Over Supply

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Note: I have a new post up behind the green door. I’m buy a car, which I hate more than just about anything, so I will be posting about that experience for donors. Given my loathing of car buying, it will be an adventure.

One of the first lessons in economics is that demand drives supply. The more a product or service is desired, the greater the supply of it, barring some artificial constraint on supply. The relationship between supply and demand is expressed in the price for the good or service. A rising price means demand is outpacing supply and a falling price means supply is outpacing demand. If demand falls low enough, supply will disappear as there is no profit to be made in the transaction.

Supply and demand used to be an article of faith in capitalist countries, but it seems that our rulers have abandoned that axiom. Take for example labor markets. They insist that flooding the American labor market with new people from abroad will lift wages and increase employment. All that diversity will cancel out the collapse in demand relative to supply and something will happen. With regards to the labor market, the new article of faith is that unlimited supply drives up demand somehow.

Now, a lot of people think this new universal truth about the labor markets is just a trick to fool people into voting away their inheritance. Collusion between the cheap labor lobby and the cheap voter lobby has resulted in this weird libertarian argument that the old axioms about supply and demand do not apply to labor markets. That way heritage Americans will not resist the flood of foreigners into their country. That could be true, but it is not an isolated example of this new economic law.

You may have noticed that the car makers are making a big splash by announcing they will abandon the internal combustion engine within the next decade or so. Jaguar is the latest car maker to say they will stop making normal cars within the decade. They say they will be fully electric by 2025, which is not far off. Other carmakers have been less aggressive in their target date, but the general consensus is that all of them will be electric-only within the next decade.

The question no one asks is why? The embrace of electric cars has been tepid in the United States and Europe. They are an interesting experiment. If you are the sort that likes owning a novelty product, then buying a Tesla is an option. The government literally pays you to buy one, so there is that. Even so, the demand has not been great, because there is not great need for electric cars. For most people, a car is a tool and the current internal combustion models do the job perfectly well.

Then there is the fact that it is a terribly impractical thing to own at this time, as there are few charging stations and charging takes too long. More than half of US drivers cannot have a charging station at home, because they live in a rental unit. Many homeowners cannot have one because of the cost or their homes are not capable of having one installed. Then there is the power grid. Estimates range from $4 to $10 trillion to upgrade the power grid for electric cars.

This is of no concern to our rulers. They are sure that if they crank up the supply side the demand side will do something and then something else will happen and before long the roads are full of electric cars. Now, some will claim that these announcements are just like Soviet five-year plans. They are not realistic targets and the people behind them have no intention of doing what they claim. In other words, they still accept the laws of supply and demand, they just like lying.

Maybe that is true. The fake meat business, on the other hand, suggests they really believe the new economic model. Five years ago, the number of people walking around demanding a burger made from beetles that tasted just like a burger was zero. We have vegans and vegetarians, for sure, but we also have schizophrenics and manic depressives too. Mentally ill people are a part of the human condition. Normal people want to eat a balanced diet that includes meat.

Despite zero demand for meat made from grass and insects, the “Impossible Meat” racket is picking up steam. The billionaires are getting in on the racket and the Davos crowd is telling politicians it is the future. In fairness, the fake meat is not revolting, but that is not the threshold. Cat food does not taste terrible under the right conditions, but people do not want to eat that either. Fake meat is the e-book of the food business, in that it is a solution is search of a problem that was solved long ago.

These are some big recent examples, but they are part of a general trend in which the overclass abandons the laws of supply and demand. Given that market capitalism starts with supply and demand, it may be that we are now post-market societies. We are becoming something like a high-tech version of the palace economy. This was a common way to distribute goods in the Bronze Age. Given that the managerial class has a distinctive Bronze Age quality, it makes perfect sense.

On the other hand, supply driven economics has a poor history. In the 1970’s the great and the good pulled out all the stops to impose the metric system on America, but it was a complete failure. No demand meant no acceptance. The same is true of soccer and women’s sports. For half a century the great and good have been pushing these on Americans, but they remain fringe interests. Those iron laws of supply and demand, like reality itself, are resistant to wishful thinking.

The other side of this is that the people pushing these fads know this and believe they can warp reality to their will, or they are lying. Jaguar marketing is probably packed to the gills with the sort of people who live in whites-only neighborhoods, but demand the company bring in Robin DiAngelo to lecture them about their privilege. Fake meat and electric cars are just the latest boutique moral signifiers. Another turn of the wheel and some other fad will fill this role.

Of course, this raises an important question. Is it better to be ruled by maniacs who think reality is an optical illusion or is it better to be ruled by a class of sociopaths willing to lie about everything? From a moral perspective, the former is worse because they really believe in their cause. There is no reasoning with a fanatic. On the other hand, can you reason with a pathological liar? How can you know? These questions suggest that the real supply problem is at the top.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

