While The Post has taken liberties in their summary to get more clicks, Joe does make it known that he's not against high gas prices because he thinks it will lead to a greener economy. Here are the problems with that. 1) Higher gas means higher transportation costs which of course means higher inflation. 2) The grid in most parts of the country won't support a majority going electric. 3) The poor can't afford new cars - especially with higher interest rates. If they need to buy a car, they'd be making payments on a Prius with 300k. They won't be able to afford a new battery so the car they are still making payments on rots somewhere. 4) How are they going to deal with all the toxic batteries in a few years. 5) Most of the nickel comes from Russia. Driving the price of nickel up helps them whether we're buying from them or not. 6) People don't want to be forced to pay for something they don't want. I'm going to need a new truck soon and yes I'm going to have to pony up. But I won't be buying an electric truck because when I take trips, I don't want to sit in a charge station for an hour every 3 hours. Joe has always tried to promote himself as ecofriendly and I'm for not trashing the place, but until science comes up with a better solution than what is currently being offered, driving the price of gas up to make America change it's ways is going to be painful alright but I see it hurting the poor more which isn't that the biggest flag of the Dem party?
The Average US Car Is Now 12.2 Years Old, Report Says https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/average-us-car-age-2022-report/
related https://thehill.com/opinion/3499101-feehery-10-ways-to-right-bidens-sinking-ship/ Feehery: 10 ways to right Biden's sinking ship by John Feehery, opinion contributor 05/24/22 8:15 AM ET Joe Biden campaigned, from his basement, as a centrist who could heal the country after four tumultuous years of the Trump presidency. But his presidency has devolved into a massive bait and switch game. On every issue important to the vast center of nation, he has governed from the far left, attempting to please a small sliver of progressive America. From education policy, to the energy crisis, from transgender sports to endorsing mask mandates, from trying to create a Ministry of Truth to encouraging inflation to limit consumption, the Biden administration is running off the rails. We know Joe Biden’s presidency is a disaster. Here are the ten things he can do to save it: · Fire Ron Klain: The president’s chief of staff has been described as being more of a prime minister and less of an effective staff leader, mostly because Mr. Biden is not in full command of his faculties. But Klain is incompetent. Biden should recall Rahm Emanuel from Japan and install him as his new chief. · Hire John Kirby as his top spokesman: I am glad that Karine Jean-Pierre got a chance to check off many boxes in her short-tenure as press secretary, but she is a disaster and Biden needs a calm steady presence at the podium. · Urge that Twitter allow Donald Trump back on the platform: This will serve as a nice distraction that the media will eat up and undoubtedly the former president will make news that help Biden somehow. · Kill Build Back Better: Put reconciliation out of its misery and insist that any bill that he signs must have more than 60 Senate votes. Right now, an anti-China bill is the only significant legislation that has a chance to become law. Biden should focus all of his lobbying efforts on getting that bill past the finish line and then tout it as a huge bipartisan accomplishment. · Fire Nancy Pelosi: Of course, Biden is not in charge of deciding who is the House Speaker, but he can make it clear that it is time to get rid of the aging partisan who has done more to cause rancor in the people’s chamber than other leader in congressional history (and that is saying something). · Reverse course on oil leases and pipelines: Democrats think it is good policy and good politics to constrict the supply of fossil fuels in this country. They are delusional. · Retire Anthony Fauci and fire Rochelle Walensky: These are the most visible faces of our bungled COVID-19 response. And they are two biggest cheerleaders of another lockdown. Nobody wants another lockdown. Nobody. · Find a way to end the war in Ukraine: The president keeps escalating things and his administration keeps calling for Vladimir Putin’s ouster. But regime change shouldn’t be the chief goal of the U.S. government. Stopping the conflict should be. If Biden can broker a peace agreement, he will be a hero. · Appoint Michelle Rhee as Education secretary: Rhee did an amazing job when she was in charge of DC public schools. She insisted on teacher quality, promoted charter schools and took on the teacher unions. The Democrats now find themselves in a huge hole when it comes to education as a political issue. Installing somebody like Rhee could help to change that dynamic. · Cut federal spending and cut taxes on business: Inflation is caused when too many dollars are chasing after too few goods and services. The answer is to stop flooding the market with too much unproductive government spending and to allow the private sector to catch up by making it easier for them to produce more products. Giving big welfare checks to those who don’t work keeps too many potential employees sitting on the sidelines. We don’t need to prime the pump anymore. We need turn off the spigots and unleash the private marketplace. Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).
I find it interesting hearing how many are accusing Biden of "bait and switch" and governed as a Progressive when he ran as a Centrist. What I hear often from those on the Left is the that he's been letting down the Progressive side and instead given in for more to Centrists.
Unfortunately Biden doesn't control the price of oil so he can't do much to drive the price of gas up or down. As for his silver lining statements, they are just that, and not much more. But to address some of the points you make - it's not necessarily the science that is the issue, but rather the scale. The more people buy electric cars, the more the problems you mentioned go away. The grid today doesn't support it but the grid isn't a fixed entity. As more people increase energy usage, the grid will adopt. The poor don't buy new cars, they buy used ones, and right now the poor in the world buy American's used electric vehicles. When you consider a used electric vehicle and the price of gas, it probably makes more economic sense for them down the road when cheaper electric vehicles become more widely available and there are more charging options. Right now luxury is just a more dominant player not just Tesla. Battery recycling is a thing the biggest issues isn't that they can't be recycled it's that they are so heavy that it's hard to transport them to a recycling center. Again this problem starts to go away with scale as the distance to recycling centers will decrease and the technology will improve...and costs go down with economy of scale as well. Most nickel does not come from Russia, Indonesia produces like 3x more. Your info is just bad on this one. No one is forcing anyone to buy electric. For trucks, right now car makers aren't even targeting consumers for the reasons you mention, they are going after fleets. It's still a nascent industry.
