Our esteemed Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, stated in an interview on CBS that “You have to sort of understand how things work. When tariffs come into place, foreign goods may become a little more expensive, but domestic goods do not.”
Interesting. I’m no economist, but I have taken a couple of econ courses and read a bit. And, in studying the fundamental aspects of supply and demand, I encountered supply and demand curves. Searching the deep recesses of my memory and then scribbling on my phone, I produced the following:
Crude at best, but the point is valid. The solid lines represent price vs. quantity demanded and quantity supplied. They cross at a point referred to as the "equilibrium point," that is, the point at which the quantity demanded by buyers at that price matches the quantity willing to be supplied by producers. If the quantity demanded (the "demand curve") shifts to the right, the equilibrium price rises along with the quantity supplied.
Here, we're looking at domestic goods. Because the prices of imported goods are expected to rise significantly due to tariffs (Trump's claim that these will be paid by the exporting countries notwithstanding), demand for domestic goods can be expected to rise as buyers look for substitutes (another fairly basic concept from Econ 101). That is, the demand curve will shift to the right. This inevitably leads to increased production of domestic goods (which Trump, Lutnick, et al champion) but it does not do so without also increasing the price of those goods.
Now, Lutnick graduated from Haverford College in 1983 with a degree in economics. I don't imagine such a degree is conferred without learning about this concept. From that, we can infer a couple of things: 1) Lutnick is quite willing to lie; and 2) He likes his position as Secretary of Commerce. Saying Trump is incorrect while occupying a position he appointed is not a way to keep that position.
Clearly, there are vast complexities beyond the scope of this very simple analysis, but just because something is simple does not mean that it's wrong.
So, co-Presidents Trump and Musk propose to eliminate at least $1T (one trillion U.S.D.) from the federal budget. Let's do some off the cuff estimating. For workplaces that have not undergone automation, it's often the case that, to first order, about half of the expenses are for employee compensation and half are for materials (could be hard goods, soft goods, software, etc.).
Using this heuristic, we'd eliminate $500B in employee compensation costs. Again, to first order, I'll estimate that each employee's compensation totals $100K. Thus, something like five million former government employees would be looking for work. It's very difficult to see where these five million would find such work. I suspect that the co-Presidents would say "we'll deport at least that many undocumented aliens, the former government employees can take the jobs left vacant by such departures, and our tariffs will result in a huge influx of manufacturing jobs being on-shored or reshored."
I have my doubts. It's an intriguing thought experiment, but I'm not so sure that the skill set of, say, a NOAA meteorologist or an air traffic controller adapts well to lawn maintenance, housing construction, or fruit harvesting. Could they learn to do such work? No doubt. Would it be an efficient use of the skill set that such people have spent years developing? No. And that's emphatically NOT to say that the skill sets of lawn maintenance, housing construction, or fruit harvesting are any less valuable (though in many cases, not so time consuming to acquire) as those of the terminated federal workers.
So, do we then provide unemployment benefits for such people? Can we deport undocumented aliens as fast as the co-Presidents can fire federal workers?We certainly do live in interesting times, I hope not to come to the attention of important people!
With some exceptions, I've mostly stayed away from politics. I do have a few "embarrassed to be a conservative" posts though, and it's time for another. While there are many aspects of Joe Biden's policies with which I disagreed, and several policies professed by Donald Trump with which I concur (though far from all), it's horrifying to me to see the "in your face" grift exemplified by the Trump meme coin ($Trump).
It's true that, to within epsilon, 100% of meme coins are worthless (other than in the sense of the "greater fool" exploit) and only benefit the initial promoters. And I've felt little sorrow for those who've lost money in, for example, the $Hawk coin promoted by the Hawk Tuah Girl. Yes, she and her team did the prototypical rug pull and buyers of the coin mostly just gave away their money to her and her team. But, what did they actually expect to happen? Come on...
But to see Trump, days away from swearing in as our 47th President, promote a meme coin where he is in control of the large majority (80%) of the coins and watch as his supporters purchase the coins is despicable. Trump and his supporters often speak of the machinations of the Deep State, wherein malign agents, embedded deep within the government, work in secret to undermine freedom and advance a New World Order agenda.
