A New Constellation

The Far Middle episode 108’s release falls on Flag Day, a coincidence that won’t happen again until June 14, 2028—mark your calendars! Nick discusses the history of Flag Day, its unique Pennsylvania connection, and notes June 14th also marks the birthday of the United States Army. “Flag Day is as American as it gets, and so is baseball,” says Nick, proceeding to present this episode’s unique sports dedication, which goes to a constellation of six baseball perennial all stars for their historic June 14th accomplishments; spanning Gehrig in 1933 to the “Wizard” in 1992. Nick moves from great ball players to not-so-great transportation policy. He says traffic is increasingly being used as justification to tax the driver to the point of no longer driving—highlighting the Biden administration allowing New York City’s proposed congestion pricing plan to proceed. Nick discusses the irony of the plan as the politicians/environmentalists/bureaucrats who advocate the congestion pricing tax to reduce traffic congestion are the same people who created the congestion problems to begin with. He then offers three lessons to learn from the congestion pricing movement. And read more on the dumpster fire that is the New York public transportation system in Nick’s book Precipice. Staying in the transportation lane, Nick examines recent news from Ford on its EV business losses. “Ford is losing more on each EV it sells than most people pay for a new gasoline, combustion engine vehicle,” says Nick as he delves into EV demand trends.  Congestion pricing and EV mandates are tactics within the larger portfolio of the Left, which leads into a look at what happens when the Left gains control of the political, bureaucratic, and regulatory process or processes in states. And what happens is people (typically higher-income residents) leave high-tax states for low-tax states like Florida and Texas. Going from data on migration to survey data on renewable energy deployment, Nick highlights a March poll finding 79% of Americans say renewable energy should be rolled out slowly, rather than quickly, and that the conservation of land and wild animals should be prioritized above rapid greenhouse gas reductions. Nick predicts a growing and mounting resistance to wind and solar projects, and examples to that resistance are mounting.  “A great leading indicator where you can see how sentiment is catching up to reality, can be found with how shareholders are voting on anti-fossil-fuel proxy proposals at big Wall Street banks’ annual meetings,” says Nick. He calls out several climate-oriented proxy proposals failing to gain traction during recent shareholder votes. While on fossil fuels and climate change, Nick looks back at a few doom-and-gloom climate predictions from the past that didn’t exactly pan out the way the experts predicted. And in closing, Nick moves from talking heads in the Church of Climate to an iconic talking head and one-of-a-kind voice who passed away this week back in 2014—Casey Kasem. Keep reaching for the stars!