There Are No Solutions

There Are Only Trade-offs [The Daily Reckoning] February 23, 2024 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( There Are No Solutions Annapolis, Maryland [Brian Maher] BRIAN MAHER Dear Reader, “There are no solutions,” intones economist Thomas Sowell — “there are only trade-offs.” Preserving Earth is a trade-off to shame all trade-offs… For the cost of preserving Earth may consign its American inhabitants to a poorhouse. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, so-called: Last April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a new rule for stricter vehicle emissions standards starting in model year (MY) 2027… At the time of passage, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the Inflation Reduction Act’s energy and climate spending and tax breaks would cost about $400 billion through fiscal year (FY) 2031… Since then, the combination of higher inflation, greater demand for credits and looser-than-expected regulations significantly boosted the cost of those credits. Last June, we estimated the cost of the IRA energy provisions had grown by two-thirds, to $660 billion through 2031. Assuming the new vehicle emissions rule proposed by the EPA is finalized, we now estimate the cost of the provisions will more than double to $870 billion... A $470 billion doubling — $870 billion in all! We begin to suspect the Inflation “Reduction” Act is nothing other than a sad, sad jest upon the American people. Meantime, the Dis-United Nations informs us of the following: Climate initiatives will touch the American taxpayer for $2,026 each year through 2030. How do you like it? Yet Earth should take heart… for the Federal Reserve is with it. Were you aware the Federal Reserve has labeled climate a menace to financial stability? A risk — ostensibly — greater than even itself? Well, friends, it has. The method by which the monetary authority can break an Earthly fever… remains somewhat dark to us. Yet we let it go for now. We too are heart and soul for Earth’s endurance. Yet we are not half so convinced of humanity’s capacity to hold Earth in siege. The central bugaboo of the climactic drama is the carbon dioxide molecule. It is a “greenhouse gas.” It imprisons heat within the atmospheric penitentiary. Humankind's carbon dioxide gushings have increased notably across decades. Yet are they capable of inducing a fever? We once instructed our minions to ransack the scientific literature. From them we learned that: Carbon dioxide represents a vanishing 0.04% portion of Earth’s atmosphere. Consider Earth’s atmosphere a 100-story building. How high does the human CO2 contribution stack? The human contribution stacks to the linoleum layer upon the ground floor. That is, the human contribution cannot be measured in stories. The human contribution cannot be measured in feet, in inches, in centimeters. The human contribution must be measured in millimeters — against 100 stories of height. This trifle is scorching Earth? The authenticated documentation, please — chapter, verse and line. And will you please include the footnotes? Our minions further inform us that Earth has endured carbon dioxide quantities 25 times or greater than today’s. Yet the carbon dioxide fever never took. What is more, the carbon dioxide theory may not only prove incorrect — but 180 degrees incorrect. A certain Ian Clark professes earth and environmental sciences at Canada’s University of Ottawa. From whom: Solar input… creates ice ages and interglacial periods — which we’re in now. And CO2 tracks that. So we'll see enormous temperature changes, going from ice ages to interglacials, and CO2 gets very low during ice ages and very high during interglacials. And that gives the appearance that CO2 is driving the climate, but it’s actually following. It lags by about 800 years. That is, carbon dioxide is the product of heat. It is not the initiator of heat. And it arrives on station eight centuries after heat’s onset. Have we confused the wagon cart for the horse that hauls it? Evidently we have. Yet the American taxpayer is cowhided and dragooned under the theory that the wagon cart hauls the horse. Thus he is cowhided and dragooned under a likely fiction. He is the victim of humbug. “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” A fellow can endure a trade-off that spares him a greater evil. In the case under consideration, the evil of climate calamity. Yet what if the evil is phantom? What if the evil lacks all existence? Then the trade-off to tackle the phantom evil… the non-existent evil… becomes itself the evil… Below, Jeffrey Tucker shows you why one product of climate hysteria — electric vehicles — have proven “busts.” Read on… Regards, [Brian Maher] Brian Maher Managing Editor, The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Editor’s note: Virtually 99% of investors have never heard of [“the Premier Anomaly.”]( That’s by design — because it’s one of [the market’s best-kept secrets.]( It’s all about a tiny niche in the financial markets where only the biggest and fastest gains take place... Profits that would frankly embarrass the returns of traditional, long-term stock holdings. The Premier Anomaly is responsible for every gain inside a model portfolio, including: - 439% in 24 days - 245% in 15 days - 224% in 10 days - 200% in 10 days - 142% in 3 days. All of which were made within the past seven months. Again, it’s the market’s best-kept secret. And [right here]( you can learn all about it. Maybe the most amazing part is that it's so simple… anyone can use it. Don’t believe us? [Go here right now and judge for yourself.]