268 Comments

Yman #235629 February 19, 2021 7:29 am 0
there’s falcon crest episode about white slaveryMaggie’s daughter Vicki kidnapped by some pimp and rescue the girl is a storyI’m surprised they literally used a word such as white slavery at the show, maybe it was 1987 make that possiblewhite people are the most valuable human resource, because they are more attractive and highly efficient than othersruling class might want to humiliate and hurt white people, but at the same time they want to multiform of exploitation of white peopleAny way, whatever ruling class planed for white people, it must be more horrible than the white girl became sex slave
Observation Lord #235625 February 19, 2021 3:53 am 0
“The question no one asks is why?”The rich are now an isolated ruling class that takes its cues from fellow ruling class members (and social media), and not from the broader market which they barely have contact with and don’t understand at all in the first place. This is why Hollywood keeps getting woke when the result is going broke. “How could anyone not want a girl power remake of a movie originally made for and by men? How could that not do gangbusters at the theater? Do people now hate women or something?” ; “Isn’t it obvious that Gina Carano should be fired? She offended Twitter. Sure, that other actor compared millions of people to nazis, but they are bad and had it coming.” ; “We should obviously censor attractive women in videogames because that’s what ResetEra and Twitter said to do … but why do we get so much hate and our sales crash whenever we do these things? It’s a mystery.”I believe Charles Murray documented this phenomenon in his book “Coming Apart.” In the 1960s, for example, working class and ruling class lived in the same parts of NYC. That’s certainly not true anymore. Thus, these are now two separate worlds.They truly don’t understand (or care about) the consequences of their actions for people without means and people who live outside of the coastal areas of the United States. The situation reminds me of that American journalist, Cokie Roberts IIRC, who exclaimed upon Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential win that she couldn’t understand how it happened because she didn’t know anyone who voted for him. She assumed her social circle represented the broader country and didn’t understand that she lived in a bubble of elite opinion.Same here. Rich coastal elites can afford electric vehicles as a status signifier, so they just assume everyone else can do the same, or should want to. They don’t concern themselves with what EVs would do to the already woefully inadequate power grid, what they would mean for electricity prices, what they would do to the environment, or how they might affect the working class because they are insulated from the consequences of their actions. What’s a 30% increase in electricity rates to a millionaire who pays more for his electricity in a month than some Americans do in six months?
Higgs Boson #235609 February 18, 2021 8:01 pm 0
The planet was here before we were born and will be here after we die. The only thing the planet needs saving from is Bill Gates.
Dennis Roe #235603 February 18, 2021 7:35 pm 0
When I think of rich fucks trying to jam their agenda up the proletariat ass, Prohibition is the 1st thing that comes to mind. How fucking stupid can you possibly be….look at the clusterfuck that turned into, talk about supply and demand. Too much money and education creates Mongoloids, devoid of reason, common sense or decency. Fuck em,.
Chester White #235596 February 18, 2021 6:00 pm 0
Demand doesn’t create supply. Capitalism is creative destruction. One cannot demand something that does not yet exist. Nobody was demanding a PC until Steve Jobs built one. The entrepreneur creates something because he has faith that his product or service will induce people to buy it, and he risks his capital and his time to do it. The government can only coerce, and it cannot coerce the creation of anything. Most new services and products spring from a single mind. Bureaucrats create nothing. They only destroy capital and the spirit of enterprise.
Observation Lord #235626 February 19, 2021 4:06 am 0
“The government can only coerce, and it cannot coerce the creation of anything.”Untrue libertarian dogma. Government spending can literally create industries. That’s how we got Airbus. And China has spent enough on commercial aviation that she’ll have a serious competitor to Boeing by 2030. There are countless other examples. Renewables, for instance, probably wouldn’t exist without government subsidies.“Most new services and products spring from a single mind.”Also untrue. Most new products are the result of teams of people working together and large capital investment. The days of inventing a computer in your garage are long over. If this wasn’t true, then Google wouldn’t control 87% of the search market; you don’t just start a competitor to Alphabet by yourself. Much of our scientific advancement also comes from government-backed studies / university research. Corporations simply skim off the top of public funding by exploiting other people’s work. Few American companies do the serious kind of research Bell Labs once did, outside of maybe Intel, because there’s little chance of recouping money spent on pure science.
Chester White #235653 February 19, 2021 9:40 am 0
My guess is that either Wilbur or Orville had the original idea for flight, and that either Brin or Page had the original idea for Google. Sure, the government can throw money at something, diverting capital, but it never has the original idea. Sure, no coercion or capital misallocation going on in China.
DFCtomm #235577 February 18, 2021 4:57 pm 0
There is some truth to that. The easiest way to grow is to grow. Add more people and you have to build more houses and then you have to build schools to teach their kids and then you have to build buses to bus the new kids to the new schools and so on and so forth. The question is whether they contribute more than they take. The answer is generally no. They suppress wages of natives and are heavy users of entitlement programs. They also fracture and fragment the culture. Overall it is not a particularly healthy kind of growth.
tarstarkas #235594 February 18, 2021 5:47 pm 0
They have set up a system which requires growth to function. The system just does not work at a steady state and it really dislikes contraction. If we grow at 2% a year for 5 years and then there is a recession and say a 5% drop in GDP, the wheels start flying off. You would think, “OK, 3 years ago it wasn’t like this,” but it really doesn’t work that way. We simply require perpetual growth and the moment it stops growing, it begins rapidly collapsing.
Judge Smails #235599 February 18, 2021 7:02 pm 0
In Boise Idaho the natives are distraught with their once charming little city being over run by Californians and East Coast lib’s. The real estate agents, corporate RE developers, and local politicians on the other hand are ecstatic over the new “growth”.
Observation Lord #235627 February 19, 2021 4:12 am 0
Same happened in Georgia. The GOP leadership spent the 90s and 00s bragging about their “growth”, now Georgia is a blue state and will likely never elect another republican governor or senator again.
Shrinking Violet #235553 February 18, 2021 3:04 pm 0
Where did you get the idea that the Impossible Burger is made from beetles? the actual ingredients can be seen here:https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035274073-Does-it-contain-animal-derived-ingredients-They are 100% plant-derived and animal-free. ( I tried the Impossible Burger once and hated it, because it tasted too much like meat.)
DFCtomm #235579 February 18, 2021 4:57 pm 0
The secret ingredient is heme from plants. That’s what makes it taste like meat.
Krustykurmudgeon #235526 February 18, 2021 1:29 pm 0
The stuff in the lonestar state has me thinking that this might be a sneak preview of things to come.
Ostei Kozelskii #235516 February 18, 2021 1:19 pm 0
There’s not much market for white miscegenation either, but corporate “America” pushes it with white-hot intensity. I’ve long said that AWR capitalists put ideology above profits. Alas, it is one of their strengths, and one of the chief agents in the destruction of the West.
B125 #235585 February 18, 2021 5:13 pm 0
I find white people are more open to miscegenation in more “white” environments. In Toronto, other than white male – asian female pairings it’s mostly same-race. Because when it’s only the talented tenth indians / arabs / chinese white girls are willing to give them a shot. But we now have such filthy and disgusting third world garbage that it puts a negative image for ALL of them. Punjabi men inculcated in rap culture are so putrid and repulsive that it even repels me and I’m straight. Ads can’t overcome that block.
Chester White #235597 February 18, 2021 6:11 pm 0
When ideology becomes more important than profit, you’re not dealing with a real capitalist. If people detect propaganda in an ad, they should refuse to buy the product, and a real capitalist will get the message. For the crony capitalist, the “profit” is moral preening and getting favoritism from TPTB (i.e. fascism).
James J OMeara #235499 February 18, 2021 12:48 pm 0
Can someone explain the cat food trope? I once priced that stuff in the supermarket and even the cheapest cans were substantially more expensive than, say, tuna fish or deviled ham. It would make no sense for someone to “save money” by buying it rather than the latter. Orwell in Wigan Pier talks about how it makes sense for the poor to spend money on sugary tea and treats rather than brown bread and carrots, same as drugs or alcohol, but why eat cat food?
Frip #235518 February 18, 2021 1:22 pm 0
Zman eats cat food to make himself feel alive.
LineInTheSand #235591 February 18, 2021 5:40 pm 0
I heard that he used it as an aphrodisiac.
RoBG #235546 February 18, 2021 2:25 pm 0
The trope goes back to times when elderly people who could no longer work to support themselves found themselves impoverished. It refers to the animal scraps and parings too small to be sold otherwise. (Wodehouse had a character called “Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright.)
Sandmich #235554 February 18, 2021 3:05 pm 0
Thank you, I’d wondered about that. Even dry cat food is a bit off the hook in terms of price, especially for what it is.
RoBG #235564 February 18, 2021 3:44 pm 0
Modern pet food is scientifically composed to the needs of pets. Cats are obligate carnivores because they need Taurine. Dogs are omnivores. Back in agricultural times both dogs and cats were used to keep down vermin. Hence pets.
RoBG #235494 February 18, 2021 12:44 pm 0
“Texas Freeze Raises Cost Of Charging A Tesla To $900” https://tinyurl.com/3eqn3g6q
Falcone #235509 February 18, 2021 1:03 pm 0
the price one pays for a “technologically superior” car lol
TomA #235560 February 18, 2021 3:30 pm 0
Methinks a lot of Teslas will be going on sale really cheap in the coming weeks in Texas. Vanity and virtue signalling are not worth spending $5/mile for transportation, especially when compared to gasoline at less 10 cents per mile.
Ben the Layabout #235616 February 18, 2021 8:45 pm 0
Your $0.10 figure is wildly low. The current IRS mileage rate is $0.56.
James J OMeara #235492 February 18, 2021 12:38 pm 0
“Fake meat is the e-book of the food business, in that it is a solution is search of a problem that was solved long ago.”Pure Luddite-ism. The ebook solves many problems. For example, getting immediate delivery of a book, without it spending weeks in the mail, getting lost, or intercepted by the Post Office or FBI. How can I assemble a library of subversive literature that’s long out of print and never going to back in print in today’s climate? How can I buy a book without being sneered at by an angry minimum wage worker who thinks he’s an unrecognized genius (charming old bookstore) or snitched on by an underpaid SJW (new mall bookstore). How can I store an entire library of subversive literature on an easily hidden and reproduced zip drive (as opposed to Yockey’s suitcase of incriminating documents, or that lady in Fahrenheit 451 who incinerates herself along with her hidden book stash). How can I publish and distribute my subversive literature for a few pennies?And before the reeeeeeee-ing begins, that’s ebook, not kindle; obviously the kindle is part of the Amazon ecosystem and subject to snooping, censorship, etc.
The Wild Geese Howard #235498 February 18, 2021 12:47 pm 0
Ebooks are great for applications like miniaturizing an engineering reference bookshelf to a thumb drive.
Montefrío #235709 February 19, 2021 2:38 pm 0
I had two kindles that can no longer be used because the seller did something to them by remote so that I can no longer transfer from device to computer or vice-versa. I’d gladly buy another e-book if I could find one, but I haven’t been able to in my home country. I have about 17k volumes stored along with a large print library, all of it intended for my grandchildren.
ABCer #235482 February 18, 2021 12:22 pm 0
“This is of no concern to our rulers. They are sure that if they crank up the supply side the demand side will do something and then something else will happen and before long the roads are full of electric cars.”Wrong. This is of Deep Concern to our Rulers. They want to cut off our supply of working practical personal transportation and it’s not SUPPOSED to be replaced.People with Cars have more options than people who don’t.Since you’re still grinding for a living, you may be deceived into thinking they want you to be able to grind for a living. They don’t.They want you dependent, or dead.Dead is preferred, but baby steps…baby steps…“But we’re the economy.”.No. Capital, which comes from the Fed digitally is the economy.You are a fringe they cannot afford any longer.
The Wild Geese Howard #235534 February 18, 2021 1:39 pm 0
They’ve proved it by completely dissociating Wall Street from the rest of the economy to implement the K-shaped recovery.
Ripple #235479 February 18, 2021 12:12 pm 0
Burgers made in part from insects? Vegetarians wouldn’t eat them because insects are animals.
Wolf Barney #235485 February 18, 2021 12:25 pm 0
Sure they’ll eat them, as long as the elites, who they love, promote them as part of the woke agenda.
The Wild Geese Howard #235531 February 18, 2021 1:37 pm 0
Insects aren’t fluffy and cute like kittens, puppies, or baby birds. The wokesters will gobble bug burgers like there’s no tomorrow.
MikeW #235464 February 18, 2021 11:35 am 0
The glacial charging times for electric cars is of no concern to the ruling elite as your time has no value. Similarly, they ‘fixed’ my dishwasher by making it take 4 hours to do a 1 hour job. The same goes for my washer which keeps pausing to ‘analyze’ my dirty clothes and now takes 3x longer than it used to.
Bilejones #235739 February 19, 2021 7:37 pm 0
And “washers” – clothes and dish. are now so frugal on the liquid that covers most of the planet, that the can’t keep themselves clean.
The Wild Geese Howard #235462 February 18, 2021 11:29 am 0
US Governors murdered nursing home patients based on recommendations from Gates-funded IHME: https://www.aier.org/article/anatomy-of-the-nursing-home-death-warrants/