You are correct on the nickel issue. That was bad info passed on to me that I didn't research before posting. Joe went to war with oil and gas companies before he got elected. Now obviously the Ukraine war made it worse and he didn't see that coming, but he's not going to sit down with the execs and discuss on what we can do to get more oil and gas on the market which would drive the price down. He instead stated this is a painful transition we're going through. Transition to what? Getting off gas and on electric. The govt is trying to force the consumer down that path. So why should the oil and gas invest billions only to get to a point where they aren't getting a good ROI. I mean after all they are a business. And expanding the grid isn't so easy. You need to create WAY more solar farms, wind farms and/or nuke plants. CA better get busy ASAP because in 13 years you won't be able to buy a gas vehicle out there. Additionally you'll need to create more charging stations. But again, who wants to wait an hour to "fill up" so gas stations will have a hard sell to invest until they charge faster. And most electric owners charge at home or work. And yes poor will always buy used cars but my point is a used electric car is going to cost you more AND your battery life is at the end of it's life. Gas cars with 300k miles may not be as efficient as they were new but you can keep them running. When your battery won't hold a charge, it's done and it's way too expensive to replace for a typical paycheck to paycheck person. Now what? Some can go with public transportation to work but for others that's not an option. I feel they pulled the gas plug too soon. It's like what they did to us at work a few years ago. They laid off a team and used the funds to build the systems that you'd need to replace the team. Well lets just say that didn't go well at all. Get the system up 1st, THEN you can phase out their replacements.
I see what you are saying but it's kind of a chicken and the egg thing were people aren't going to want to invest and get the system running unless there is a big demand for it so they can make money. At the same time making it easier for people to go Electric, might increase the demand. I think moving towards both at the same time seems like the best way. Of course one way might pull ahead a little bit at different times. It's a tough call.
Hybrids are way better than nothing, but many customers want all or nothing. Teslas >>> clown car bmws >>> wtf are plugin-hybrid sedans?
No worries we're all human There is nothing the gov't can do to affect oil prices right now - it's a market. Investors don't want to invest in oil - they got burned badly on the last glut when OPEC dumped oil into the markets to drive US Shale out of business. So investors don't want to jump back into that and have the cycle repeat itself. The bigger oil companies are content to sit on high prices and pay out big dividends. There isn't a shortage of oil or wells on their lands, there's a shortage of workers and equipment to uncap them and start the process of pulling oil out of them. And it takes time to ramp up production. How can Biden influence that? More leases isn't going to do anything. I guarantee you if Biden could lower oil prices he would. If there was anything he could do, he would. He's already been using the strategic reserve and a lot of people aren't happy about that. He doesn't want high prices. There is no agenda to keep prices high - it's the oil markets that control the price. The gov't can't force you to buy electric cars. But they can tell you that hey, using all this oil isn't sustainable for the environment and ultimately we are going to have to use less oil. Why is that such a horrible thing? They are getting great ROI. The issue isn't consumers moving to electric, the issue is that OPEC can turn on the spigot and wipe out their investment any time they want. That's why they are gun shy. No one can pull the gas plug - all of this is governed by market forces. Charging stations will come up in numbers over time as demand for electric vehicles goes up. Consumer demand drives market - not the gov't. The gov't does offer a subsidy to buy electric, but that's about it. If lawmakers wanted to lower prices a bit if they reduce the speed limit to 55 again which would lower prices. But we all know that won't happen. So we're at the mercy of the markets. Biden doesn't have anything to do with the current price of oil. No politician does.
Biden drained a big chunk of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but didn't affect gas prices much. Transitioning from winter to summer blend also influenced prices.
Bribing some voters by forgiving student loans may backfire on Biden https://thehill.com/opinion/white-h...orgiving-student-loans-may-backfire-on-biden/
and in the home town paper, too Opinion Biden can’t blame his staff for his flailing presidency https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...cant-blame-his-staff-his-flailing-presidency/
Plug in hybrids are the way to go, where they still run on the electric engine and the gas engine only serves to charge the batteries. DD
The Undersea Trove for Electric Vehicles To secure nickel and other metals for batteries, the U.S. should join the international scramble to mine at the bottom of the ocean. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-un...teries-11654207525?mod=hp_opin_pos_2#cxrecs_s excerpt: Nickel is the metal currently most responsible for providing range in electric-vehicle batteries. Global nickel demand for batteries is forecast to grow 20 to 25 times by 2040, and market analysts expect significant shortages in two to three years. Russia is one of the largest suppliers of class 1 battery-grade nickel, and Chinese interests control production elsewhere in Asia, mostly underneath rainforests in the Philippines, New Caledonia and Indonesia. To electrify half the cars and trucks Americans purchase by 2030, the Biden administration’s target, the U.S. will need to secure more than 650,000 tons of battery-grade nickel each year. Annual domestic nickel production amounts to about 18,000 tons. Recycling and conservation can go only so far. Securing new supplies of battery-grade nickel should be a priority for achieving America’s energy security goals. more at the link
