“One thing … which is going awry generally – is the money being wasted on electric cars for which there is no market. Or rather, which there’s no money to be made from the making.”
– Eric Peters, Eric Peters Autos, July 25, 2019
There are nearly always multiple realities that impinge on economic events in the mixed economy. The recent report that Nissan Motors may go out of business by 2020 due to a sudden deterioration of its razor thin 1% to 2% annual profit margin is attributed to:
“From time to time a statute gets written with a really good intention but reality does not follow that intention. That’s why we’re looking at these rules and regulations from a common-sense approach, we’re looking to get the best result we can.”
– DOE Secretary Rick Perry, quoted in Politico, July 16, 2019.
“According to Consumer Reports, the highest-ranked was an electric heat pump water with an average price of $1,200 (twice that of the runner-up gas water heater) and an average annual operating cost of $240. Second place was an apparently ordinary gas water heater with an average price of $600 and an average annual operating cost of $245.” (below)
On July 11, the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) and request for comments on a petition by the natural gas industry (a.k.a.…
Continue Reading“Few U.S. industries sing the praises of free enterprise more loudly than the oil industry. Yet few industries rely so heavily on special governmental favors.” (Milton Friedman, 1967)
In honor of his 107th birthday, MasterResource reprints a 1967 essay by Milton Friedman, “Oil and the Middle East,” which nicely summarized the political power and cronyism of the domestic oil industry at the time. [1] Far from just historical, the animus created by pro-crony policies over a half century came home to roost in the 1970s when Northeast politicians and others imposed price controls and new taxes on the industry. That animus exists today under the hubris of climate policy.
Background
From the 1920s through the early 1970s, the political power of the domestic oil industry (primarily independent oil producers versus the integrated majors) succeeded in having the major oil states (excepting California) artificially restrict (‘prorate’) production to ‘market demand.’…
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