TomA #235488 February 18, 2021 12:30 pm 0
Almost everyone is on information overload these days, and consequently important stories like Cuomo’s geriatric genocide are often overlooked because the MSM reflexively runs interference for the Deep State and keeps this type of news-you-can-use largely hidden from Mainstreet USA. This phenomenon is actually pure evil, and the fact that it persists is one of the alarm bells that our society is cratering rapidly.
Alzaebo #235547 February 18, 2021 2:37 pm 0
If there wasn’t such an elite demand for the plandemic, somebody would’ve had to create one- say, in a lab in China, perhaps. Rockefeller LockstepAtlantic StormClade XCrimson ContagionDark WinterEvent 2012025-2028: SPARS
American Citizen 2.0 #235576 February 18, 2021 4:47 pm 0
Agree. It’s a lot like how ISIS and other terror networks use broadcasts to inspire attacks without specifically organizing anything. Or how antifa does the same thing. There will always be someone who is appointed as the “Ideological Controller” who gives motivational speeches that spells out the agenda and then people act on it. CNN does this for antifa where they will broadcast complaint after complaint about some leftist cause and then highlight a Statue of Columbus still looms over some city. The point being they are asking their followers to attack the Columbus statue.Bill Gates did that over and over with “pandemics” until the Chinese government took him up on his offer and essentially crushed the United States with a biological attack. Anyone familiar with how terrorist networks actually communicate their strategic goals can see that this is what happened. And now Bill is on top of the world. The man of the hour. Telling us we have to eat bugs.Hopefully historians will look back and be able to tell the real story of what happened to us. I think it should be considered a war crime but of course the globalist control of information allows them to avoid anyone talking about it publicly.
Adam #235452 February 18, 2021 11:09 am 0
One of the first lessons in economics is that demand drives supply. The more a product or service is desired, the greater the supply of it, barring some artificial constraint on supply.Incorrect. Supply creates its own demand, also known as Say’s Law. You can have as much demand as you want but if nobody has the ability to purchase then nothing is going to happen. I didn’t think that you were brainwashed by the Keynesian pump the economy full of steroids and print that money crowd, but I suppose if that’s the world in which you work in then you’re going to be a believer.
Hun #235460 February 18, 2021 11:28 am 0
>You can have as much demand as you want but if nobody has the ability to purchase then nothing is going to happen Demand is a function of price. If, as you say, nobody has the ability to purchase, then there is no demand, in economic sense. Only wishes.That is what the whole supply&demand diagram is about – they meet at a certain price.
The Wild Geese Howard #235463 February 18, 2021 11:33 am 0
I see this from a slightly different perspective, based on how many things the Narrative has been able to talk into existence. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a consumer product. It could be a situation, like the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DFCtomm #235587 February 18, 2021 5:21 pm 0
You’re behind the times. Keynes is quaint and outdated. It’s now Modern Money Theory all the way. We just print it and go.
Falcone #235450 February 18, 2021 11:07 am 0
I never thought it was a coincidence that the anti-steak crusade in the west coincides with a surge in demand for steak in China
Moe Noname #235444 February 18, 2021 11:02 am 0
Mr. Z, Thank you for your thoughts and hosting your website. Now that you have your voting feature up and running, is there any way to rank the comments, as with your old system? You have so many intelligent (and tall, good looking…) commentators, it was always nice to see who was deemed the most articulate. It also saved a little time from reading/ re-reading old comments.
Karl Horst Germany #235443 February 18, 2021 11:00 am 0
While you and your Comrades are standing in line for your bug burgers, you might as well get used to the Musac of the future USSA. На сопках Маньчжурии by Ilya Alekseevich Shatrov is one of my favorites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Heo7YsV-ql4
Hun #235451 February 18, 2021 11:08 am 0
Why? The US and Western “elites” are not communists. They just like to use commie methods.
DFCtomm #235588 February 18, 2021 5:27 pm 0
The commies aren’t even commies. The only economic scheme that is moderately insulated from subversion and corruption is a moral and just people. Everybody else eventually comes around to the Communist way of thinking because they like their methods.
Alzaebo #235544 February 18, 2021 2:14 pm 0
Stop laughing. Stop laughing!
JR Wirth #235441 February 18, 2021 10:58 am 0
Supply and demand actually has four inputs, the supply of.a product, the demand for a product, the supply of money and the demand for loans. In an era where the supply of money is reaching towards infinity, suddenly the supply of white elephants multiplies even if there is no demand. When you have a $2 Trillion giveaway package currently on the floor of Congress, suddenly $4 Trillion for charging stations is doable. This is how the trick is pulled off, the merger of the Treasury and The Fed. This was taboo for a century, but taboos were made to be broken. ONLY because we have the reserve currency have we not had a currency crisis, and that’s a 10 or 15 year firewall, not a permanent situation.
American Citizen 2.0 #235466 February 18, 2021 11:41 am 0
You made the same point I was trying to make in my comment but better. Thanks. Money really is a math trick at the fed/treasury level. They have created trillions of dollars that have to go somewhere. Same thing happened with the explosion of big tech companies after 2008.
Dinothedoxie #235437 February 18, 2021 10:48 am 0
I don’t get the rights reflexive hostility to electric cars. They’re just an evolution of automobile tech that will play out over many decades. Hybrids will be the bridge and are still less than 20% of the total market. The idea that ICE will be completely eliminated in ten years is a complete fantasy. One that will end as soon as the manufacturers sales crash if they try to force it. Instead, we’ll see an increase in hybrids and eventually a true gas-electric hybrid where the ice is only a generator to charge and supplement batteries. Similar tech has existed in locomotives for fifty+ years now so it’s hardly revolutionary.
Semi-Hemi #235484 February 18, 2021 12:24 pm 0
Maybe battery type electric cars will become obsolete just as a modern sleek space age looking horse drawn carriage would still be obsolete. Something no one has thought possible suddenly just becomes normal and ubiquitous. Use your imagination. It could be a shoebox size thingy that produces massive amounts of electricity from banana peels.
Alzaebo #235542 February 18, 2021 2:10 pm 0
Locomotive diesel-electric, good call. So why are the dang toll lanes in Los Angeles electric-ONLY? They’re lying again. And as nutty as fruitcakes. Foreign hybrids were developing nicely, now they seem to have gone away. Inexplicably. The faddists really, really hate us. I mean, look at vaping. It worked in a tradeoff sort of way, so they hate that too.
TomA #235495 February 18, 2021 12:44 pm 0
The energy density of gasoline & diesel far exceeds that of even the very best batteries (this is physics, and like gravity, its been around since the Big Bang, so fuck your wishful thinking). Think of it this way. Imagine you’re going on a long hike and will need to take along some food to fuel your muscles along the way. You can choose between carrying fanny pack stuffed with energy bars or lug 10 bays of hay in a cart behind you. Absent government interference, which option will you choose?
American Citizen 2.0 #235575 February 18, 2021 4:38 pm 0
If there are bears attracted to the scent of the energy bars and wolves attracted to the color of the fanny pack, I am going to choose the hay cart every time. In other words, there aren’t enough variables in your calculus there. Sure, if portability is the main concern, I am going to go for small and light. But it’s not. I would be fine traveling exclusively by hot air balloon too though. So I might be an outlier.
DFCtomm #235589 February 18, 2021 5:31 pm 0
Your love of hybrid complexity might mark you as an engineer. Hybrids are a mix of the worst of everything. Increased cost and complexity with all the pollution of both systems.
Eddie Coyle #235435 February 18, 2021 10:47 am 0
Another key aspect of capitalism being ignored is trade-offs. As you have made mention ZMan our elites now never look at unintended consequences before launching their utopian dreams. Denninger at market-ticker gave consideration to what would happen to the tourist industry and with it the billions invested in condos as one example when folks can only travel 150 to 200 miles on a charge. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=241445 In short it is devastated.
The Wild Geese Howard #235529 February 18, 2021 1:33 pm 0
I know a guy who just started a 10 year plan to get rich buying Florida condos to rent to tourists. Poor bastard.
Xman #235428 February 18, 2021 10:38 am 0
Our ruling class and our economy has become increasingly Soviet. The analogy of the Five Year Plan is not entirely off the mark. What we dissidents must realize is that there are going to be Soviet consequences to not going along with the Party Line, as well.We have already seen the censorship and the troops in the streets. We have already seen the “planned economy” in the form of a completely rigged banking and credit system and fiat money. We have already seen the targeting of the white man as the new kulak and the ideological purge of the military.What I fear we are about to see next is mass suffering and cruel disregard for it when the overlords fuck up. California has outlawed the sale of non-electric cars starting in 2035 by executive order. GM and VW have indicated that they will produce only electric cars by 2035. Yet NOBODY is talking about upgrading the grid to handle all of this, let alone actually building additional power plants. We have rolling blackouts in California, and rolling blackouts in Texas where people are freezing from lack of heat. Yet our overlords DGAF, and keep plowing full speed ahead with their “green” sham. This is merely a foretaste of what is yet to come.We may yet see the development of situations like the famine in the USSR after the purge of the kulaks, and the mass starvation in the PRC after the Party decreed that peasants would quit farming rice and make steel in “backyard blast furnaces” during the Great Leap Forward.
Alzaebo #235540 February 18, 2021 2:01 pm 0
Agree with famine. What will they supply with, fricking electric semi-trucks? There are no electric 18-wheelers, the old Famine Hedge small rail between towns has long been dismantled, so no supply- of anything.
American Citizen 2.0 #235573 February 18, 2021 4:33 pm 0
I think they are intentionally setting us up for catastrophe to be done with the US as the global superpower. In other words, I don’t think they are planning to keep supplies coming to us at all.
Jackmaninov #235423 February 18, 2021 10:33 am 0
Supply and demand seem to be working fine, it’s simply that us peasants are no longer participants in the market, but simply chattel being bought and sold. Demand is high among the overlords for us plebs to be MADE to eat the bugs and drive the electric car, so suppliers are moving in. These people all made their money selling the manipulation of our animal desires, selling our personal data to each other and loading us with debt, why should we expect anything different going forward. Plantation America(n Empire) rolls on.
The Wild Geese Howard #235426 February 18, 2021 10:37 am 0
The Cloud People see us as livestock to vax, tag, and track. Forever.
Alzaebo #235539 February 18, 2021 1:55 pm 0
What’s more, they intend to put us in stalls and feed us hay
American Citizen 2.0 #235566 February 18, 2021 3:46 pm 0
As long as they don’t turn off the porn, I think pretty much everyone is going to be fine with that.
American Citizen 2.0 #235420 February 18, 2021 10:30 am 0
Labor statistics are completely falsified to support whatever narrative the government wants to push. So I can see how half the people who are unemployed aren’t really counted as being unemployed and then hiring all these new immigrants for jobs that nobody is unemployed in ends up as some kind of math trick where everyone is richer.And in the end, isn’t it all just math tricks anymore? They have this problem where they need to spend all this extra money they have printed. They can’t spend it in industries that already exist because apparently it would cause inflation. So, they just dump 5 trillion bucks into electric cars and that absorbs the shock of the money printing binge. And the cycle never seems to stop. Did we ever really need to spend 2 billion bucks per Stealth bomber? Did we ever really need to blow 8 trillion bucks invading Iraq? I think they just have so much extra fake money that they know they have to spend somewhere to keep the shell game going, which is why in the end I ended up supporting a universal basic income. I mean if they are going to pay people from the US treasury to work in Iraq, they can sure as heck just send everyone in America a couple thousand dollars a month too. And, if they want to pay me to “buy” an electric car I am fine with that. All of this is horrifying from the point of view of how Americans used to treat money but we are at the end of our empire, with 0% interest rates, and we have to use up all this money before it disappears as our civilization collapses.
TomA #235502 February 18, 2021 12:54 pm 0
The collapse IS the cure. Normie will never get off the couch until real hardship returns, then its Katie bar the door and all Hell breaks loose. Don’t be in a city when this happens. Your best chance of survival will require sight lines of at least a hundred meters, and more is better.
American Citizen 2.0 #235565 February 18, 2021 3:44 pm 0
I live in one of the most diverse cities in America. I already lived through numerous mass looting events and this year saw the number of shootings and carjackings skyrocket. We are about three days away from “The Heart of Darkness” type of scenario pretty much every single day. You get used to it. Wouldn’t want to be elderly and live here though that’s for sure.
Raymond R #235419 February 18, 2021 10:29 am 0
Thanks Mr. Z, the post reminded me of W.B. Yeats’ observation in his poem, The Second Coming: The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. I think that the quote is a good description of the Cloud People
TomA #235416 February 18, 2021 10:28 am 0
The Road Back (cont)Nobody is my name.What does the Deep State fear most? The bolt from the blue. All tyrants are control freaks who intrinsically need the reassurance of knowing who, what, where, when, how, and everything other thing possible about the peons over which they rule. Why? Because they, more than anyone else, know the stakes when playing for keeps. In the era of the surveillance state, extreme data leads to a false sense of control via intimidation and advanced warning. But unknown is the anti-surveillance. And it’s also a prerequisite for survival in the Brave New World of America.
