Fed raises key rate by half-point and signals more to come

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022, at the Federal Reserve Board Building, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

The Federal Reserve reinforced its inflation fight Wednesday by raising its key interest rate for the seventh time this year and signaling more hikes to come. …

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve reinforced its inflation fight Wednesday by raising its key interest rate for the seventh time this year and signaling more hikes to come. But it announced a smaller hike than it had in its past four meetings at a time when inflation is showing signs of easing.

The Fed made clear, in a statement and a news conference by Chair Jerome Powell, that it thinks sharply higher rates are still needed to fully tame the worst inflation bout to strike the economy in four decades.

The central bank boosted its benchmark rate a half-point to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, its highest level in 15 years. Though lower than its previous three-quarter-point hikes, the latest move will further increase the costs of many consumer and business loans and the risk of a recession.

More surprisingly, the policymakers forecast that their key short-term rate will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023. That suggests that the Fed is poised to raise its rate by an additional three-quarters of a point and leave it there through next year. Some economists had expected that the Fed would project only an additional half-point increase.

The latest rate hike was announced one day after an encouraging report showed that inflation in the United States slowed in November for a fifth straight month. The year-over-year increase of 7.1%, though still high, was sharply below a recent peak of 9.1% in June.

Federal Reserve Powell

“The inflation data in October and November show a welcome reduction,” Powell said at his news conference. “But it will take substantially more evidence to give confidence that inflation is on a sustained downward path.”

In its updated forecasts, the Fed’s policymakers predicted slower growth and higher unemployment for next year and 2024. The unemployment rate is envisioned to jump to 4.6% by the end of 2023, from 3.7% today. That would mark a significant increase in joblessness that typically would reflect a recession.

Consistent with a sharp slowdown, the officials also projected that the economy will barely grow next year, expanding just 0.5%, less than half the forecast it had made in September.

In recent weeks, Fed officials have indicated that they see some evidence of progress in their drive to defeat the worst inflation bout in four decades and bring inflation back down to their 2% annual target. The national average for a gallon of regular gas, for example, has tumbled from $5 in June to $3.21.

Many supply chains are no longer clogged, thereby helping reduce goods prices. The better-than-expected November inflation data showed that the prices of used cars, furniture and toys all declined last month.

So did the costs of services from hotels to airfares to car rentals. Rental and home prices are falling, too, though those declines have yet to feed into the government’s data.

And one measure the Fed tracks closely — “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs for a clearer snapshot of underlying inflation — rose only slightly for a second straight month.

Inflation has also eased slightly in Europe and the United Kingdom, leading analysts to expect the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to slow their pace of rate hikes at their meetings Thursday. Both are expected to raise rates by half a point to target still painfully high prices spikes after big three-quarter-point increases.

Inflation in the 19 countries using the euro currency fell to 10% from 10.6% in October, the first decline since June 2021. The rate is so far above the bank’s 2% goal that rate hikes are expected to continue into next year. Britain’s inflation also eased from a 41-year record of 11.1% in October to a still-high 10.7% in November.

Many economists think the Fed will further downshift to a quarter-point rate hike when it next meets early next year. Asked about that Wednesday, Powell said he has yet to decide how large he thinks the next hike should be. But having raised rates so fast, he said, “we think the appropriate thing to do now is to move at a slower pace. That will allow us to feel our way.”

Powell downplayed any notion that the Fed might decide to reverse course next year and start cutting rates to support growth, as Wall Street investors are expecting.

“I wouldn’t see the committee cutting rates until we’re confident that inflation is moving down in a sustained way,” he said.

Cumulatively, the Fed’s hikes have led to much costlier borrowing rates for consumers as well as companies, ranging from mortgages to auto and business loans. They have sent home sales plummeting and are starting to weigh down rents on new apartments, a leading source of high inflation.

Fed officials have said they want rates to reach “restrictive” levels that slow growth and hiring and bring inflation down to their target range. Worries have grown that the Fed is raising rates so much in its drive to curb inflation that it will trigger a recession next year.

The policymakers have stressed that more significant than how fast they raise rates is how long they keep them at or near their peak.

“It’s far more important to think what is the ultimate level,” Powell said Wednesday.