But Trump can't be bothered with working in the dark to promote himself and his personal enrichment, one might call Trump and his ilk the Shallow State. His self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment is out in front, for all to see.
And, not to be outdone, next came the $Melania coin from the First Lady. Both coins, initially and unsurprisingly, soared in value as the zealots rushed to funnel their money to their heroes. Prices have since fallen back somewhat, so some have already lost money. Now, it is true that you cannot take the number of coins held by the Trump group, multiply by the current posted value, and determine that Trump has made billions overnight through this obviously corrupt grift. Were he to dump all of his coins, the market would tank.
Nevertheless, he could sell them slowly into the market. My bet would be that, when some wild Trump event takes place, the value of the coins will rise and he'll make small sales into that market. But, as I type, the price of a Trump coin is $29.53. The total supply of coins is 1 billion, and Trump owns 80% of them. Keep in mind, they were created out of thin air, a few minutes of programming was all it took.
That's our President. As someone noted, we voted for corruption, and Trump is delivering.
As anyone who's followed me at all knows, I'm passionate about aviation in general and about flying. I acquired my pilot certificate in 1981 and have been flying ever since. Until 2001, my flying was all in rental airplanes but that year, my former business partner and I purchased a Piper Saratoga, a six seat, single piston engine airplane. I've posted about that airplane before and, in 2006, I came to own it alone as my partner experienced a health issue that caused him to stop flying.
I flew N8409Y from 2001 through 2020, at which time I had a significant financial windfall. I sold the Saratoga and purchased a 1980 Cessna 441 Conquest II. This is a pressurized, twin engine turboprop airplane and easily flies to Colorado non-stop, and even to Chicago. One flight, with favorable winds, was from my base in Long Beach, CA to Orlando, FL non-stop! There is no need for supplemental oxygen (barring a loss of pressurization), and I flight plan for a cruise speed of 290 knots (about 333 m.p.h.).
N779CC has seats for 9 people, though it's not practical to fill them all due to weight limitations(just as it was not practical to put six people in the Saratoga).I loved the Saratoga and flew it as far as Illinois, Washington, Texas, and on many trips to Colorado, where my brother and his family live and where we have an office. To fly to Colorado or Texas, I'd need a fuel stop and, in many cases, would need to fly high enough so that I'd need supplemental oxygen since the Saratoga is not pressurized. Thus, I'd have a nasal canula with which to deal. I'd flight plan for a cruise speed of about 168 knots (about 193 m.p.h.).
All this capability comes at a price though. To start, the Conquest burns about 75 gallons of Jet A fuel per hour in cruise, vs. the Saratoga burning about 19 gallons per hour. Hangar space is about 2.5 times as costly for the larger airplane. Insurance is about three times as high, though part of that is due to my age. And the insurance requires documented recurrent training (which I'd do anyway). The requirement is one training session per year, but I do two, each at about $5,000 not counting travel, rental car, lodging, and incidentals. The Saratoga required an annual inspection that, on average, cost about $5,000. The Conquest requires multiple "phase inspections," some based the calendar, some on hours, and others on cycles (i.e., takeoffs, landings, pressurizations). A typical year costs about $40,000!
It's a ludicrously expensive pursuit, and I sometimes question whether it's something I should be doing, and there's no question that I'm blessed to be able to do so. And, on many occasions, I'm using it to fly to our offices in Sacramento, Concord, Boulder, and Tampa. But I've wanted to fly since, as a young child, I learned it was a thing people can do. I don't know what the future holds, as insurance underwriters are not happy about old(er) pilots in complex aircraft. But I'll keep flying and training as long as possible.
Over the course of the 16 years that I've maintained this blog (sporadically at best in recent years), there have been a wide variety of cars that I've driven. Some have been very stingy with respect to fuel consumption (my Lexus CT200H is the best example) to fuel hogs (I just ended the lease on a Jeep Trackhawk). My early blogging was almost exclusively related to fuel consumption, both personally and generally. As the years have gone by, my topic space expanded well beyond vehicle fuel consumption and into energy in general and even into politics.