tashtego #235411 February 18, 2021 10:22 am 0
“These questions suggest that the real supply problem is at the top.” It isn’t possible that the collection of degenerates and senile used up old whores we see installed in the positions of power are actually exercising any autonomous decision making. I pray that there is some ambitious and capable American Franco with a loyal following who has been gathering the names of those who are ultimately directing these puppets. There is a 100 million strong demand for that man. Maybe the prize is just too big for anyone’s ambition.
Stranger in a Strange Land #235456 February 18, 2021 11:20 am 0
At the current rate of decline, if not a Franco, then a Pol Pot wanna be.
The Wild Geese Howard #235403 February 18, 2021 10:13 am 0
The Cloud People want all electric cars because few Dirt People will be driving in their ideal future. The grid will be fine due to demand collapse. Self-driving are to deal with the Dirt People permitted to drive if they start bad thinking. The bad thought will be detected and the vehicle will drive into a facility with the following stages: Gas shower – > body removal to crematorium /pig farm – > decontamination – > wash + detail The vehicle will then exit and self-drive to the nearest dealer for resale. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.
Reynard #235402 February 18, 2021 10:13 am 0
“Fake meat and electric cars are just the *latest boutique moral signifiers.*”Genius line! The perfect way to describe it!
Alzaebo #235536 February 18, 2021 1:46 pm 0
Yesterday: luxury beliefs andconfirmatory (display)
Jack Boniface #235398 February 18, 2021 10:10 am 0
Given Jaguars’ reputation of electrical problems, it’s amusing they’re going all electric. On buying a car, I recommend a used Toyota. Watch Scotty Kilmer videos.
SamlAdams #235422 February 18, 2021 10:33 am 0
Back in the 70s they were so bad that a high school friend’s dad (who loved driving Jaguar sedans) solved the problem by buying two. We used the same mechanic and either the green or white XJ was invariably in the bay every time we were there.
SamlAdams #235397 February 18, 2021 10:10 am 0
After Sandy was in a meeting with grid engineers from one of the major NE utilities–my firm had a business interest in grid hardening/disaster restoration. But we ended up in a sidebar discussion on EVs. Their estimate was once you exceed roughly 6-8% EVs in the normal older neighborhoods in our area are looking at an almost complete teardown of the existing infrastructure from the house supply backwards t the substations and major supply lines. Plus the necessity of adding huge capacity in standby natgas generation since most of those vehicles will plug in during the evening when grid demand peaks. Add in the impossibility of building new gas pipeline capacity in this area (we’re already at full utilization) and they were not optimistic. We’ll not even go into the demands for lithium and rare earths necessary to build these on scale or the energy density issues, even in advanced battery technologies.I vote for the take that is will simply become another control mechanism, like the bug burgers.
Hun #235394 February 18, 2021 10:08 am 0
Why does a little winter storm cause massive power outages? I always wondered about all the exposed power wires in the US. Like in a 3rd world country. Fragile power grid, homes made of particle boards and easily destroyed by wind, bugs or fire, ridiculously high crime rates, rampant insanity combined with sanctimoniousness… in the richest and most powerful country in the world. Amazing.
Hun #235396 February 18, 2021 10:09 am 0
This was a reply to dr_mantis_toboggan_md
Angarrack #235474 February 18, 2021 12:06 pm 0
And yet American civnats are always describing Europeans as “cucks”. The dissidents in the US seem to be more aware of America’s failings as well as our problems in Europe.I assume it’s the shining city on a hill syndrome but it is amusing to notice that the supposed knuckle-draggers on the “extreme right” are less jingoistic than the so-called moderates.
3g4me #235489 February 18, 2021 12:32 pm 0
Regardless of once-a-decade weather ‘events,’ I firmly believe America’s power grid will grow increasingly unreliable (POCs are notorious for not planning ahead or doing required maintenance). Am ever more firmly resolved to build in a rural community. I want an earth-bermed home and my own well and want to be as self-sufficient as possible, without going full-on farmer (because I’m just not one). All these makeshift efforts to survive in suburbia are, long term, an utter waste of time.
MBlanc46 #235393 February 18, 2021 10:08 am 0
There has long been a demand for meat substitutes. It is not a large market, but it is a stable one. And the means of supplying that market were not solved “long ago”. The recent entrants—Impossible and Beyond—are an order of magnitude superior to what existed previously. They are quite different to the electric car case. Now that Burger King* and White Castle have a vegetarian products, I’ll be an occasional customer. If enough of us give them our custom, they’ll keep those items on the menu. If not, not. No hard feelings. Supply and demand. Perhaps there’s some virtue signaling in their actions. I don’t care, so long as I can get what I want. In any case, there’s always some sort of signaling in marketing. Try pricing the identical item in different categories of retailer, from Target to Neiman Marcus. You’ll find that there’s more psychology than economic law in it.* Burger King has had a veggie burger on the menu for more than a decade, so they must figure it’s worth it to them. The move to Impossible was only an upgrade.
SwissGuard #235440 February 18, 2021 10:58 am 0
“* Burger King has had a veggie burger on the menu for more than a decade, so they must figure it’s worth it to them. The move to Impossible was only an upgrade.”I’ve was involved in this area for over 25 years. True, the Impossible was an upgrade but if you ask any of the Fast Food franchisees they will tell you it is a CYA from corporate to show they are conscious about Health and Wellness. When you watch the commercials showing people fawning over the impossible burger you need to remember that they are eating a full build with bun, lettuce, onion, tomato, mayo and mustard in addition to the meat. If they just gave the meat side by side with the impossible burger they will always pick it out. It is well known that the bun and the burger are just carriers for the build – lettuce, onion, tomato, mayo and mustard that people characterize as a “burger”.Also, almost all of the profit is from Fries and Fountain Drinks – take these away and they close the doors.Even if all of the fast food franchises became 100% health food, the same people who put pressure on to become healthy would never step foot into any of these stores as they loath them. They just want to Karen the rest of us about eating there.
Sandmich #235548 February 18, 2021 2:50 pm 0
I think a lot of us are uneasy with what industrial agriculture has done to animal husbandry. We’re by no means opposed to turning animals into meat, but we’re also not all that keen on doing nothing but torturing them for their short lives to do it. The Fake Meat products seem to want to squeeze in on that concern, but they actually do nothing to resolve the issue at hand.
Wolf Barney #235389 February 18, 2021 10:00 am 0
Electric cars, insect burgers, it’s a continuation of things the elites shove in our faces that we don’t want. We also never wanted mass immigration, third world refugees and section 8 housing in our neighborhoods, diversity training, critical race theory in schools, drag queen story hour, transgender nonsense and the list goes on. And then we can go to the subjects of never-ending war and the destruction of our industrial base and public health lockdowns. For the elites, demand from the people means nothing. And what they’re supplying is the enemy of healthy and robust communities and families.
The Wild Geese Howard #235424 February 18, 2021 10:35 am 0
There are many SWPLs that just love everything on your list. This is one of our most fundamental issues.
PrimiPulus #235480 February 18, 2021 12:15 pm 0
“Elites” yes …. Our system now creates too many of them: colleges grinding out credentialed legions that need something important and meaningful to do so they can feel empowered and validated. I think the fundamental problem we face is a vast and ever-growing mass of humans all scratching and fighting to find or build a place that their so obvious talents and education suit them to occupy. Whether it’s at the upper reaches, or on the local school board. And then they have to have something to push onto the people, as well as people to manage and manipulate. They ways to stop this are few, and not too savory.
Ben the Layabout #235615 February 18, 2021 8:32 pm 0
The analogy is not perfect, but here goes. The 1908 Tunguska Event. While not all the details are known, this was likley caused by a stony meteor that disintegrated or alternately, a glancing blow by a metal metor that “skipped” back into space. What is not deniable is that there was a blast equivalent to a large hydrogen bomb that did extensive damage. The “interesting” part is that regular air, which we normally don’t think of and it’s pretty innocous stuff, gets trapped in front of the incoming projectile. The molecules literally can’t get out of the way. Until a critical point is reached and there is a plasma explosion in the atmosphere, in this case comparable to some of the biggest H-bombs every detonated.The point is that there are limtis to everything. We may not know what those limits are, but when some critical point is reached, look out.
Dinothedoxie #235637 February 19, 2021 8:45 am 0
Yep. Higher Ed is once again seminaries, pumping out armies of true believers to convert / harass the host population.
Karl Horst Germany #235388 February 18, 2021 10:00 am 0
Supply and demand is also culturally driven. For example, here in Germany, the promotion of Halloween costumes and kids going door to door to get candy has been a complete failure despite all the advertising and product displays in the stores. Evidently no one told the idiots in marketing that German speaking countries have been dressing up in costumes to celebrate Fasching (Carnival) for nearly 2,000 years.
LineInTheSand #235568 February 18, 2021 4:00 pm 0
What was young Karl’s favorite Fasching costume?
Ben the Layabout #235613 February 18, 2021 8:21 pm 0
Ja, but it’s the wrong time of the year 🙂
Peabody #235384 February 18, 2021 9:58 am 0
As I alluded to yesterday Portland is a test case for everything in this post. 30 years ago it was a normal, even desirable, place to live. Today it has given over to the Sustainability Unicorn Corps and has, consequently, become the city that doesn’t work. Replacing parking spaces with “natural” storm water swales in combination with high density housing mandated to have no off street parking is a prime example of the pie in the sky thinking of the oh so enlightened control freaks who presume to run this place. It doesn’t improve anyone’s quality of life, it just creates more angry people fruitlessly circling an ever expanding range of blocks so they can find a place to leave their car before losing their dinner reservation.This arrangement will never work in a place like Portland because it takes too long with too many transfers to go anywhere. And one still always needs a car to, at the very least, drive to the terminal. Now that the geniuses in charge have turned downtown into a filthy, dangerous, shithole that’s not even a reasonable option for non-car living.All the while many (including me) are heading into day 6 with no power. Mainly because the Agenda 21 freaks are too busy plotting how to get people out of their single family homes and into rabbit warrens to organize a maintenance system to trim the huge trees that hang around feeder lines and inevitably take them, and anything else in the vacinity, down when we get a not all that rare ice storm.A society which ignores what needs to be done to keep it running smoothly to play at some virtue fantasy is not one that will last, ironically, given the banner these works fly under.
The Wild Geese Howard #235421 February 18, 2021 10:32 am 0
Portland hypermart suffers power failure, tosses enormous amount of perfectly good food in dumpster, cops show up to stop divers: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cops-called-after-hungry-portlanders-dumpster-dive-fred-meyer Amerika is just another shithole.
Peabody #235445 February 18, 2021 11:02 am 0
The grocery stores where I usually shop are still without power so my husband went to one closer to his work that had just got power back and it was slim pickings. Lots of generators run on gas – the filling stations that actually have power have seen 2 mile long lines. I was told of a 1 1/2 hr line at a Burger King where a fight broke out, naturally. A small glimpse of the desperation and anarchy that will ensue in and around cities if our overlords ever decide to pull the plug.
The Wild Geese Howard #235478 February 18, 2021 12:12 pm 0
Hate to say it but it looks like the controllers have a firm grasp on the plugs and are beginning to pull it…
Compsci #235562 February 18, 2021 3:34 pm 0
Not to kick someone when they are down, but after all this time, should not folks have provisions to stay holed up in their homes for at least three weeks, no matter what happens. I can do 90 days, barring some failure of my current supplies.
Peabody #235595 February 18, 2021 5:52 pm 0
People should do a lot of things like maintaining their bigass trees so they don’t fall over in storms and cause all manner of problems but most people don’t seem to be able to think past the end of their nose anymore. For this reason we find ourselves staring into the abyss.
Sandmich #235497 February 18, 2021 12:46 pm 0
The article would actually sound reasonable, were it any place else. The fact that the Portland police will let the mob burn and loot anywherebutFred Meyer’s dumpster is just indicative of everything at the moment.
B125 #235515 February 18, 2021 1:16 pm 0
It’s worse than another shithole. Generally shithole countries will turn a blind eye to the poors’ activities (ie. Dumpster diving). In america they actively try to create as much misery as possible
James J OMeara #235496 February 18, 2021 12:44 pm 0
“All the while many (including me) are heading into day 6 with no power.” C’mon, man, no one asked for electricity or natural gas either. See how the elite has trapped you? (/sarc)
Alzaebo #235532 February 18, 2021 1:38 pm 0
I forgot to shout out to our hardy Z-folk in Oregon, and do regret it. My best to our front line troops there too. We’ll make it up to you this summer. The forest overgrowth from heavy rains this year should heat things up quite nicely once it ignites. Love,California
LineInTheSand #235567 February 18, 2021 3:55 pm 0
Peabody my friend, I don’t know if you got to experience it, but Portland, OR was a great place in the 90s. I was a young guy then. Most Portlanders are f#cking insane, and deserve everything they get, including a few of my best friends who still live there.