Powell’s biggest focus has been on services prices, which he has said are likely to stay persistently high. In part, that’s because sharp increases in wages are becoming a key contributor to inflation. Services companies, like hotels and restaurants, are particularly labor-intensive. And with average wages growing at

With many service-sector employers still desperate for workers, Powell said pay growth may remain above what’s consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

“We have a long way to go,” the Fed chair said, “to get to price stability.”

AP Business Writer David McHugh contributed to this report from Frankfurt, Germany.View article source

https://news.yahoo.com/fed-set-extend-inflation-fight-011140056.html

“Big banks trying to implement woke, liberal left’s agenda”

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Biden’s America!

Under Biden, the average 401k plan is down "about $34,000—more than 25% in less than one year." pic.twitter.com/HhuOblaJYc

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 17, 2022

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Higher gas prices hurt pockets, make small dent in emissions

local21news.com

SETH BORENSTEIN and TOM KRISHER Associated Press

As Congress and now the Supreme Court stymie the Biden administration’s efforts to curb climate change, one thing the president doesn’t want – sky high gas prices – actually is nibbling away at emissions of heat-trapping gas.

Gas prices in much of the United States shot past the $5 a gallon mark last month before a slight drop, and Americans have responded by driving a bit less, two sets of data show. June gas sales are about 5% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels and 2.6% below a year ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Americans in April, the last month data was available, drove 6% fewer miles than the same month in 2019, according to transportation analyst Michael Sivak, a former University of Michigan professor who is a long-time tracker of driving and car-buying habits. That 6% drop is tiny compared to the 40% plunge in driving miles in April 2020 as the pandemic kicked in.

Yet, a 6% drop in driving roughly translates to only a 1% drop in overall U.S. carbon emissions, Sivak said. The U.S. climate goal is to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

“High fuel prices are a really difficult thing because they’re a double-edged sword,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the centrist Brookings Institution. “So prices that are high and expected to stay that way have more of a longer term ability to cut demand and my guess is the administration wouldn’t mind seeing that, but the problem is that people hate it.”

High gas prices are “unequivocally” good for fighting climate change because people use less fossil fuel and emissions go down, but the poorest people, who don’t have other options also “suffer the most,” said climate economist Solomon Hsiang, director of the Climate Impact Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. Carbon emissions are causing harm, especially to future generations, but for decades cheap gas has meant “no one is paying for that harm,” he said.

Now people are paying more when they hit the gas station and some are changing their habits.

Richard Gowan, 56, of Brighton, Michigan, used to commute 26 miles to his Ann Arbor workplace twice per week in a 2021 Ford F-150 pickup. But with gas close to $5 per gallon, he’s cut one-quarter of the truck trips. “That one doesn’t come out of the driveway near as much as it used to,” he said while pumping gas near work.

To save money, he has subbed a small Jeep Renegade SUV, which gets substantially better fuel economy than the 24 miles per gallon he gets with the pickup, which he bought to tow a travel trailer. The towing still takes place because he doesn’t want to give up family vacations, Gowan said.

A gas price is displayed at a filling station ahead of the Independence Day holiday weekend in Philadelphia, Friday, July 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

He blamed the high gasoline prices on President Joe Biden’s policies. He wants Biden to open up more drilling and predicts that engineering will eventually solve climate change.

In San Diego, where gasoline runs more than $6 per gallon, Simmi Paul said her family also has reduced driving. Her daughter, a college student, now walks 10 minutes to work and takes public transportation to school rather than driving.

Even though the July 4th holiday weekend saw record number of people on the road, they were not driving as far “because they can’t afford the cost of gas,” said American Automobile Association spokesperson Devin Gladden. People who must drive, he said, “are trying to find ways they can combine some of their errands or perhaps if they are able to carpool for work they’re finding ways to reduce the amount of gas they have to buy and put in their vehicles.”

Biden has frequently said he doesn’t want high gas prices, attacked oil companies ‘ multi-billion dollar profits, proposed new offshore oil and gas drilling despite campaign promises and proposed a gas tax holiday, which congressional leaders said won’t fly. Asked whether conservation should play a greater role in adjusting to high prices, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Americans are going to do what they feel is right for themselves and for their family. That’s not something for us to make a judgment on.”

Biden confidants know high gas prices hurt people and the president politically.

“The fact is there’s been a lot of studies on this — it’s just psychologically that how people tend to view the economy is through inflation,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has worked for Biden. “People tend to focus on the pain points.”

Look at the pump for the pain point.