But, for this post, it's back to basics. I turned in the Trackhawk that I'd leased and purchased a battery electric vehicle, the Genesis GV60. The performance model I purchased features all-wheel drive, with 160kW (215 horsepower) to the front wheels and the same to the rear wheels for a total of 320 kW. It delivers 350 Nm (258 ft lbs) of torque to the front wheels and the same to the rear for a total of 700 Nm. Its 77.4 kWh battery pack makes it a heavy car for its size, with a curb weight of 4,890 pounds but in "sport' mode with the "boost" on, it will go from 0 to 60 mph in about 3.8 seconds, very similar to the 710 horsepower Trackhawk I turned in.
With a full charge, it's good for about 250 miles but, unlike an internal combustion engine, there's no fuel economy vs. speed curve with a peak. There's no "engine map." The vehicle "fuel economy," as far as I've been able to determine, is strictly a function of tire rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. Thus, freeway travel at, say, 75 m.p.h. is far less efficient than lower speeds in city driving.
I'm not getting what I expected, my most recent charge was 67.5404 kWh to drive 181 miles, or 2.68 miles/kWh. I expected something more on the order of 3.5 miles/kWh but the bulk of my driving has been on the freeway at around 80 m.p.h. Still though, I'm paying something like $0.17/kWh at the moment, so I'm spending around 6.34 cents per mile.
In comparing that to an internal combustion engine, it's probably unfair to compare it to my Trackhawk, which is a 710 horsepower beast in which I averaged something like 14.5 m.p.g. and which required 91 octane fuel. But if I consider a vehicle averaging 30 m.p.g. and 87 octane fuel with California 87 octane fuel around $4.49/gallon at the moment, the owner of that vehicle is spending 14.97 cents per mile, over twice what I'm paying. Further, I can utilize a perquisite to get free charges for three years!
I will say that I encounter the "range anxiety" often described for purchasers of battery EVs, and I approach trips that are outside of my commute with more forethought than previously, given that there's not a charging station on every corner. For example, I have a relative that lives in Ramona, CA. The round trip from my home to hers is about 202 miles. To make that trip with no concerns, I need to be close to fully charged and, without locating a charging station, I'd need to avoid side trips. And, as recommended, I generally limit my charging to 80% of full capacity. This limits me to 200 miles at best!
The car is heavy, the battery pack consists of 384 Lithium Ion Polymer cells with a nominal capacity of 77.4 kWh and a usable capacity of 74.0 kWh. As mentioned above, the curb weight of the car is 4,890 pounds.
In an unusual move, parent Hyundai Motor Group opted to use an electronic architecture for the E-GMP platform that can operate at either 400 or 800 volts (but see below). That allows for “ultra-speed charging” when the latest, 350 kilowatt charger is plugged in — the battery pack going from 10 to 80% of capacity in 18 minutes.
In any case, I'm over 11,000 miles in the GV60 as I type this. When asked if I'm happy with the purchase, my answer is that I would not purchase this particular EV again. There are several reasons, but most are related to ergonomics and systems engineering, not the actual EV platform. However, even with respect to that, my suggestion would be to wait. Range seemingly goes up with each passing month, and many game-changing energy density developments are being touted. There will likely be no retrofit for current EVs!
And now Ford, GM, and Rivian are adopting (and adapting) their EVs to use the Tesla Superchargers, which pretty much assures that the Superchargers will become the national standard. My GV60 would need an adapter, and Hyundai is considering it.
All that said, I believe that the GV60 provides good value for its price and it's pretty clear that EVs are the coming thing. But I'll look elsewhere for my next EV a few years from now.
Inserted because it's a fantastic cover of a Dylan song and it's from Hendrix' album "Electric Ladyland."
I've published previously on the seeming futility of solar panels on the roofs of vehicles. But Fisker has announced the "Ocean" in various configurations. It's an SUV style vehicle with the "Fisker Ocean Extreme" boasting solar panels for the full length of the passenger cabin. The claim is that solar charging will produce 1,500 miles worth of charge, or even up to 2,000 miles. Let's investigate!