Peabody #235598 February 18, 2021 6:44 pm 0
I moved to Portland in 91. Loved it. Then it got Kalifornicated. One of the most perverse things about the current era is how the overlords chose the most beautiful places to destroy.
Ben the Layabout #235612 February 18, 2021 8:20 pm 0
Music suggestion: King Crimson’s “Epitaph” “Knowledge is a deadly friendIf no one sets the rulesThe fate of all mankind I seeIs in the hands of fools” https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kingcrimson/epitaph.html
LineInTheSand #235623 February 19, 2021 12:46 am 0
Confusion shall be my epitaphAs I crawl a cracked and broken pathIf we make it, we can all sit back and laughBut I fear tomorrow I’ll be cryingYes I fear tomorrow I’ll be crying (This song was the original Mellotron end of the world song. And it’s so darkly beautiful.)
dr_mantis_toboggan_md #235378 February 18, 2021 9:52 am 0
All of this ridiculousness, be it glorified golf carts that transform a normal cross-country trip into a pioneer-like, multi-week slog or fake meat made from grass clippings and bug throaxes, is part of their master plan to take away the luxuries that have filtered down to the dirt people and make us suffer for Climate Change and white privilege.It offends Bill Gates and the other plutocrats that we have affordable luxury cars, big trucks and suburban homes that would’ve been mansions 30 or 40 years ago and steaks available at every grocery store.The Ruling Class wants us immobile and crammed together into diverse cities riddled with crime. They don’t want us to have freedom of movement (see the electric car that can only go 200 miles or so on a charge that takes all damned day). Electric cars, since they’re updated automatically, can also be shut down to render a population completely immobile.They want us eating soylent green because Climate Change, which my co-workers in Texas are definitely not feeling in the grip of a massive electric outage.Before I bugged out to the mountains, I had a suburban neighbor who had a Tesla. In conversations with him, he was doing good to get to downtown and back without running out of juice, even with a charge at the office. He said it can go 0-60 in 2.5 seconds, but what’s the point of that when you will barely have enough charge to get back home after a trip to the drag strip? And it’s soulless. When I floor my Bimmer, I hear the roar of its 8 cylinders as the automatic snaps off shifts with rifle-bolt precision.What happens when you run out of power in an electric car? It’s not like a normal car where you get a gas can and huff it to a gas station. What happens when there is a Texas-style ice storm that knocks out power for weeks or a hurricane or a tornado? Too bad, our rulers say.Cars are stupid these days, with all of this “safety” gimcrackery that requires you to pay $500 to have the cameras realigned when you get a new windshield and gadgets galore that really don’t enhance the driving experience. They’re designed to protect the idiots who do anything behind the wheel but drive, such as diddle on their phones.To save precious gasoline, most cars now have a system that turns off the engine at a stop and hurriedly cranks it back up when you touch the gas. To deactivate it, you have to remember to do it every time you start the car. It’s intrusive and annoying.I bought a 5-series BMW off lease years ago for cash and even though I like the way it drives, the do-dads annoy me to no end. I bought an old Prius as a commuter car and the hybrid system works very unobtrusively.
The Wild Geese Howard #235418 February 18, 2021 10:29 am 0
I’m convinced the nutty 0-60 times are a play to get enthusiasts buying Teslas. There is no reason for those because most of the driving population don’t have the reflexes or skill to manage that level of acceleration. Even highly urbanized Brits on Top Gear recognized the value of large, Ice-powered pickup trucks in tough environments: https://youtu.be/rKtFJxGzJX8
RabbiHighComma #235459 February 18, 2021 11:25 am 0
Dr: You might dig the new M2 CS. It has a Spartan interior when compared to the rest of the lineup which, as you mentioned, is tech heavy. 444HP….same engine as the now ugly M4. Tough to source as they are limited production, but the M2 Competition is essentially the same if a smidge heavier.
Memebro #235375 February 18, 2021 9:50 am 0
I just want to say that I hate this country. That is all.
SidVic #235385 February 18, 2021 9:58 am 0
Me too. That is all, carry on.
Hoagie #235387 February 18, 2021 9:59 am 0
So what are you going do about it. Living in hate is no way to live. Ask a leftist Democommie.
Memebro #235430 February 18, 2021 10:40 am 0
I kinda disagree. I didn’t hate this country ten years ago. Therefore I didn’t resist the slow boiling changes. The anger and hate inside of me has given me resolve to fight back. I have clearly defined enemies now, whereas I didn’t before, when I didn’t have the anger and hate. It is clarifying to hate. The democommies have always hated us, and that afforded them a much earlier head start on actually winning. Until more of us learn to ACTUALLY hate, we will continue to lose.
Bartleby the Scrivner #235487 February 18, 2021 12:29 pm 0
Don’t hate it. Hate what it’s become. I know it has been extolled here ad nauseam, but build your own. Just remember to top off your propane tank.My supplier informed me I was out when I filled up, and during this unusual cold weather, everything froze, including the well head.Oh well, live and learn. Assume nothing. In fact, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. And have at least one 4WD vehicle for unexpected snow. On topic, are E cars good in snow/cold?
The Wild Geese Howard #235517 February 18, 2021 1:22 pm 0
No, because you generally take a hit to charge storage capacity in cold weather.
RoBG #235559 February 18, 2021 3:24 pm 0
Think about what owners of gas-powered cars have to do to start their cars in the frozen northern tier of the country.
KGB #235614 February 18, 2021 8:28 pm 0
Put the key in the ignition and turn it? In how many parts of the States do owners have to plug their cars in overnight, as they do in places like Edmonton? It can’t be many.
Horace #235571 February 18, 2021 4:28 pm 0
“Hate what it’s become.” Respectfully this is too passive. It did not ‘become’. It was raped, mutilated, and murdered while we were asleep by our post-American ruling elites in full collaboration with international communists.
Felix Krull #235373 February 18, 2021 9:45 am 0
Fake meat is the e-book of the food business, in that it is a solution is search of a problem that was solved long ago.Hold on there, ebooks are awesome. You can store thousands of books on a small slab of plastic, and the battery lasts 5-10 books if you don’t turn on the backlight. It is lighter than a book and you can hold the book and turn the pages using one hand.I was a paper snob myself until someone practically forced an ebook on me; a fanatic convert after only days of use. Sure, there are a few downsides but for text-only books, it’s awesomeness all the way down.Be advised though, that pirating books, while easy and quick, is very illegal, even from sites that are not blocked or ridden by suspect files, likeLibrary Genesis, so do not be tempted by the near-inexhausible number of titles available for free, including books blacklisted by mainstream distributors.
Felix Krull #235374 February 18, 2021 9:48 am 0
Sorry bad link.This one is the siteyou should avoid at all costs.
SidVic #235382 February 18, 2021 9:57 am 0
I see what you did there Felix. Concerning Zs paywall article on car shopping; I once bought a xc90 volvo from cosco. Best experience car buying i have had.
SamlAdams #235383 February 18, 2021 9:57 am 0
Same here. Used to travel a lot and usually have 3-4 books going at a time. The Kindle is handy. If want to keep permanently in the library will order a paper copy.
Felix Krull #235390 February 18, 2021 10:04 am 0
The biggest downside is that you stop browsing bookstores but then, you can get a book immediately when you see an interesting recommendation online.
Ben the Layabout #235611 February 18, 2021 8:08 pm 0
When efforts to, er, borrow 😎 a copy proved fruitless, sometimes I’ve bought a copy on Amazon. Perversely, sometimes it was cheaper to buy a real (used) copy than the downloadable ebook!
Felix Krull #235386 February 18, 2021 9:59 am 0
You can avoid the pirating issue altogether if you buy an ebook that’s locked into proprietary formats, rather than one that allows unlicensed ones, like, say,Pocketbook
David Wright #235395 February 18, 2021 10:08 am 0
All my Kindle downloads are leather bound.
Astralturf #235572 February 18, 2021 4:28 pm 0
I am with you there! I bought a reader with the intention to tirate time from my tablet browsing blogs if I’m lucky (mostly 4chan though) into actual books. It works. Over the past few months I’ve read LOTR, Bernham, Evola, and I’m halfway through the Brothers Karamazov. It’s also handy to have the built in dictionary for a moron like me and the endnotes in a well generated eBook are a breeze. Also I can highhight passages and easily reference them from a document the Kindle automatically generates.And perhaps the best feature is I can read on my side without having to roll over with each turn of the page!
Ben the Layabout #235608 February 18, 2021 7:57 pm 0
If you can bear to read older works, there is a universe of public domain books. Good sources include:archive.orggutenberg.org If you’re too lazy to read, try an audiobook:librivox.org.I’m sure there are many more.
Citizen of a Silly Country #235370 February 18, 2021 9:23 am 0
It’s not car companies. The UK passed a law banning the sale of new combustion engine vehicles by 2030. Now, will that actually happen? Who knows. But they’re going to try.
Sandmich #235391 February 18, 2021 10:05 am 0
I think there’s some belief that the mythical “solid state battery” will come into being if BigGov can force enough dollars into electric automotive R&D. Thing is, even if it does that’s only the start of the issues since there is no infrastructure from beginning (power plants) to end (high-amp chargers in garages).There’s also many other considerations. For example, an ICE car that can drive 400 miles only has half the equation since it needs oxygen for the fuel, but a solid state electric car will be storingallof that energy at once. A downtown parking garage full of these cars would go off like a giant roman candle if even one of them happened to short out.
The Wild Geese Howard #235413 February 18, 2021 10:24 am 0
They need a cold fusion/working AI level breakthrough to push the battery technology to the level the Cloud People dream about.
el-porko #235407 February 18, 2021 10:20 am 0
A key aspect to electric cars that rarely gets mentioned is the necessity of Rare Earth elements for their batteries. A Prius battery needs something like 30 lbs of these elements. Guess which east Asian country of over a billion people holds about 96% of known RE reserves?
The Wild Geese Howard #235432 February 18, 2021 10:45 am 0
Isn’t odd that so many things happening in the current year magically seem to benefit said country?
Sandmich #235475 February 18, 2021 12:10 pm 0
Rare Earth elements actually aren’t that rare, but places that will tolerate the horrible environmental degradation required to extract them is:Arguably, what makes it, and cerium, scarce enough to be profitable are the hugely hazardous and toxic process needed to extract them from ore and to refine them into usable products. For example, cerium is extracted by crushing mineral mixtures and dissolving them in sulphuric and nitric acid, and this has to be done on a huge industrial scale, resulting in a vast amount of poisonous waste as a byproduct. It could be argued that China’s dominance of the rare earth market is less about geology and far more about the country’s willingness to take an environmental hit that other nations shy away from.Fromhttps://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
Peabody #235501 February 18, 2021 12:50 pm 0
So electric cars. Not so green. Who knew?
Felix Krull #235507 February 18, 2021 1:00 pm 0
A useful way of looking at electric cars is that they burn batteries for fuel. That might not be literally true but with the lifetime of the current generation of batteries, it might as well. Google how batteries are made.
Alzaebo #235522 February 18, 2021 1:25 pm 0
Meanwhile, during Obama’s Solyndra era, whole factories for solar panel making were being abandoned in L.A., leaving giant vats of hyper-toxic bubbling green goo and corrosive acids sitting in place. Don’t get me started on the environmental wreckage of the Greens. There are so many viable alternatives and niche applications, demand screaming for supply. As David Wright says, massive infrastructure buildout could be the economic boom, but no, the elites are insane, driven mad by their own bullshite.
The Wild Geese Howard #235523 February 18, 2021 1:25 pm 0
I love how the greenies totally ignore all the fossil fuel inputs still required to make and maintain EVs. Where do they think paint and clearcoat come from? How about all those molded plastic fittings and interior trim? Compared to ICE, EVs may need less lubrication, but they still need it.
Ben the Layabout #235610 February 18, 2021 8:04 pm 0
I’ve also had that argument with EV boosters. Granted that the EV’s motor and (non-existent) transmission will likely be almost maintenance free. Golly gee, there’s still that horribly expensive battery that at least at present, has a warranted life of maybe 100,000 miles. But most of my argument stems from simple common sense and life experience. Take away the motor and drivetrain of a ICE (“normal” gas burning) car. What do you have left? Answer: essentially the same things you will have on an EV! These are going to break and malfunction, most likely, to the same extent they do on the the ICE car. Of the several cars I’ve owned in my life, whether an old bomb or a couple bought new, most but not all I junked for problems OTHER THAN fuel system/engine/transmission problems. Nope, it’s the miscellaneous things that start to break and nickel and dime you to death. The very idea that a future Tesla will last a million, or even 500,000 miles, is ludicrous. Possible, but not without major and most likely, not economically sensible, repairs along the way.
George 1 #235491 February 18, 2021 12:36 pm 0
The powers that be will get it done no matter the laws. They control big finance. There will be no capitol available to continue combustion engine production. They will see to that.
Alzaebo #235525 February 18, 2021 1:27 pm 0
Kapital for everything except what capital is for, so damned true.
RDittmar #235368 February 18, 2021 9:22 am 0