It’s about $200 a week for Pat Blevins, 42, a carpenter from Waterville, Ohio, who was filling the tank of his 2016 Chevrolet Silverado at a gas station west of Toledo, Ohio, on Tuesday. “It likes to eat gas,” he said of his truck, which he said gets around 15 miles per gallon.

When gasoline went past $4 per gallon in the summer of 2008, American auto buyers quickly switched away from pickup trucks and large SUVs to smaller, more efficient vehicles. But when it hit that level again in early March, there was little impact on new-vehicle sales in the U.S., where about three-quarters of vehicles sold are SUVs and trucks.

“Even at $5 per gallon, it’s hard to find evidence of changing habits” and buying smaller gas-efficient cars, said Jeff Schuster, president of global forecasting for the LMC Automotive consulting firm.

It’s partly because of the global computer chip shortage. Automakers have been sending the chips they get to factories that build larger, more profitable vehicles, Schuster said.

Still, if smaller cars and SUVs were more readily available, Schuster says he is confident that people would buy them.

Blevins said he will look at the new electric Silverado to replace his gasoline model “if it’s worth the expense and if it can perform like a gas (truck) can.”

Sivak thinks $5 a gallon gasoline is for the moment the price that changes Americans’ car habits, still much lower than the price paid in Europe and much of the rest of the world.

“When you talk about the real outcomes of the energy transition (to less carbon pollution) some of this does mean that things will get more expensive and we need to come up with better solutions on how we finance and ensure that everybody can participate in the energy transition and it’s not just for the wealthy or privileged few,” AAA’s Gladden said.

Some economists, such as Hsiang, have called for a carbon tax of 25 cents to 50 cents a gallon above market price “to address the harm from climate change” and reduce carbon pollution by cutting demand, but with proceeds partly returned to people and partly used for green energy projects. But at the same time, he said, “higher gas prices hurt poorer families more,” so the government should send them financial help but not subsidize cheap gas.

Biden’s proposed gas tax holiday “is a subsidy, it’s paying people to pollute,” Hsiang said.

Brookings’ Gross said Republicans are falsely blaming Biden for the gas shortage because he cancelled a pipeline that has little to do with gas prices. She said the worldwide spike in gas prices is mostly due to pent-up post pandemic demand and supply issues and the Ukrainian war.

“I really feel for Biden because he’s in this situation where he wants to do climate stuff and his base is like ‘yeah we want climate stuff’ and he ran on it and he feels strongly about it personally I think,” Gross said. “But he’s in this situation where he’s getting hammered on high gas prices.”

https://local21news.com/news/nation-world/higher-gas-prices-hurt-pockets-make-small-dent-in-emissions-us-energy-information-administration-pain-at-the-pump-oil-barrels-strategic-reserves-driving-car-buying-habits-president-joe-biden

Good thing we’re not at war with Russia

President Putin is stopping food from being shipped and aggressively using his propaganda machine to deflect or distort responsibility because he hopes it’ll get the world to give in to him and end the sanctions. In other words, quite simply put, it’s blackmail. pic.twitter.com/B2heUVIO39

— Department of State (@StateDept) June 26, 2022

“‘Food Security Is National Security’: Crawford Warns China Is Buying Parts Of American Supply Chain”

Jobs Numbers Are Out. It’s Who You Believe That Determines How Good They Are

The Lone Cactus

The good news for the economy is that there were 428,000 “new” jobs added to the economy in the month of April. The “experts” said it would be about 300,000, so the good news is, the economy added more jobs than was predicted. The jobless rate held steady at 3.6%, which is still 0.1% above where it was before the whole COVID thing hit back in February/March of 2020.

The thing that you won’t hear Joe Biden or the administration or the talking heads on the snowflake news channels say is, there were 4 MILLION Americans that have quit their jobs this year without going to a new job.

My question is why?

Obviously, when you add jobs to the economy it’s good because people are earning money, they’ve gotten off the couch, they’re contributing to society. That’s good for the country, regardless what side of the political spectrum you’re…

View original post 487 more words

Price of diesel hits all-time high, straining the trucking industry

www.foxbusiness.com

Paul Best

The price of diesel hit an all-time high in the United States this week as energy markets around the world cope with ongoing disruptions amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The average price of a gallon of diesel was $5.296 on Sunday, up about 4.3% from one week ago and nearly twice as much as one year ago. 