First, how much energy is needed to travel 1,500 miles in the Fisker? Unlike internal combustion engine powered vehicles, there's no curve with a peak in terms of energy mileage as a function of speed. For the IC vehicle going very slowly uses a lot of the energy from burning fuel to keep the engine turning over, and going very fast has a high drag penalty. The sweet spot differs for various models but might be in the range of 50 m.p.h.
For a battery electric vehicle, there's no such function. The faster you go, the worse your energy economy since it's only a matter of overcoming drag. So, in earlier data collection of my own driving, my overall block speed was on the order of 30 m.p.h. with a blend of city driving, freeway driving, and freeway driving in traffic. I'll use that number, but convert it to 13.41 meters/second.
We'll go to the naive drag equation, D=1/2 \rho C_dAv^2where D is drag force, \rhois air density (I'm using sea level, at altitude density would be lower and insolation would be slightly higher),C_dis the vehicle's drag coefficient,Ais flat plate area, andvis speed. All are in SI base units. I can't find a drag coefficient spec for the Ocean, I'll go with 0.3. The vehicle's height is 1.631 meters, its width is 1.995 meters. Sea level atmospheric density is about 1.225 kg/m^s. Multiplying, we get D=0.595 (kg/m) v^2 Nt.
The other drag factor is rolling resistance. This is, to first order, linearly dependent only on the vehicle's weight (NOT mass!). The curb weight is 2,250 kg force or 22,065 Nt. Add, say, 250 kg of people and luggage for a traveling weight of 2,500 kg force or 24,516 Nt. We'll use 0.014 as the coefficient of rolling resistance, resulting in a rolling resistance of 343 Nt. The result is a total drag of D=0.595 (kg/m) v^2+343 Nt.
Next, power (work/time) is force times speed, so, at 13.41 meters/second, we need ((0.595*13.41^2)+343)*13.41or 6,034 Watts or 8.09 horsepower. This is surprisingly small but, to first order, I'm confident that it's close. Call it 7 kW for our purposes.
Then, we'll assume the electric motor operates at 95% efficiency and that the drivetrain is 85% efficient, so we need 6,352 watts from whatever energy source we're utilizing. Now, 1,500 miles at 30 m.p.h. will take 50 hours or 180,000 seconds. And power times time is energy so the Ocean's solar panel will need to deliver 6,352 watts * 180,000 seconds, 1.14*10^9 joules, or 317 kWh. OK, can the panel on the Ocean's roof deliver 317 kWh in a year?
I'll estimate that the dimensions of the panel are 1.5 meters X 3 meters, or 4.5 m^2. In my Southern California area, the average solar insolation is about 5 kWh/(day*meter^2). This has to be reduced because the panel on the Ocean sits horizontally rather than following the sun. We'll use 50%, so if the Ocean sits outside in the sun all day, we might average 11.25 kWh delivered to the panels. Next, we'll estimate that the panels are 18% efficient, so about 739 kWh (11.25*0.18*365) are delivered to either the motor or the battery pack over the course of a year. And here, we're assuming that either the car is in motion and the panels are delivering energy to the motor or that there is capacity in the battery pack to accept the energy.
Now, speeds above 30 m.p.h. will hurt more than those below will help due to the dependence of drag on the square of speed (refer to plot at right). And this doesn't account for use of accessories, losses due to climbing hills (not all the gravitational potential energy is regained on the downhill), and stopping and starting (even regenerative braking doesn't recapture all of the kinetic energy). It doesn't include being blocked by buildings and trees, and many other factors. And Minnesota, New York, and other Northern states don't receive the insolation of Southern California. That said, I can't say that the claim is irresponsibly exaggerated so, using the Mythbusters' scale, I'll call it plausible.
Yes, it's been a long time. No excuses. But, here we go. No one will dispute that the arrival of Covid-19 has disrupted almost every facet of life in every corner of the world. And yet, just as in almost every aspect of life in the United States these days, Covid-19 has become a political battlefield. As would be expected, the right considers that mask mandates, vaccine mandates, quarantines, lockdowns, and other measures imposed by various governments at all levels are an infringement on freedom, and useless at best and counterproductive at worst. And the left characterizes the right as conspiratorial, intransigent, destructive to society and more. They consider that the measures railed against by the right are common sense, effective measures and that compliance with such measures is necessary for the greater societal good, albeit with serious negative collateral damage.