I don’t think you can discount the possibility that the motives behind the push for electric vehicles are overtly sinister. Electric vehicles are overly expensive, unreliable and incapable of going long distances. That’s exactly the kind of transportation the ruling class wants you to have to rely on. If you’re a deplorable who can’t afford transportation, you’re just not deserving of it. You can use public transportation if you’re deemed “essential” in times of perpetual pandemic. And even if you can afford a car, the ruling class doesn’t want you to get the idea you can just drive wherever you want whenever you want no matter how distant your destination. They want you perpetually monitored and connected to electrical grids so you’re easy to monitor and track. I’m sure the EV’s will be packed to the gills with a variety of kill switches too so they can conveniently and remotely disable your electronics if need be. Laws of supply and demand won’t hold because there will shortly be no other choice than the government-mandated electric car. I assume that illegal aliens will still be permitted to drive around freely in unlicensed and unregistered transportation just as they are today, but a U.S. citizen will be out of luck on that score.
Reynard #235392 February 18, 2021 10:05 am 0
I had these same fears as electric cars were becoming all the rage.I’ve often thought that driving a car is one of the most American things in the world. Think back to being in your late teens-early 20s. Windows down, tunes blasting, wind through the hair, not a care in the world, perfectly content. That’s not just pure undiluted youth, that’s quintessential America.Who doesn’t want to joy ride, go cruising, bomb around, enjoy the open road, or go across country with just your little beater at 22 years old? I’m not sure you can even be considered American if you haven’t driven cross country. An enormous geography lays before you if you want it.The point is, they have been slowly edging us away from the absolute freedom of cars (I know, I know, we still need to drive on roads the state paves). Looking at the general ethos of our new elite and its shifting ideology, just the idea of “cruising” must be revolting. Absolute freedom? Noway to track you, noway of extracting information or money from this behavior? And think of the damage to the environment!!! No, no, no–this simply won’t do.
Pickle Rick #235465 February 18, 2021 11:39 am 0
I drove home on leave from California to Pennsylvania in my 1970 Chevelle (in 2003). 26 years old, just back from Iraq. Best road trip ever. That car had a 350, with side pipes and five point Cragars. Just starting it up and hearing that big block rumble was a joy.
Ostei Kozelskii #235593 February 18, 2021 5:46 pm 0
Ya’ see? That’s what I’m on about. It’s that dam’ white privilege again. Whoever heard of an African-American enjoying a big block rumble in a ’70 Chevelle as he hits the open road with Steppenwolf at full volume?
Stranger in a Strange Land #235607 February 18, 2021 7:55 pm 0
Get your motor runnin’…
Pickle Rick #235617 February 18, 2021 8:58 pm 0
Steppenwolf was my dad’s music. I made my way across the country with Guns N Roses and friends.
Felix Krull #235399 February 18, 2021 10:11 am 0
The sad part is that electric cars are the least scammy part of all the green bullshit. They actually work largely as advertised.
Alzaebo #235510 February 18, 2021 1:04 pm 0
Y’know, though, Priuses and mini-cars do make a lot more sense in Europe.
Felix Krull #235533 February 18, 2021 1:39 pm 0
Yes, but still not enough sense to actually make sense.
Swanson #235621 February 18, 2021 9:46 pm 0
Aside from the fact they you need to open strip mine whole mountainsides for the rare earth minerals required to create the batteries. And that you’ll still need coal and gas plants in order to generate the electricity going to the wall sockets in the garage and recharge stations…so more carbon output essentially.No, EVs are just a scam. They are nothing more than moral signaling personified adding another level of control over populations.Also take note that China currently sits on the largest deposits of rare earth minerals in the world. So first-world nations convert to EVs and China inherits the world’s economy and geo-political leverage without any possible rival for the next century….at least
George 1 #235431 February 18, 2021 10:41 am 0
ECs are a perfect way to limit freedom of mobility. For instance it will no longer be possible to use 4 wheel drive vehicles to travel jeep trails. No enough range and no way to charge them. Of course the elites will still have vehicles to use in such endeavors. Count on it.
Reziac #235442 February 18, 2021 10:59 am 0
Or, pretty much why I cling to my 30 year old pickup. And why when I get a backup vehicle again, it’ll hie from the same era.
Jack Dobson #235461 February 18, 2021 11:29 am 0
Given the dearth of discussions about how much additional electricity production would be required, this is likely. The cars are sound and technologically superior bu unlike gasoline, electricity will not be readily available.
3g4me #235481 February 18, 2021 12:20 pm 0
Very well said. I am looking into buying an older (perhaps 5-10 years) vehicle in the next year or two because I HATE my newest RAV4. Everything is electric and monitored and ‘safe.’ I don’t want a black box and I don’t want the onboard computer telling me when the road might be icy or what the speed limit is. Wish one of my boys was a mechanic and then I’d buy something even older.
RoBG #235543 February 18, 2021 2:13 pm 0
This is where having a relationship w/ your local “heritage” normie garage makes sense. Tell them to keep an eye out for what you’re looking for. (BTW, it strikes me as absurd that new cars now come w/ a screen in the console that’s bigger than the early Macs.)
Ben the Layabout #235605 February 18, 2021 7:47 pm 0
I share similar misgivings for the broader push for renewable energy. I believe that the Paris Accords and other “carbon reduction” goals, and the resulting government push to retire fossil fuels and they hope, to replace with “green,” will put the US/UK/EU/etc. at a chronic ecoomic disadvantage to the “developing” world. Whether this be part of some deliberate, malevolant plan to cripple the West, or just the likely collateral damage of stupid idealism (or both), is up for debate. Another “debate point” when I’m debating Greens is a simple one. I say something like: “OK, let’s assume for argument, that all your claims and fears about man-caused climate change prove true. Very well, under what conceivable scenario are we going to convince or coerce the rest of the world, espcially China and India, who are polluting far more than the West, and show no sign of stopping, to adopt the net zero carbon emissions goals?”
Jack Dobson #235366 February 18, 2021 9:18 am 0
Also, re electric cars, they actually are more reliable and technologically sound. As pointed out earlier, the problem will be the mass infrastructure revision coupled with an inadequate electrical supply. The last may be a feature and not a big (burger).
Hoagie #235380 February 18, 2021 9:56 am 0
“Also, re electric cars, they actually are more reliable and technologically sound.” Perhaps but they’re no F’in fun.
Felix Krull #235408 February 18, 2021 10:20 am 0
Perhaps but they’re no F’in fun. Ever tried a Tesla? They’re awesome to drive, it’s not fun that’s the problem. The problem is that battery technology is starting to edge up to the limits set by mother nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K43XC9J82Q
Felix Krull #235429 February 18, 2021 10:39 am 0
Sorry, wrong link again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RbwOhM6PUk
Falcone #235500 February 18, 2021 12:49 pm 0
Yes and they are not fun to drive No sound for one, no excitement of things burning and cracking or really, you don’t drive them, they drive you Thanks but I will stick with my manual transmission and enjoy redlining it
Alzaebo #235504 February 18, 2021 12:58 pm 0
The bottleneck is the supply of lithium and rare earth minerals. Limiting travel for those pesky explorer types- namely, a people who conquered the seven seas, then invented trains, planes, and automobiles, as well as coal, oil, nuclear, electricity, plastics and electronics- well, we’d better lock ’em down before they destroy the planet.
usNthem #235364 February 18, 2021 9:16 am 0
We have a decided over supply of maniacs and pathological liars. Demand for the opposite should be rising.
Chappie #235405 February 18, 2021 10:15 am 0
Or come up with a way to limit the supply.
Screwtape #235409 February 18, 2021 10:20 am 0
Yes and the culling is long overdue. Failing to smash heads or banish carriers of theses mind viruses when they first present means the culling is likely to point in the wrong direction when it finally comes, as it will. A sign of the flip is when the culture at large rewards and promotes the virus carriers over the normie. We are there.Fanatics are the useful idiots of the sociopaths. Not long ago I was stuck at a table full of soymales talking about “buying” a tesla to then drive Uber in their precious, wealthy blue enclave.Their insanity is like an onion. So many layers. Each bringing more tears as the death reason is peeled away and left to wilt in plain view.Meanwhile the noticing of such is a state crime.But at least they are easy to identify. And thus crush. If the necessity and will to do so ever agree to time and place.The sociopaths, otoh, are shapeshifters and operators, grifters and hucksters that find profit and power in generating both supply and demand for the absurd and evil (moar diversity?!) and are thus their own layers of lies are encased in layers of status, credentials, and charm.They are not so easy to flush out and crush. Luckily you can my e-book on how to do it.
Jack Dobson #235363 February 18, 2021 9:14 am 0
The last line is funny but…maybe there’s a problem with demand, too. This will get interesting in the food realm because the meat producers and suppliers have quite a bit of political juice, too, and the Black Market will be lit AF.
Hun #235371 February 18, 2021 9:28 am 0
There is definitely demand for elites on our side of the divide, while there is almost no, or low quality supply.
Hun #235362 February 18, 2021 9:11 am 0
I have never seen libertarians argue that supply and demand don’t apply to labor market.
Sandmich #235372 February 18, 2021 9:41 am 0
I have. Sorry no link but as I recall it goes something like “a human being is not a widget”, or “human labor by definition is always additive (makes GDP number bigger)”.
Hun #235381 February 18, 2021 9:57 am 0
Please find a link. I would love to see a libertarian ague that.
Federalist #235406 February 18, 2021 10:15 am 0
Whether libertardians argue that supply and demand apply to labor or not, the fact is that they’re all for a “free market” that includes little to no restrictions on immigration to drive down wages for our people.
Hun #235434 February 18, 2021 10:46 am 0
That is a very different argument though. Also, libertarians around Lew Rockwell are against open borders.
Reziac #235439 February 18, 2021 10:55 am 0
Except as Hun notes… https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/11/lew-rockwell/open-borders-assault-private-property/
Ben the Layabout #235604 February 18, 2021 7:36 pm 0
Actually that’s not true. Many things, such as volunteer labor or you doing your own chores, are “invisible” to the government statisticians, and, according to their theories, worthless.
Dinothedoxie #235417 February 18, 2021 10:29 am 0
Then you haven’t been paying any attention to them for the last thirty+ years. A key component of their religious belief is that more people creates more demand and a greater division of labor such that importing poor people makes everyone richer. It’s a religious belief because it’s completely impervious to logic, facts and evidence. Although none of them has been able to counter my response that: yep, the problem with Calcutta is not enough poor people live there
Hun #235448 February 18, 2021 11:04 am 0
That is also a very different argument.
King Tut #235458 February 18, 2021 11:25 am 0
Then clearly, you have never met any libertarians at all.
Hun #235471 February 18, 2021 11:52 am 0
Incorrect and lame argument, really.
Federalist #235473 February 18, 2021 12:05 pm 0
With all due respect, I don’t think many people read Z Man’s blog and comment here to debate libertarian theology.
Hun #235476 February 18, 2021 12:10 pm 0
That is not the point. The point is if someone makes a claim about the “enemy”, then it should be at least correct or backed by something. Is a link so much to ask? My suspicion is that some of the claims about libertarians here are similar to leftist claims about the dissident-right/reactionaries based on something said by Ben Shapiro. We are all Judeochristians, amiright?
Alzaebo #235483 February 18, 2021 12:24 pm 0
I did, yesterday. A younger man in his 30s.My gods. That used to be me. It was like talking to a 1990s conservative. A mix of practical skills, multicultural goodwill, and very casual distrust of politicians.We Boomers were broken on the wheel of moral brainwashing targeted towards our generation. As we chatted at a repair shop, I thought, “What have we done to you poor bastards.”Like a Boomer, he believed everything he was told. We Boomers had accepted the moral premise that white people were so randomly evil that we’d use our super-science to eliminate one human body per minute, every hour of every day, for eleven years, and accomplish it in only two years using turn-of-the-century technology while fighting an all-out war.He accepted the moral premise that everybody was a Yankee White American under the skin, except of course for those randomly evil Southern whites. Legal immigration was fine, America as a shopping mall was great, Civil Rights were necessary because there’s only one race and we all come from Africa- except, of course for those randomly evil whites. There has to be something wrong with them.Severian was right. It was learned helplessness, otherwise he would’nt have survived high school in St. Louis.
DLS #235513 February 18, 2021 1:14 pm 0
I believe the argument is immigrants create additional demand that offsets their initial downward push on wages. They take a job, but create additional jobs with their consumerism and new company formation. Or something like that. Not sure this even works in theory when they are all low IQ imports, clogging one employment segment and the welfare rolls.
Chappie #235527 February 18, 2021 1:30 pm 0
“I believe the argument is immigrants create additional demand…” Where I live, a sanctuary for illegal immigrants – they have pushed all others out of the trades using price pressure. Now that they ‘own’ said trades … shocking — their prices are way up. I will not hire them. Do not hire them.
Ostei Kozelskii #235574 February 18, 2021 4:37 pm 0
Even if this were true, who gives a scheiss? I’ll take beautiful culture and aesthetics, and low crime over a hotter economy any day. A nation is not a strip mall.
RoBG #235557 February 18, 2021 3:11 pm 0
What has happened w/ regard to Libertarians is that their promotion of “free markets” refuses to consider the total abolition of Price Discovery as corporate monopolies consolidate and money printer goes Brrr.
Compsci #235558 February 18, 2021 3:23 pm 0
Problem is that Libertarians—not all, but many—live in a make believe world. Supply and demand does exist—even in labor market. But the true Lib believer assumes a free market that allows excess labor to reduce its price to fit demand. Of course, that doesn’t work. At some point, labor fails to sell their efforts at a high enough profit to afford the basic needs of life and become wards of the State. And in our welfare state, excess labor—even at minimum wage—uses way more welfare from the public trough than desirable.
