… or curb inflation, for that matter.
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The Dems massive Inflation Reduction & Climate Control Bill is getting backlash … even from the left!
Let’s start with the Inflation Reduction malarkey.
“More than 200 economists wrote a letter to Senator Schumer detailing how this bill will not reduce inflation, nor reduce the deficit.” Source
“Several nonpartisan experts believe it’ll have no noticeable downward pressure on prices — including the Congressional Budget Office (“negligible at best”), the Bipartisan Policy Center (“small impacts one way or the other”), and the Penn Wharton Budget Model (“statistically indistinguishable from zero”).” Source
And, my favorite:
Even Mark Zandi — Moody’s Analytics chief economist and Biden’s go-to flack — says that the bill will have near-zero impact on inflation.
Why? Corporations will pass through tax increases to consumers, oil prices will stay high (or increase) and drug price controls won’t kick in until “mid decade””.
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And, about climate control…
Specifically, the electric car incentives that are headlined to shave $7,500 off a high-priced EV.
In WaPo’s own words:
“An entire supply chain of rare minerals, semiconductors, batteries and financing has to fall into place before Americans give up their combustion engines.”
Here’s the big rub…
“American consumers can only claim the full $7,500 credit for an all-electric engine if their manufacturers displace Chinese batteries by 2024 and minerals from China or other countries lacking free-trade agreements — a threshold that automakers are warning could be impossible to meet.” Source
For the record:
60–80 % of EV batteries’ mineral ingredients are controlled by China which currently produces 76 % of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, while the U.S. produces only 8 %.
Despite ambitious plans to scale up, the U.S. and Europe together will likely account for only about a quarter of total global production of EV component minerals by 2030. Source
English translation: Expect to pay full price if you want to impress your friends with a climate-cooling EV.
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So, I guess we’ll have to count on windmills circling Nantucket and dotting the Jersey coastline.
When that happens, I’ll start taking the climate-controllers seriously…
August 9, 2022 at 2:45 pm |
Windmills can’t be built, used, and maintained without imports from China.