Gas prices are also elevated, standing at $4.187 a gallon on Sunday, down slightly from the all-time high of $4.331 on March 11, according to AAA. 

Although gasoline prices have dropped recently, the price of diesel fuel is still high, as the sign at this Flying J Truck Stop advertises in Pearl, Miss., Wednesday, April 20, 2022.  (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis / AP Newsroom)

While average Americans are feeling the pain at the pump with high gas prices, the trucking industry has been hit hard by the diesel surge. 

“The prices are skyrocketing, and we still don’t get good prices for the loads,” Michal Agboire, who works for Maitland Trucking, told WNCN. “If it goes any higher than this, and the price of the load not coming up, then maybe we just call it quits.” 

US CRUDE OIL ON TRACK FOR FIVE STRAIGHT MONTHS OF GAINS

The high cost of diesel is being partially passed on to consumers for everything from electronics to groceries. 

Gas prices are displayed at a gas station in Long Beach, Calif., Wednesday, March 9, 2022. The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. hit a record $4.17 on Tuesday as the country prepares to ban Russian oil imports. (AP Photo/Ashley Landi (AP Photo/Ashley Landis / AP Newsroom)

“To cover the increased cost of diesel, truckers must increase the rates charged to haul freight. These increased rates are then passed on to consumers via higher costs at the retail level,” Ron Faulkner, the president of Faulkner Trucking and 2022 president of the California Trucking Association, wrote in an op-ed at the Sacramento Bee this week. 

“So, you are paying for high prices of fuel both at the pump and at the grocery checkout line.” 

Overall inflation hit a four-decade high in March, as the consumer price index, which measures a broad basket of goods, jumped 8.5% over March 2021. 

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/price-of-diesel-hits-all-time-high-straining-the-trucking-industry

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“Nothing says ‘Happy Tax Day’ like a bloated and abusive government”

Tax Day is already bad, and Biden wants to make it worse

www.foxbusiness.com

Grover Norquist

Tax Day is a particularly dreary and unpleasant “holiday” this year. Americans who trudge down to the post office to drop off their returns or simply push a button to file electronically are aware that the IRS itself confesses that is it behind in processing those returns it already has by roughly 22 million.

Taxpayers are to hurry up (or be fined) and get in a long line. If you have last-minute questions about the tax form it is not cheerful to read that the IRS admits it is answering no more than 20 percent of the calls for help it receives.

4 REASONS WHY YOU NEVER GET A TAX REFUND

A person fills out their taxes. (iStock)

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6293535509001

And this is not likely to get better. 53 percent of all IRS employees are working from home full time. Others spend “some” time in the office.

The culture of the IRS does not suggest improvement anytime soon. IRS agents are “protected” by civil service laws. It is almost impossible to fire them. On top of that they have one of the most aggressive unions making the agency difficult to reform in even baby steps. One sign of the culture is that 97 percent of all the IRS union’ campaign contributions flow directly to Democrat candidates.

A one-party, unionized, bureaucratized agency.

Perhaps new technology can fix things? Sadly, the IRS has been saying this for decades. Send cash and we will make our computers work. Failure has followed failure.

But now Joe Biden is convinced that if taxpayers ante up another $80 billion and hire 87,000 IRS agents, things will change. While Biden says these new agents will focus on “the rich” the IRS itself brags they will increase audits of small and independent businesses by 50 percent.

But taxpayers are also consumers and have jobs. President Biden and the Democrat congress are threatening to impose a series of new and larger taxes that will increase prices, depress wages, and make America less competitive in the world.

Biden’s new budget has 36 tax hikes and 11 new taxes on energy. Biden’s new tax ideas will increase the cost of home heating oil, electricity, and gasoline. Inflation has already hit American families and businesses hard – prices have increased by 8.5 percent over the past year. Tax increases will only make this worse.

One of Biden’s new taxes would be a new tax on “unrealized capital gains” which means you get taxed on money you don’t have. If the value of your business, your 401k, life savings or land increase in a year—the government would force you to pay income taxes on the increase.

You don’t have any more money than last year. You did not receive any income. How are you going to pay taxes on income you might never see? Stock prices go down as well as up.

Biden promises this will only be on rich people. But most new taxes are first visited on “the rich” and then they “trickle down” to hit the middle class. The federal income tax was introduced with a top rate of seven percent on those earning more than $13 million in today’s dollars. Now the lowest rate is 10 percent on those earning more than $10,275 in taxable income.