acetone #235578 February 18, 2021 4:57 pm 0
Hun, this is the paper that argues that supply and demand doesn’t apply to labor market: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/209979 Written by David Card in 2001. Highly cited. Provided the academic cover for the Bush/Obama neoliberal regime of expanded immigration and visa issuance. And hugely controversial (results contested for last 20 years by George Borjas among others. Too see some of his work check paper in url below). https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/gborjas/files/w25836.pdf
sentry #235361 February 18, 2021 9:06 am 0
“This is of no concern to our rulers. They are sure that if they crank up the supply side the demand side will do something and then something else will happen and before long the roads are full of electric cars. ”Let’s be honest, how many people screamed for touchscreen devices and for social media before year 2000. Plebs(like animals) eat whatever the oligarchs feed them, meaning their philosophy has worked so far.“Despite zero demand for meat made from grass and insects, the “Impossible Meat” racket is picking up steam. The billionaires are getting in on the racket and the Davos crowd is telling politicians it is the future. In fairness, the fake meat is not revolting, but that is not the threshold.”All media has to do is have Gates claim Covid spreads through farm animals, 24 hours later the government is deploying veterinarians to kill the livestock all over the western world.(for our own good ofc)Luckily, Gates will be available to sell us his synthetic meat, but only after we take his vaccine ofc.
Reynard #235376 February 18, 2021 9:50 am 0
“All media has to do is have Gates claim Covid spreads through farm animals, 24 hours later the government is deploying veterinarians to kill the livestock all over the western world.(for our own good ofc)”Please, stop! This extremely realistic scenario is too much to bear!Legions of veterinarians would then be elevated to hero/military veteran status, while dissenting farmers–livelihoods destroyed over a scam– would be vilified and spit on by coastal elite and liberal plebe alike.Just thinking about having to endure yet another sanctimonious selfie overload of Becky “Vets” is enough to make me wanna bash my head through a plate-glass window.
Chappie #235404 February 18, 2021 10:13 am 0
I always found vets to be cranks. Eccentrics.
SamlAdams #235619 February 18, 2021 9:03 pm 0
It’s a modern day craft guild.
The Wild Geese Howard #235410 February 18, 2021 10:22 am 0
Didn’t they just slaughter all minks in Denmark because, “OMG da Covids!!!” Your scenario is far too plausible.
Chappie #235520 February 18, 2021 1:23 pm 0
Minks may have been the trial run…
Gunner Q #235415 February 18, 2021 10:26 am 0
“Please, stop! This extremely realistic scenario is too much to bear!” It already happened. Look up the fate of mink farms. Animal rights activists have been trying to kill mink farms for decades and failed, so they claimed minks spread Coof and now mink farms are permanently gone. Only took a couple months.
Reynard #235427 February 18, 2021 10:37 am 0
My God… you are correct. The first headline after googling “mink farms”:“Mink farms a continuing Covid risk to humans and wildlife, warn EU experts” The bleeding “experts” are invoked again! Why think at all when “experts” can tell you how to live your life?
Horace #235569 February 18, 2021 4:13 pm 0
If minks are a COVID reservoir dangerous enough to be worthy of destruction, then we deplorables and dregs constitute one even more ‘problematical’.
Hoagie #235377 February 18, 2021 9:52 am 0
People didn’t scream for touchscreen devices and social media before 2000 because they didn’t exist. They are an example of the product creating the market which is still S & D. One can’t clamor for an item not yet either created or manufactured but once created how many people now don’t have those things?
sentry #235414 February 18, 2021 10:25 am 0
take the internet then, it was available since 1991, it wasn’t popular, now it is
Hi - Ya #235446 February 18, 2021 11:03 am 0
I was a freshman in college in ‘91 and remember sending what I guess was an email. Also, using some inter library document system, that, looking back, had the feel of the internet. Good times.
James J OMeara #235493 February 18, 2021 12:42 pm 0
Back in 1987, I worked for a library, and could send email to a friend who worked in the university comp sci department.
Händel Georg Friederich #235528 February 18, 2021 1:31 pm 0
You may have been using an early version of Gopher for the docs. FTP, Telnet and BBS were available. Samna for word processing. A few years later, the early 90’s, Word had an optional email client module.With Word, we typed white characters, unless flagged, on a blue screen, which was a relief from the green and amber screens we had recently used. A white drop down menu would display at set intervals to show email messages and file attachments. Instead of mice we used the arrow and short keys or else track balls or a miniature joy stick/nub.Tail end of the 80’s I was a young man who microprogrammed the batch-shared VAX at the Institute for Social Research and for the future head of the economics department at Michigan who encouraged me to pick up an econ degree, which I did, in case the computer gigs failed to work out. (cough) Second highest paying student job on campus, $20/hr and whatever time I wrote down. Highest paying job was raking the beetle tanks underneath Ruthven – they couldn’t fill that one.
Ben the Layabout #235601 February 18, 2021 7:29 pm 0
Whipper-snapper! Some of us grew up in the MS-DOS (gasp!) years or even the pre-IBM (Commodore! Apple! TRS-80!) days when memory was measured in “K” 🤣 I remember dabbling in “hypertext,” which was a fad just before the world wide web was invented c. 1991.
American Citizen 2.0 #235438 February 18, 2021 10:51 am 0
As Henry Ford said long ago… If he would have asked the general public what they wanted in a car they would have all said a faster horse.
Falcone #235453 February 18, 2021 11:12 am 0
people didn’t scream for them but focus groups did when presented with them these things were tested and tailored for years before launch
Alzaebo #235468 February 18, 2021 11:45 am 0
Paper, with all its social effects, has been rather poplular for quite a while. Both the Internet and smart phones replaced paper thingies. Paper plus. There was tremendous potential demand.
Gunner Q #235412 February 18, 2021 10:23 am 0
“Let’s be honest, how many people screamed for touchscreen devices and for social media before year 2000. Plebs(like animals) eat whatever the oligarchs feed them, meaning their philosophy has worked so far.” People want social media. Facebook cannot torture people enough to make them stop using Facebook. It’s fascinating. Nobody wants Impossible Burger. If it disappeared from the menu then nobody would miss it. Nobody wants an electric car when a gas car works better. The Elites mess with the supply side *because* they have so little control over the demand side.
Hi - Ya #235447 February 18, 2021 11:04 am 0
I tried it when it came out, it was good. But I hadn’t thought of it until reading this post!
DLS #235511 February 18, 2021 1:06 pm 0
I was excited about it for 5 minutes because I thought it would be healthier. When I learned it has the same fat and calorie content as real meat, I never gave it a second thought.
Drew #235514 February 18, 2021 1:14 pm 0
The funniest part about the impossible burger and it’s ilk is that the people who created it think they are geniuses for turning plants into protein. Animals have been doing that for thousands of years with no tinkering at all.
jim #235433 February 18, 2021 10:46 am 0
That’s not the point..they didn’t scream for telephone and radio either…we already have food that tastes great and is nourishing…they can eat all the grubs and beetles they want…Let the gays get married.Let the rednecks have their guns.Let the atheists be atheists.Let the Christians be Christians.America is about FREEDOM.Freedom to live your life as you please.So smoke a bowl, eat a greasy burger,shoot your guns, praise Jesus and wishthose two fellas next door a happy honeymoon.It’s only when people FORCE their ways on othersthat problems begin. It never ceases to amaze mehow many full grown adults don’t understand that.
Hi - Ya #235449 February 18, 2021 11:05 am 0
Ah, liberty! Next you will be clamoring for fraternity and equality! JK, brah, you’re all right!
jim #235455 February 18, 2021 11:19 am 0
I clipped it from someone else…but I liked , too!!
3g4me #235477 February 18, 2021 12:11 pm 0
Libertardianism would work great . . . if it weren’t for human nature. And homosexual marriage IS the beginning of the slippery slope of sexual degeneracy. And aggressive atheists ARE a danger to your freedom of religious practice. Go clutch your Ayn Rand where someone cares.
DFCtomm #235584 February 18, 2021 5:10 pm 0
Human nature screws up all our schemes, but it’s also our greatest strength. We’re just born to exploit systems. When I played my first MMORPG I realized the human race was doomed. We aren’t smart enough to come up with systems that we can’t subvert and corrupt.
Ben the Layabout #235602 February 18, 2021 7:33 pm 0
Well, you gotta give credit to the Idealists then! They’ve been trying to game Reality since the beginning of recorded history. From the looks of the current administration, you’d think maybe they’ve got the hang of it finally! 🤣
LineInTheSand #235561 February 18, 2021 3:33 pm 0
Liberty means allowing your enemies to mass against you while you distract yourself with abstractions that mostly apply to white people. Liberty is a tertiary good that can only exist in white ethnostates. You’ve got the cart in front of the horse.
Observation Lord #235628 February 19, 2021 4:41 am 0
Leftists 1960: “Wow, you guys have the power to censor us. Uh, look over there! … free speech. Yeah, free speech. You don’t want to be backwards nuckledraggers who stand for oppression, do you? Look at this nudity over here. Aren’t we so cool and hip? And this edgy joke, lol. Look. We just made fun of a black man. And we made a movie about some college nerds who do a panty raid thing. And equality, you guys hate equality? Judging people by the color of their skin doesn’t make any sense.”Normies 1960: “You’ve convinced me. Muh private company. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Equality for all. Who could be against a universal good like equality? Racism is bad.”Leftists 2020: “Now that we’ve taken over everything, we’re going to censor you because you’re problematic to the new order. You have no recourse because you control nothing. Also, cartoon butts in videogames is misogyny now — banned. All comedies are problematic — banned. We’re removing books from Amazon and putting trigger warnings on old movies; we’ll probably ban them soon. Also, all are equal, but some are more equal than others; thus, you guys will get this vaccine thing last. We may also do reparations that you won’t get because you were born with the wrong skin color.”Normies 2020: “But you said muh freedoms. We should all be free and stuff.”Leftists 2020: “lul.”Normies 2020: [Your account was suspended for repeated and severe violations of the TOS.]
rashomoan #235457 February 18, 2021 11:22 am 0
“All media has to do is have Gates claim Covid spreads through farm animals, 24 hours later the government is deploying veterinarians to kill the livestock all over the western world.” Shades of Nongqawuse.
Alzaebo #235470 February 18, 2021 11:49 am 0
Isn’t that the African visionary who told her people to kill all their cattle?
Kentucky Headhunter #235467 February 18, 2021 11:45 am 0
Touch screens are generally great. Social media sucks girl dicks.
Chappie #235524 February 18, 2021 1:26 pm 0
Sorry, greasy touch screens are disgusting. Agree, socialist media is a women thing.
Kentucky Headhunter #235541 February 18, 2021 2:09 pm 0
Well, greasy touch screens would be nasty, so I wouldn’t use them. But why are they greasy? Buttons or switches wouldn’t also be greasy in the same use case?
CorkyAgain #235586 February 18, 2021 5:16 pm 0
They’re greasy because the unwashed masses have been putting their filthy mitts all over them. So, fussy people wear gloves. But when you’re wearing gloves, touch screens aren’t as easy to use as buttons or switches are.
Spin geraht #235508 February 18, 2021 1:03 pm 0
Lol your probably right.I guess that will be the hill i choose to die on.
David Wright #235360 February 18, 2021 9:04 am 0
With cars it seems they want to start all over again as it was in the early 20th century. The infrastructure will have to be redone on a massive scale just like roads and gas stations were back then. A solution in search of a problem and with electric cars many problems. Total cost of use to start but also the numerous problems everyone here surely knows.Who knows with all these great tech prognosticaters that maybe some other alternative or major revision will come along in the near future. Also as an aside, Bill Gates really does want us to eat shit sandwiches. Read about this psychotic’s foray working with feces.
usNthem #235367 February 18, 2021 9:21 am 0
Yeah, as usual all the White countries have to fully embrace a bug/plant based diet or else. My contempt for these people knows no bounds.
American Citizen 2.0 #235454 February 18, 2021 11:13 am 0
The thing that gets my goat about that is that rich people of course will just fly to other countries and eat meat all they want. So, they get to pollute the earth with their airplanes and meat diets while the rest of us are eating bug wafers. Same with abortion or any other topic. Morality and rules only ever apply to people who can’t afford an exemption.
LineInTheSand #235490 February 18, 2021 12:36 pm 0
In Covington’s novel,s set in the near future, meat and private transportation are outlawed. Of course, the elites still partook. One strategy for infiltration was delivering the illicit meat to the elites.
Compsci #235551 February 18, 2021 3:00 pm 0
An early movie showing elite disdain for the masses is “Soylent Green”. The ruling elite had everything, the masses eat soylent green and roasted without a/c in 90 degree temps.
Compsci #235556 February 18, 2021 3:08 pm 0
Yeah. I’m still thinking of an electric car, given city-wide trips and a 400 mile range. But it will never be my only vehicle. A gasoline powered truck will be backup until they outlaw gasoline.
American Citizen 2.0 #235563 February 18, 2021 3:41 pm 0
When I was a kid I loved the Lee Majors movie “The Last Chase”. It had Rocky’s original trainer in one of the roles too. The way I remember it, driving is outlawed and he steals a race car and the only way they can catch him is if the guy who was Rocky’s trainer flies an old timey fighter jet all around trying to blast him off the road. Like Soylent Green it’s one of those dystopian classics that turned out to be pretty much true given our new overlords and their economic policies.
Barnard #235369 February 18, 2021 9:23 am 0