( [Mark Your Calendar – Monday, February 26]( [Click here for more...]( You've been personally invited to join this exclusive list to receive real-time trade alerts from our expert trader on Monday. Only select readers will get access to a potential 100% profit in just 24 hours. [Click Here To Reserve Your Spot Now]( The Daily Reckoning Presents: The death of a fantasy… ****************************** EVs Are a Bust By Jeffrey Tucker [Jeffrey Tucker] JEFFREY TUCKER We are living through one of history’s longest and most excruciating versions of “We told you so.” When in March 2020, the world’s governments decided to “shut down” the world’s economies and throttle any and all social activity, and deny kids schooling plus cancel worship services and holidays, there was no end to the warnings of the terrible collateral damage, even if most of them were censored. Every bit of the warnings proved true. Actually, the results have been even worse than critics predicted, simply because the chaos lasted such a long time. There are seemingly endless iterations of this theme. Learning losses, infrastructure breakages, rampant criminality, vast debt, inflation, lost work ethic, a growing commercial real estate bust, real income losses, political extremism, labor shortages, substance addiction and more much besides all trace to the fateful decision. The headlines on seemingly unrelated matters go back to the same, in circuitous ways. A good example is the news of the electric vehicle bust. The confusion, disorientation, malinvestment, overproduction and retrenchment — along with the crazed ambition to force convert a country and world away from oil and gas toward wind and solar — all trace to those fateful days. According to The Wall Street Journal, “As recently as a year ago, automakers were struggling to meet the hot demand for electric vehicles. In a span of months, though, the dynamic flipped, leaving them hitting the brakes on what for many had been an all-out push toward an electric transformation.” Reading the story, it’s clear that the reporter is downplaying the sheer scale of the boom-bust. That’s not to say that Tesla itself is going bust, only that it has a defined market segment. The technology of EVs simply cannot and will not become the major way Americans drive. It might have seemed otherwise for a moment in time but that was due to factors that traced exactly to pent-up demand caused by lockdowns and huge errors in supply management due to bad signaling. Looking back, the lockdowns hit in the spring of 2020 and supply chains were entirely frozen by force. This might have been a major problem for car manufacturers that had long relied on just-in-time inventory strategies. However, at the very time, the demand for travel collapsed. Commutes came to an end, and vacations too. At that same time, pre-arranged government subsidies and mandates for EVs flooded the industry, all of which were later ramped up by the Biden administration. As demand picked up, retailers sold their old inventory of cars and looked to manufacturers for more but the chips needed to complete the cars were not available. Many cars were put on hold and lots emptied out. This continued through the following year as used car prices soared and stock was otherwise depleted. By the time matters became desperate in the fall of 2021, manufacturers discerned a heightened demand for EVs and began to retool their factories for more. There was even a time when cars were being shipped without power steering, just to meet the demand. It might have seemed for a time like the crazed period we just lived through was birthing a completely different way of life. A kind of irrationality, born of shock and awe, swept industry and culture. The EV was central to it. This demand seemed to pan out in 2022 as Americans grabbed whatever cars were available, perhaps willing to give the new doohickies a shot. So on it went as more carmakers threw more resources at production, benefitting from massive subsidies and staying in compliance with new mandates for reducing their carbon footprint. There was no particular reason to think anything would go wrong. But then the next year began to reveal uncomfortable truths. Cold weather dramatically cuts the range of the EVs. Charging stations are not as readily available on longer trips, charging takes longer than one expects and having to plan such matters adds time. In addition, the repair bills can be extremely high if you can find someone to do it. [Before You Invest in AI, Watch THIS First]( Artificial intelligence is the greatest wealth-building opportunity for regular Americans in the past 150 years. Some estimate [it will be $15.7 trillion boom.]( But most folks won’t make a penny. Why? [The AI Paradox.]( Before you spend one nickel on AI… [I urge you to watch this first.]( I’ll show you everything you need to know. [Click Here Now]( Tesla as a manufacturer had planned out all such contingencies but other carmakers less so. Very quickly the EVs gained a bad reputation on a number of different fronts. “Last summer, dealers began warning of unsold electric vehicles clogging their lots. Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen and others shifted from frenetic spending on EVs to delaying or downsizing some projects,” writes the Journal. “Dealers who had been begging automakers to ship more EVs faster are now turning them down.” In short, “the massive miscalculation has left the industry in a bind, facing a potential glut of EVs and half-empty factories while still having to meet stricter environmental regulations globally.” Today, lots are selling the cars at a loss just to avoid the costs of keeping them around. Truly, this has been one spectacular boom-bust in a single industry. There seems to be no real end to the bust either. These days it appears that everyone has given up on any chance of actually converting the mass of American cars to become EVs. All recent trends are headed in the other direction. Meanwhile, the EV is deeply loved by many as 1) a second car, 2) for well-to-do suburban commuters, 3) who own homes, 4) can charge overnight and 5) have a gas car as a backup for cold weather and out-of-town trips. That is to say, the market is becoming exactly what it should be — a street-worthy golf cart with very fancy features — and not some paradigmatic case for the “great reset.” That’s simply not happening, despite all the subsidies and tax breaks. “A confluence of factors had led many auto executives to see the potential for a dramatic societal shift to electric cars,” writes the Journal, including “government regulations, corporate climate goals, the rise of Chinese EV makers and Tesla’s stock valuation, which, at roughly $600 billion, still towers over the legacy car companies. But the push overlooked an important constituency: the consumer.” Indeed, the American economy, much to the chagrin of many, still primarily relies on consumers to make choices in their best interest. When that doesn’t happen, no amount of subsidies can make up the difference. This story is impossible to understand without reference to the crazed illusions caused by lockdowns. Those are what provided the respite of time to allow automakers to retool. Then they boosted demand artificially for transportation after a long period in which inventory had been depleted. Then the whole ridiculous ethos of the “great reset” convinced idiotic corporate executives that nothing would ever be the same. Maybe we would get 15-minute cities powered by sunbeams and breezes after all, along with a social-credit system that would allow the authorities to decommission our ability to drive in an instant. It turns out that the entire bit, including the fake prosperity of the lockdown economy, made possible by money printing and grotesque levels of government spending, was unsustainable. Even sophisticated car companies bought into the nonsense. Now they are paying a very heavy price. The new market depended on a panic of buying that turned out to be temporary. In short, the illusions of these horrible policies have come crashing down. It was born of liberty-wrecking policies under the cover of virus control. Every special interest seized the day, including a new generation of industrialists seeking to displace the old ones by force. More and more, it’s obvious what a disaster this was. And yet no one has apologized. Hardly anyone has admitted error. The big shots who wrecked the world are still in power. The rest of us are left holding the bag, and paying very high repair bills for cars that are non-optimal for driving from one town to another and back again in the cold weather that was supposed to be gone by now had the “climate change” prophets been correct. They turn out to be as correct as those who promised us that we would no longer need “fossil fuels” and that the magic inoculation would protect everyone from a killer virus. What astonishing illusions were born of this nutty and destructive period. At some point, not even corporate CEOs will be tricked by the experts. Regards, Jeffrey Tucker for The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Ed. note: Virtually 99% of investors have never heard of [“the Premier Anomaly.”]( That’s by design — because it’s one of [the market’s best-kept secrets.]( It’s all about a tiny niche in the financial markets where only the biggest and fastest gains take place... Profits that would frankly embarrass the returns of traditional, long-term stock holdings. The Premier Anomaly is responsible for every gain inside a model portfolio, including: - 439% in 24 days - 245% in 15 days - 224% in 10 days - 200% in 10 days - 142% in 3 days. All of which were made within the past seven months. Again, it’s the market’s best-kept secret. And [right here]( you can learn all about it. Maybe the most amazing part is that it's so simple… anyone can use it. Don’t believe us? [Go here right now and judge for yourself.]( Thank you for reading The Daily Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) [Brian Maher] [Brian Maher]( is the Daily Reckoning's Managing Editor. Before signing on to Agora Financial, he was an independent researcher and writer who covered economics, politics and international affairs. His work has appeared in the Asia Times and other news outlets around the world. He holds a Master's degree in Defense & Strategic Studies. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Jeffrey Tucker] [Jeffrey Tucker]( is president of Brownstone Institute and senior economics columnist at Epoch Times. [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2024 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. 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