When Biden was vice president the American corporate income tax was 35 percent. Investment and jobs were flowing out of America. During the Biden/Obama years the U.S. had its weakest economic recovery since World War II.

The burden of the corporate income tax hits workers in the form of lower wages and everyone in the form of higher prices for goods and services.

Thanks to congressional Republicans and President Trump, the U.S. federal corporate rate was reduced to 21 percent. But now Biden wants to increase the rate to 28 percent. And you have to add state corporate income taxes as well.

Biden’s tax increase would put the U.S. at a tax disadvantage versus China, which has a 25 percent rate, and Europe, which has an average rate of 19 percent.

Biden and the Democrat party’s call for higher corporate rate on American businesses than is imposed by China or Europe will make American projects less competitive in the world. Biden will have us compete by having lower wages.

America should compete in the world with the lowest energy costs, the lowest cost of regulations and taxes. And we should strive for the highest wages, not the lowest.

Biden is also now trying to yoke the U.S. to a global tax cartel dictated by Paris-based bureaucrats whose goal is to extract money from Americans.

Democrats also want to have the IRS create a new, government tax preparation system. This will not streamline tax filing, as the Left claims, but will give federal bureaucrats more power to intrude in the lives of everyday Americans. It would create a conflict of interest as the IRS would tell you how much you owe and if you contest it, you have to deal with an unresponsive agency that doesn’t pick up the phone or answer letters in a timely manner.

Government as tax collector and tax preparer would give the IRS an incentive to overcharge or withhold information from taxpayers. It would empower the agency to collect even more personal information at a time that the IRS has proven unable or unwilling to protect personal data.

Grover Norquist is President of Americans for Tax Reform.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM GROVER NORQUIST

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/tax-day-biden-taxes-jobs-china-grover-norquist

Collected unemployment in 2021? You could be in for a large tax bill

www.foxbusiness.com

Motley Fool

When the COVID-19 outbreak first erupted in early 2020, many people lost their jobs as non-essential businesses were forced to shutter. And many people spent much of 2021 out of work as well.

In March of 2021, the American Rescue Plan was signed into law, and that bill made a lot of aid available to the public. Not only did it send a third round of stimulus checks into Americans’ bank accounts, but it also boosted the Child Tax Credit, whose monthly payments during the second part of 2021 served as a lifeline for many families.

IRS CHIEF WARNS OF TAX REFUND DELAYS DUE TO WORKER SHORTAGES, RETURN BACKLOGS

Another thing the American Rescue Plan did was exempt up to $10,200 of unemployment benefits from taxes for the 2020 tax year. That, too, saved jobless workers a fair amount of money.

But while workers were entitled to tax-free unemployment income in 2020, that wasn’t the case in 2021. And now, a lot of people who collected jobless benefits last year could be in for an unpleasant surprise when they file their tax returns.

WAITING ON A TAX REFUND FROM LAST YEAR? HERE’S SOME GOOD NEWS

You may owe the IRS money

Unemployment is a taxable income source. Those who collect it get the choice to have federal taxes withheld from their weekly benefits upfront, or collect their benefits in full but pay that tax later on.

Recipients who went the former route in 2021 may not owe much or any money on their taxes now as a result. But those who didn’t have tax withheld from their jobless benefits may now have a tax debt on their hands.

About 60% of all unemployment benefits paid in 2021 were not subject to upfront taxes, reports Andrew Stettner to CNBC. Stettner is an unemployment expert at progressive think tank The Century Foundation who analyzed U.S. Department of the Treasury data to come up with that percentage. Because most unemployment recipients opted not to have tax withheld, now’s the time they’re on the hook for that money.

Now this doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll owe the IRS money if you collected unemployment benefits last year but didn’t pay taxes on them. You may have enough tax credits and deductions to offset that liability, in which case you won’t have to send the IRS a check. But if you’re left with a deficit after accounting for your various tax breaks, then you may end up having to pay the IRS some amount of money.

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What to do if you can’t pay your tax bill

If you collected unemployment in 2021 and didn’t have your benefits taxed, you may now owe the IRS a lump sum. But don’t panic if you can’t pay it at once.

If you’re unable to pay the IRS the full amount you owe by April 18, which is this year’s tax-filing deadline, pay as much as you can immediately to avoid accruing interest and penalties. Then, contact the IRS to get on an installment agreement to pay off the rest of your tax bill.