Bill Gates is an enemy of the American people and should be treated as such. His latest comments are about forcing people only in the developed world to eat fake beef to “save the planet.”My theory on the electric cars is that it will be forced and that it being impractical and too expensive for the average person to own is a feature and not a bug for elites. They want to force us to use public transportation and ride sharing services while they still go wherever they want in their driverless, electric cars. They don’t plan on greatly increasing the supply of electricity, they plan on greatly lowering demand.
Chappie #235400 February 18, 2021 10:12 am 0
I get a good laugh when some well-meaning person of a certain lean – gushes about self-driving cars. Gates and Windows is the usual retort – along the lines of ‘when tech support tells you to try and reboot… see if that works.’And how that approach will go over as your self-driving car heads over a cliff.They can’t keep the lights on in Cali. Now Texas. Where I am we had a one week blackout in 2020 because of a storm. We drive by large tree limbs, situated on power lines for months on end as our teeth are rattled by pothole after pothole.Yeah, “tech”. Gates is a monopolist that forced businesses to use an inferior product. Bot rich, now buying land to apparently become a Lord. He is like a doctor who talks like an expert on stock buys. Because he is a doctor.
tarstarkas #235472 February 18, 2021 11:55 am 0
I have a foot in the geek culture. But even as someone who likes tech for tech’s sake, I just cannot wrap my head around all of the gushing over EVs and how they are “the future.” I most certainly get the allure of a Tesla because of how fast they are, but it’s the fact that it’s fast, not that it’s electric that tugs on me. They are nice looking cars as well.The utter fantasy that goes around about EVs and how great they are for “the environment” (what a joke) and how futuristic they are really reaches insane levels.
Paintersforms #235486 February 18, 2021 12:27 pm 0
Someone tell them electric cars have been tried since the 19th century! Yeah, WAY futuristic.
DLS #235506 February 18, 2021 12:59 pm 0
Even from an environmental standpoint EVs are not better. The left believes if you cannot see the pollution coming from your tailpipe, it doesn’t exist. The fact we burn coal to produce electricity doesn’t even register. Plus the minerals mined for the batteries. This is the same theme as how they pushed recycling on us for decades, despite the extra trucks on the road spewing out carbon. Then we learned it was all shipped to China for landfill burial.
RoBG #235537 February 18, 2021 1:48 pm 0
A few years back the “Top Gear” guys did a feature on EVs and environmental impact. When factoring in mining, smelting/manufacturing and transporting materials back and forth they concluded that the lowest environmental-impact car you could buy was a used diesel.
Drew #235512 February 18, 2021 1:08 pm 0
It’s important to remember that a society that can’t maintain a basic infrastructure won’t install an advanced one. The biggest problem with the elites’ plans boils down to trying to dumb down population while simultaneously smartening up the infrastructure. Theoretically, they could pull this off. Practically, I wouldn’t bet on it.
RoBG #235538 February 18, 2021 1:51 pm 0
Is there any evidence that they care about US infrastructure? Other than as a (don’t kill the) jobs extortion program such as the “Big Dig?”
Whitney #235436 February 18, 2021 10:48 am 0
It’s Revenge of the Nerds dystopian style. Gates, Bezos and Zuckerberg
Roberto #235503 February 18, 2021 12:56 pm 0
Re: electric carsI have a 2017 prius prime. I bought it specifically to drive back and forth to work which is about 25 miles round trip, which is just about a full charge. It’s great for that. I probably buy 20 gals of gas for it in a year. For any trip longer than 25 miles I have a car and a pickup, both gas powered. I can’t understand why anyone would have only an electric vehicle. You don’t think you’ll ever want to take a long trip ?
Compsci #235555 February 18, 2021 3:06 pm 0
Yeah. I’m still thinking of an electric car, given city-wide trips and a 400 mile range. But it will never be my only vehicle. A gasoline powered truck will be backup until they outlaw gasoline.
Seneca #235810 February 22, 2021 8:30 am 0
I knew a guy who had one to travel from his home in the Mid Atlantic US to Montreal about once or twice per month to get to his engineering job there where his company had a 3 year contract. Short story was that in Canadian winter, the battery basically didn’t work at all and range was effectively zero
Ostei Kozelskii #235545 February 18, 2021 2:15 pm 0
“My theory on the electric cars is that it will be forced and that it being impractical and too expensive for the average person to own is a feature and not a ‘bug’ [quotation marks added] for elites.” Cute!
Dave #235592 February 18, 2021 5:42 pm 0
Not only is it cute, it’s basically correct.The Great Reset, which is well underway with the never ending lockdowns, is to reduce the vast working and middle classes of the industrial West to borderline poverty, because the elites care so very much about the weather and the planet, supposedly.They are creating a high tech version of feudalism, and they will own everything while the rest of us eat cricket protein and take slow to non existent public transport.This isn’t a theory. The cloud people desire this change and they are moving in to high gear to accomplish it.
tarstarkas #235469 February 18, 2021 11:46 am 0
They ignore the massive costs. Right now, EVs are somewhat subsidized in the sense that they are in low enough numbers that their existence does not mean major grid modifications. IOW, they are soaking up electricity that would otherwise just be either spare capacity or would have been lost anyway. So you end up with this enormous running cost difference where the EV is perfect if an EV works for you. But, if EVs really take off and capture a large percentage of vehicles on the road, not only will the cost of electricity go up, but the price of gasoline will plummet.
CorkyAgain #235580 February 18, 2021 4:59 pm 0
If they get their way and oil drilling and refinement is curtailed, the supply of gasoline will not exceed even the reduced demand for it they hope to create by pushing everyone to EVs or public transportation. Therefore the price of gasoline will increase in the Brave New World, perhaps to prohibitive levels.
tarstarkas #235590 February 18, 2021 5:38 pm 0
In order to refine diesel and aviation fuel, gasoline gets refined. There is some flexibility of how much of the oil goes to any particular constituent, but you really cannot refine oil without getting gasoline out of it. They can crack the gasoline into lighter constituents, but there isn’t much demand for those lighter portions of the oil. You can crack heavier portions into lighter portions, but I am pretty sure you cannot do that in reverse (refine a lighter portion like gasoline to a heavy portion like diesel). Right now, gasoline is in big demand and so no doubt they are cracking heavier portions into gasoline, which they could obviously stop doing and so there would be less of it, but there are limits to how little gasoline comes out of a barrel of oil. Most of the new oil the US is producing is extremely light That’s one of the reasons we export gasoline while still being a large net importer of oil. The lighter oil has a larger proportion of ‘natural’ gasoline.
Observation Lord #235624 February 19, 2021 3:34 am 0
“if EVs really take off and capture a large percentage of vehicles on the road, not only will the cost of electricity go up, but the price of gasoline will plummet.”I think it’s more likely that the cost of electricity will increase and the price of gasoline will also skyrocket, at least for a period of time. Yes, there would be less demand for gasoline in an all EV future, which you would think would lower prices, but the capacity to make gasoline in such a world would also be much reduced, meaning the price goes up — more expensive per unit volume to make, ship, and store. Bulk manufacturing tends to lower cost, which is why novelty items are usually more expensive: the company has to jack up the price to recoup the investment when only a limited number of people will buy the product. That’s not always the case when you can just sell lots of inexpensive stuff to a huge market, such is the case with gasoline which costs less per gallon than milk.I’m wondering if the government’s plan to go all EV too soon might not result in a worst of both worlds situation: skyrocketing electricity and gasoline prices as American wages stagnate and infrastructure crumbles under increased demand; meanwhile, “Americans” can’t afford to switch over to EV due to crushing debt obligations and increasingly poor job prospects.
Spin geraht #235505 February 18, 2021 12:58 pm 0
the motoring world has to be reinvented because communists are intent on destroying the most successful economic systems that have ever existed. It’s that simple.Virture signaling automatons are tools created to do just that.Just because someone happens to be a billionaire does not mean they have any idea how machines and the world they live in actually works. Tech titans edpecislly love the smell of their own farts.The mechanized world has paid my bills for over forty years.I have been a proponent of hydrogen powered vehicles since the 80s, there have been successful long term tests of hydrogen fleets. Hydrogen is one of the most abundant molecules in the universe if not the most abundant.Several “problems ” could be alleviated, one being the dreaded release of carbon into the atmosphere. There are trade-offs as with any other adoption of the new.Production is relatively simple, we have generated hydrogen at our kitchen table for junior high school science experiments.Distribution is not an area I am knowledgeable in however propain & natural gas are widely available..Possibly be useful as a model.Anyhow powerful forces are against hydrogen . I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime. But if western civilization is to continue I believe nuclear and hydrogen are inevitable.
Chappie #235519 February 18, 2021 1:23 pm 0
“Communists” may be a misnomer. Look into the end of electric streetcars in the USA. Some say “conspiracy theory” – which happens to be another term for “inconvenient fact”. In any case, electricity, its connection to transportation – was something eliminated long ago by major players. For their own good, not ours. What is happening now seems to be a similar script, and just because it goes electricity > fossil > back to electricity means exactly squat.
LineInTheSand #235549 February 18, 2021 2:53 pm 0
To continue to name our enemies as “communists” is to be trapped in a 20th century, economy-based world view. Our enemies don’t want to give the means of production to the workers! Even worse, the battle is not over economics, it’s race! If one insists on not facing racial reality, then at least say “totalitarian,” not “communist.” (And contra Z, fascism was not primarily an economic, “corporatist” endeavor.)
Ostei Kozelskii #235552 February 18, 2021 3:02 pm 0
Precisely. Marxists and critical theorists, whose heyday was ca. 1850-1960, were all about class and capitalism. Alas, postmodernists have supplanted them, and their primary fixation is race and culture.
B125 #235521 February 18, 2021 1:23 pm 0
I think the plan is to force almost everyone into zero resource consumption, ie. “Green energy” and eating bugs. The elites will then keep the fossil fuels and meats for themselves. Basically keep living the way we have for the past 100 years. With only a million people worldwide using fossil fuels and meats they can basically keep using them forever.
DFCtomm #235582 February 18, 2021 5:04 pm 0
This is all about one thing. The commercial truck driver and the fact he makes too much money. This drives our overlords insane, because they see that as their money. That is why there is this push for self driving vehicles. Congress is even shielding their development from liability. Can you think of any other product that has received this kind of treatment?
B125 #235583 February 18, 2021 5:08 pm 0
They already imported millions of truck drivers who have lowered wages to barely make over minimum wage. They work like 60 hr a week which makes the salary look alot higher than it really is.
SamlAdams #235618 February 18, 2021 9:01 pm 0
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if those guys took a week vacation from delivering goods to blue cities
B125 #235620 February 18, 2021 9:12 pm 0
Why would punjabis and Somalians protest the people giving their family welfare and allowing open borders? Your concept of who/what a trucker is might be out of date by a couple decades, I suspect.
Ben the Layabout #235600 February 18, 2021 7:25 pm 0
On an investing web site I’m frequently getting into debates with people about EVs and the power grid. I’m no expert, and have alienated at least one who apparently was (He’s a EE, I found out later), but were also Green Lunatics who couldn’t debate rationally with me (or anyone else, from reading their messages.) But even lacking experience, I can argue a few things from “first principles” that I do know, in this case, basic electricity theory. For example, the heated exchange was simply over my observation that a currently-experimental 5-minute battery charge time would require about 400 times the normal current draw of a regular home, somewhat beyond what the local grid could deliver. Similarly, someone proposed that an EV could have solar panels on its roof to help charge the battery. I did some quick calculations using readily available sources and concluded that yes, if it got an average day’s sun, it’d add enough power to drive about 7.5 miles. 🙂One needn’t always have expert knowledge to find logical holes in any rosy scenario, any more than the little child of the fable had to know squat about tailoring to recognize that the Emporer had no clothes. For example, given that best-case recharge times are perhaps 30 minutes right now, just imagine the waits at the relatively limited number of public charge points. A ridiculous amount of infrastructure will need to be built out. It’s not impossible that EVs will become widely used of course, but I imagine that waiting hours in line for a public charger will not encourage speedy adoption of them 🤣
Stranger in a Strange Land #235606 February 18, 2021 7:47 pm 0
Expect there will be…methods…developed to encourage adoption.
Hi - Ya #235359 February 18, 2021 8:53 am 0
“Five years ago, the number of people walking around demanding a burger made from beetles that tasted just like a burger was zero. “ Ah, Zman! You’re sense of humor doesn’t hurt your message one bit, but may be the tiny nudge that gets people over the edge to this side!
Compsci #235550 February 18, 2021 2:56 pm 0
My suspicion is that these meat alternatives can be added to “real” meat products and fly under the general avoidance radar of consumer preference—like “pink slime” does today.
DFCtomm #235581 February 18, 2021 5:02 pm 0
It’s generally best to never wonder too much about how commercial food is made. The complexity of treatments for simple things like milk and orange juice will astound you.


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