I'm not an epidemiologist, virologist, statistician, doctor of any type, or public health expert (whatever that may mean). But it seemed to me that it should be possible to, at least, determine if a real thing has happened. In trying to understand the data that's available, one can find numbers for cases, infections, death rates, deaths attributed to Covid-19, positivity rate and many others. However, the one number in which I have at least some confidence is the simple number of deaths. Death certificates are a binary data point - someone died or did not.
I use the Human Mortality Database, a database that is updated weekly and has all cause deaths for 38 countries, separated into age groups. One can download the current data in spreadsheet form. The U.S. data goes back to 2015 and is sourced from the CDC. I started downloading this data most weeks over the last couple of years. In the beginning, I only wanted to see if there was a noticeable increase in overall ("all-cause") deaths. Below is a chart of this data from the beginning of the database through the first week of 2022 (the data is a few weeks behind as reports are gathered). Note that it is NOT zero scaled.
The abscissa is the number of weeks since the beginning of data (2015) through week one of 2022. The ordinate is the total number of deaths for each week in the United States. You'll note some interesting points. Among them is the very clear annual periodicity. Also, midway in the chart, you can see the evidence of the very bad flu season in the winter of 2017 - 2018. Finally, the very high numbers at the right end of the chart begin, when one would expect the numbers to begin falling in accordance with the periodicity in the spring of 2020, to climb in fairly spectacular fashion.
The next chart shows each year as its own set of points, though I didn't include all years as the chart is already busy enough. I included 2017 through 2022. Again, the ordinate is not zero scaled.
It's easy to see that there the data is very consistent by year for 2017, 2018, and 2019 (though the 2017 - 2018 flu season is clearly visible). The various "waves" (initial wave in the spring of 2020, the summer wave of that year, the Delta variant wave, and the Omicron variant wave) are also clearly visible.
That led me to think that it would be easy to estimate what people refer to as "excess deaths" attributable to the pandemic. Now, as an aside, I recognize that many excess deaths were not directly due to Covid-19 infections. There have been deaths due to people not getting diagnosis or treatment for heart disease, cancer, kidney disease, etc. due to lockdowns or lack of hospital facilities. There have been suicides and drug overdoses due to depression and idle time. There have been deaths that are likely attributable to vaccinations. I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that automobile fatalities rose due to much less traffic on freeways and consequent higher speeds leading to more severe accidents. Nevertheless, it's clear that the pandemic has greatly increased the number of deaths beyond what would have previously been expected.
I took an extremely naive approach. It's clear that, even if nothing else changes, there will be more deaths as population increases. So, for each week, I took the mid-year population for each of the years of 2017, 2018, and 2019 and multiplied the deaths for that week and year by the ratio between that number and the equivalent number in 2020, 2021, and 2022. I then subtracted the mean of the adjusted deaths for the week in 2017, 2018, and 2019 from the 2020, 2021, and 2022 deaths for that week number. I estimated the result to be the number of excess deaths in that week for that year. I then totalled the numbers for each year, resulting in the following:
Year
Excess
deaths
2020
504,562
2021
571,400
2022
8,946
Based on this, admittedly rather superficial, analysis, it's reasonable to estimate that on the order of 1,085,000 people have died beyond what would have been expected prior to the pandemic. This number compares quite well with other estimates I've seen of Covid-19 deaths.
I'll make another post with some breakdowns by age but, suffice it to say for now, that the numbers are very heavily skewed toward the highest age groups. So, in terms of lost years of life, the numbers above overstate the situation. Nevertheless, even as recently as the first week of this year, we're still significantly above the adjusted mean of more normal years. If we think that the very old and infirm were already not far from their demise and thus, the pandemic, in a sense, culled the herd, we'd expect a time to come post-pandemic when the total deaths drop noticeably below the adjusted mean for more normal years. I see no sign of that at this time.