The IRS commonly works with filers who are unable to pay their tax debts in full. And as long as you stick to the terms of your installment plan, you shouldn’t face any harsh consequences, like having your wages garnished.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Maurie Backman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Progressive. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/collected-unemployment-2021-large-tax-bill

“Consumer inflation at highest level since 1981 | REACTION”

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Biden: Buy an Electric Car, Save $80 Per Month — It’ll Take 63 Years for the Savings to Pay for the Car

truthpress.news

ByTruth Press Published 15 hours ago

On Thursday, President Joe Biden told Americans he was going to be “honest” with us and assured us that we would save $80 a month if only we bought a new electric car.

Oddly, he somehow forgot to mention how long it would take to pay off that car to get to the point where that “savings” would finally kick in.

Speaking from the South Court Auditorium at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., Biden gushed about the technology of the “next generation of electric vehicles” and claimed that they would be a boon for Americans.

Under his “plan,” Biden crowed,”a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.”

What a wonderful savings. That is a whole $960 a year. But there is a big problem with realizing this fantastic savings Biden has “planned” for us.

One has to buy and pay off a new car before any “savings” it might offer can be realized.

According to NBC News, the average purchase price of an electric vehicle in February of this year was $60,054.

But, according to the New York Post, it was even higher.

Citing Kelly Blue Book, the Post reported that “the average price of a new electric vehicle in February was $64,685.” (NBC cited data from “Edmonds,” but we think they meant Edmunds.)

That is a huge hike over the average prices that everyday Americans are paying for cars today, the Post said, adding that the cost of an electric car is “nearly 2.5 times the average price of a new compact car ($26,196), almost twice the average cost of a new compact SUV ($33,732), and 52% more expensive than the average sports car ($42,555).”

Also, just going by Biden’s “savings,” if you spent at least $60,000 on your electric car, your $960 annual savings would take 62 years, six months, and two weeks to get to the break-even point on the price of that car.

The inconvenience of charging an electric vehicle was also ignored Biden’s “savings” calculation. A depleted battery will leave you searching for a charging stations that are not only much fewer in number than gas stations, but also leave you at the mercy of charging speeds that could mean hours of waiting until you are back on the road.

Then we have to figure in the geopolitical costs. EVs are manufactured using many of the rare earth elements that come from China. Greater manufacturing and use of EVs necessarily enriches China, the most oppressive nation on earth.

There is also the dirty secret that neither Biden, nor any other greenie Democrat wants to talk about: Pervasive use of EVs means not only higher taxes, but brand new taxes imposed on many of us.

Drivers pay a per-gallon gasoline tax to pay for the roads. If fewer people are buying gas and paying that tax, government will look for new revenue sources.

One proposal has that revenue coming from a mileage tax. And with a tax like that, we are giving the government a brand new way to tax us — not to mention track us with the government-owned devices installed in our cars to tally the miles we drive.

Finally, it will also be a blow to the used car market.

The EV industry says that EV battery packs — which cost between $5,000 and $20,000 to replace — last between five and 20 years. Who would want to spend $15,000 to $20,000 on a used EV only to expect to have a $20,000 battery replacement repair bill looming over your head?

It just wouldn’t be worth buying a used EV, and that is yet another stealth cost on American consumers who will be forced to keep buying new cars instead of paying one-third the cost for a reliable used car.

No wonder GM has committed to phasing out gas-powered cars and going to exclusively zero-emissions vehicles by 2035.

With all these factors added into the reckoning of buying an electric vehicle, Joe Biden’s $80 monthly savings easily gets lost in the shuffle — like most things do over the course of 63 years.

https://truthpress.news/news/biden-buy-an-electric-car-save-80-per-month-itll-take-63-years-for-the-savings-to-pay-for-the-car/

There’s an oil supply ‘100 times bigger’ than US reserve: Oil exec

“Americans aren’t buying Biden’s ‘BS,’ GOP lawmakers slam president”

“‘Just A Band-Aid On A Bullet Hole’: Barrasso Hammers Dems Who Proposes Federal Gas Tax Holiday”

Not Good….

Freedom Is Just Another Word...

