make that evil evil evil capitalistic dollar.

 

Steam locomotives were not the actual industrial evolution, mechanical looms powered by wood burning steam engine was the start and it developed from there.

T1 Terry

 

There was a TED talk regarding this, showing the main street of a major US city, and the heading on the slide was "Spot the car" I think it was 3 yrs later, might have been 5, the next slide was was headed "Spot the horse and cart".
The oil industry can be thanked for that, you can't put oil, gasoline or diesel into a horse to make it go, so they had to go in the name of money ....
DJT and his sponsors can't make money on EV's, people can charge those at home from renewable electricity and use that massive storage to power their house, so both the petroleum industry and the electricity network, don't make any money from the sun or wind, so it has to be banned ......

T1 Terry

 

A lemonade stand is not the same capitalism as amazon.

 

I think you need to open up your scope of reading to see how many nuclear plants have been started in the USA and never finished, GE even tried to build 5 that used a reactor that had never been actually built, it was all theory, and the whole lot went belly up.

T1 Terry

 

I don't believe anyone is against value added, even the China has just that sort of an economy where enterprising individuals put their heart and sole into making their own way, but I don't think anyone would attempt to put the capitalist name tag on China

T1 Terry

 

Correct - one may only earn for their self. The other may work in such a way that tens of 1000s can also work. Everyone finds a niche. I may be able to teach someone to play the bassoon & /or sax - another might invest way more blood & sweat to build a factory that hires 1000s to build those instruments.
Hopefully the greater financial success doesn't cause Envy. Often it does though.