View original post

“Marjorie Taylor Greene Gets Up And HUMILIATES AOC, Gets A Standing Ovation”

Biden’s gas tax gaslighting

March 16, 2022 07:00 AM

By Charlie Sauer

When gas prices climbed rapidly, the Biden administration blamed the oil companies and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What the administration and Democrats in Congress cannot admit, at least not without pain at election time, is that it was their explicit intent to reduce domestic oil and gas production, and record-high gasoline prices have not altered that strategy. Democrats believe that higher gas prices will nudge people to buy electric cars and solar panels for their houses and drive less, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of that has indeed happened, but those who cannot afford a Tesla or rooftop solar panels are stuck paying more.

One part of the administration’s plan to make oil and gas more scarce has been to put a moratorium on oil leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, which the courts recently ruled was illegal. Drilling permits on public lands in the rest of the country have plunged in recent months, and in January, the Bureau of Land Management approved just 95 new permits, over 50% lower than a year ago.

The administration is boxed in on its energy agenda to some degree, as it remains beholden to a liberal Democratic Congress to pass legislation. The last congressional hearing dealing with energy prices and domestic exploration culminated in high-ranking Democrats asking U.S. energy companies to pledge to lower oil production.

The white-hot economy has come roaring back from the COVID-19-induced recession, and inflation has crept into the system. High gasoline prices are just one manifestation of this inflation, and it has responded by blaming businesses for price gouging, oil companies for deliberately underproducing, and Putin for creating the geopolitical crisis that accelerated the rise in oil prices.

While it’s true that the U.S. embargo on Russian oil raised prices, the reflexive antipathy toward private businesses is well off the mark. For starters, oil prices are set in a global market, and no producer has any ability to affect prices. Accusing them of price gouging is a rhetorical dog whistle for the party’s collectivist core.

What’s more, the White House’s accusations that oil producers don’t want to produce and that there are leased lands not being developed are nonsensical. The proportion of leases that are active is approaching all-time highs, which makes sense given current prices. Then there’s the tired leased land talking point — it takes time to explore land, conduct an environmental analysis, determine if it has oil and where it is, procure scarce equipment, workers, and resources needed to start production, and determine whether the project will be profitable for shareholders. There also happens to be thousands of existing leases frozen in litigation. None of the administration’s proposals solve the problem of high gas prices, but they do make the problem harder to solve.

The administration’s response to the oil shortage, begging OPEC and Venezuela to produce more and taking steps to allow Iran to rejoin the world economy, comes with significant long-term geopolitical commitments with entities that aren’t exactly our friends and may lead to larger problems down the road.

We need to support our domestic energy sector. There’s no reason we can’t simultaneously encourage research in ways to improve renewable energy and fuel efficiency as well as methods to produce and transport oil in a more sustainable way.

Charles Sauer ( @CharlesSauer ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the president of the Market Institute and previously worked on Capitol Hill, for a governor, and for an academic think tank.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/faith-freedom-self-reliance/bidens-gas-tax-gaslighting

Climate Change Is Not An ‘Existential Threat’

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Washington Examiner

David Simon

The Biden administration’s climate change policies have sharply increased oil prices, damaging the domestic economy and increasing the cost of nearly everything consumers buy. By increasing revenues for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime, they also made Russia stronger and more dangerous at a critical time, thus damaging national security. It is worth noting that Russia’s invasions of Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, and Ukraine again this year each happened after an oil price spike.

But worst of all, the Biden administration’s basis for these policies, the claim that global warming presents an “existential threat,” is fraudulent. It is not based on any scientific consensus, and in fact, it ignores evidence of environmental benefits of global warming that offset its harm.

Studies published in May 2015, July 2021, and August 2021 analyzed millions of deaths in numerous countries over recent decades and found that cooler temperatures kill several times more people than warmer temperatures. “Global warming,” environmental statistician Bjørn Lomborg wrote in September 2021, “now prevents more than 166,000 temperature-related fatalities annually.”

Matt Ridley’s February 2022 essay explained that global warming has increased both agricultural yields and growth of forests, grasslands, and tree leaves.

The facts regarding natural disasters also do not support the “existential threat” claim. The number of hurricanes per year, a 2021 EPA report shows, has not increased since the late 19th century. Moreover, although you wouldn’t know it from the panicky, sensationalized news coverage, the total acreage burnt by forest fires annually has decreased, and most rivers flood less today than they used to.

Since 1920, Earth’s average temperature has risen by 1.12 degrees and the world population has quadrupled from less than two billion to almost eight billion. Even so, the number of people killed each year by natural disasters has declined by about 90%. That statistic, more than any other, puts the lie to claims of an existential crisis due to climate.

There is also the global air pollution death rate, which has declined by about 45% over the last three decades. Again, no “existential threat” here.

Climate change comes with trade-offs — this is not a new idea. 

A group of eminent scientists, including Richard Lindzen of MIT and William Happer of Princeton, wrote in 2017 that “observations [over the last] 25 years, show that warming from increased atmospheric CO2 will be benign.”

Biden administration climate change policies are sensationalizing the threats while ignoring all the benefits. They rely on speculative “models” that supposedly project global temperatures and predict disasters. But these models are highly unreliable. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Obama Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science Steven Koonin shows that these models are unable even to reproduce the temperature changes of the 20th century.

The Biden administration’s campaign against U.S. oil production and pipelines is not just harmful — it is an environmental fraud. Now more than ever, with both a hot war in Europe and spiking energy prices wreaking economic havoc, it is vital to change our attitude and our policies toward this issue.

David M. Simon is a senior fellow at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and a lawyer in Chicago.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/climate-change-is-not-an-existential-threat

Former Obama economic adviser predicts stagflation, ‘major’ recession if Fed continues current policies

Brandon Gillespie

Former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers offered a grim outlook for the U.S. economy this week, predicting stagflation and a “major” recession if the Federal Reserve continues on its current policy trajectory. 

In a Tuesday op-ed for The Washington Post, Summers argued the Fed was operating within an “inappropriate and dangerous framework” when it came to addressing the inflation crisis and needed to take stronger action to address it lest the economy face far greater hurdles over the next few years.

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“I believe the Fed has not internalized the magnitude of its errors over the past year, is operating with an inappropriate and dangerous framework, and needs to take far stronger action to support price stability than appears likely,” Summers wrote.

“The Fed’s current policy trajectory is likely to lead to stagflation, with average unemployment and inflation both averaging over 5 percent over the next few years — and ultimately to a major recession,” he added.

Summers argued, citing research he conducted with a colleague at Harvard University, that overheating conditions of high inflation and low unemployment, both currently facing the U.S., are usually followed by a recession. 

He noted various errors he felt the Fed had made over the past year when addressing inflation, including predicting it would remain in the 2 percent range and be transitory, and continuing to buy mortgage-backed securities despite house prices increasing more than 20 percent. 

“No explanation has been offered for these rather momentous errors. Nor is there any suggestion that the Fed forecasting procedures or the personnel that produced them will change,” Summers wrote. “Indeed, the most important change in the March Monetary Policy Report to Congress was in the wrong direction — the removal of the discussion of the various monetary policy rules that had suggested policy was dangerously loose.”

“So there is little basis for confidence in the Fed’s assessment of inflation risks,” he added.

NEW YORK, NY – MAY 24:  Former Treasury Secretary and White House Economic Advisor Larry Summers is interviewed by FOX News’ Maria Bartiromo at FOX Studios on May 24, 2017 in New York City.  (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)

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Summers noted that the country was now facing new inflationary pressures in the form of high energy prices, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and potential supply-chain disruptions due to coronavirus lockdowns in China. 

“It would not be surprising if these factors added three percentage points to inflation in 2022. And with price increases outstripping wage increases, a wage-price spiral is a major risk,” he wrote. 

Summers called on the Fed to return to its framework of addressing inflation before it materializes and emphasized that price stability is “essential for sustained maximum employment.”

He argued that substantial increases in interest rates and temporary increases in unemployment were the only reliable ways to make progress against inflation increases.  

“Central to success in fighting inflation is establishing credibility that a new paradigm is in place. Recognizing failed strategies, and then abandoning them, is the first step,” Summers wrote. 

WASHINGTON – JANUARY 22:  The Federal Reserve building is seen January 22, 2008 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“I hope the Fed will make clear that inflation reduction is its principal objective, and that it will wind down efforts to promote worthy but nonmonetary goals such as social justice and environmental protection,” he added. 

“To avoid stagflation and the associated loss of public confidence in our country now, the Fed has to do more than merely to adjust its policy dials — it will have to head in a dramatically different direction,” he wrote.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-obama-economic-advisor-stagflation-major-recession-fed-current-policies#

“Sen. Daines slams Democrats’ dangerous following of climate ‘wokeness’ amid US energy crisis”