Showing posts with label Automobiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Automobiles. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Saturday, February 20, 1909. Hudson's and Futurist drivel.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published The Futurist Manifesto, glorifying violence and energy

It was drivel, but a partial inspiration for fascism.

The text of the blathering provided:

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.

2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.

3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want toexalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.

4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.

6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.

7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character.

Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.

8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.

9. We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.

10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations

devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.

2 Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.

……

For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!

The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. …

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world's summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: `We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors,' it says.

Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head!

Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars! 

The Hudson Motor Car Company was founded.  It would last until 1954 when a merger resulted in the creation of American Motors.  AMC merged into Chrysler in 1987.

Friday, January 12, 2024

Blog Mirror: 6 Must Have Winter Car Accessories to Stay Safe and Comfy

6 Must Have Winter Car Accessories to Stay Safe and Comfy

All good advice.

I'd add, here in Wyoming, a winter coat for sure.

And a blanket that will suffice for cold weather without electricity, as you might not have your car electricity all that long.

And some food for a few days is a good idea, also.

I'd also add, for at least off roady and over the road vehicles, a two-way radio.  I have GMRS radios in both of my regular 4x4s, which are also my regular daily drivers.  Personally, I much prefer GMRS over CB, which has a more limited range.

Friday, January 5, 2024

Saturday, January 5, 1924. Ironic?

Sounding like a story line out of an Alanis Morissette song, Eleftherios Venizelos, a Greek hero, was elected as the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament by his colleagues only to go on and have a heart attack that day during the parliamentary session.  He'd serve in the position for only six days, but would live until 1936.

Walter P. Chrysler introduced his first car, the Chrysler Six Model B-70.

Celia Cooney, age 19, commenced her criminal career with the robbery of the Thomas Ralston Grocery store in Brooklyn.  Her husband, Ed Cooney, drove the getaway car.



Their criminal career ended in April when they were caught.  Ed Cooney lost an arm due to an injury while in prison and recovered $12,000 against the State of New York in 1931 as a result.  The same year they were released.  He died in 1936 of tuberculosis, and she remarried in 1943. She passed away in 1992.

Monday, November 27, 2023

Tuesday, November 27, 1923. Oklahoma Senate Approves Ban On Mask, Oil Filters, Odd feats of strength.


No, not that kind of mask you might see in a headline today, but rather the costume of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Wiggins shoe store mentioned in this article was still open in the 1990s, and maybe the 2000s.  It no longer is. By that time, it was one of two shoe repair shops still operating downtown.

Now there are none.

The modern oil filter was patented by George H. Greenhalgh. Prior to this, automobiles simply used a screen, which would partially account for the short engine life early automobiles had.

The Purolator oil filter is essentially what most vehicles use today, and is still in production.


The Purolator original design featured the cardboard filter which was inserted into a fixed housing.  I've worked on vehicles that retained this filter design exactly, and it is essentially the same as a modern filter except now the housing comes with the filter, and you replace the entire thing.  I've also worked on cars that used this sort of filter for their fuel filter.

While a revolutionary design, it did not become immediately widespread.  It wasn't until the 1950s, apparently, when they became universal, although my 1946 CJ2A, which I sold long ago, had one.  A 1954 Chevrolet Sedan I once had also had one.

Siegmund "Zishe" Breitbart pulled a wagon with fifty passengers through Washington D.C. with his teeth.

I'll confess the point of such stunts as this really escapes me.

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XV. The 2% solution?

 August 9, 2023

3%

That is what inflation has fallen to.

The target rate is nonsensically 2%, which still robs workers of their wages.  Given the recent inflation, a more sensical target would be at or about 0%, or better yet a slight deflationary rate of 1%.

That's the core inflationary rate, by the way. Real inflation is at about 4.1%.

The US is banning private equity investment in China and investment in some Chinese technology companies.

August 12, 2023

The EPA estimates that by 2055 most petroleum fueled vehicles will have attrited off the road.

August 16, 2023

From the Oil City News:
CASPER, Wyo. — Rocky Mountain Power, the state’s largest electric utility, is proposing to raise its energy rates by 29.2%.
August 24, 2023

Before more consolidation of everything is just what we needed:

Subway sandwich chain sells itself to Dunkin’ owner Roark Capital

August 27, 2023

France will spend €200 million to destroy excess wine in hopes of shoring up the struggling wine industry.  Wine consumption in Europe has been falling, while production increasing.

September 7, 2023

Chinese exports, upon which that nation depends, have decreased every month of 2023.  China's economy is dependent upon exports and there is serious discussion on the country going into a recession.

September 11, 2023

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced severe criticism from her constituents, after sharing a video on Instagram from the Kiwi left-wing Aotearoa Liberation League that accredited rising prices solely to corporations and described the discussion surrounding inflation as propaganda.

When I read the headline, I actually wondered if she'd reposted something of Robert Reich's. . . 

The bloom has really been off AoC's rose in recent months.

Trump has been heard at campaign dinners indicating that if re elected he will cut taxes, which are too low to start with, and use tariffs as a trade weapon.

September 15, 2023

The United Auto Workers are out on strike.


September 20, 2023

Ford Motors in Canada reached a deal with is union to avoid a strike there.

Republican infighting kept two budget bills from advancing there.

Cont:  

A drought in Spain has caused a 50% increase in the price of olive oil, which in turn is causing a spike in olive oil theft.

September 27, 2023

The Writers Guild of America has reached an accommodation with the entertainment industry and has ended its strike.

U.S. regulators and seventeen states have sued Amazon on Tuesday over allegations it uses its position in the economy to inflate prices.

The Senate has drafted a stopgap funding bill it will likely pass, but there's no certainty the dysfunctional House of Representatives will.

September 28, 2023

Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

But not before noting that the U.S. economy recently grew 2.1%.

October 1, 2023.

Crisis postponed. 

The following crisis that is:

Subsidiarity Economics. The Shutdown edition.

September 28, 2023


Kevin McCarthy, prisoner of GOP populists, will not take up the Senate bill to fund the government, making a shutdown impossible to avoid.

The House of Representatives is, quite frankly, dysfunctional.

And given this, we will close out this edition of Subsidiarity Economics, even though its barely gone, and start one focused on that theme.

Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.

What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not.  Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.

Congress, oddly, will get paid. 

The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.

Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open.  Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.

Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.

Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.

Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.

The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.

The SBA will shut down.

The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.

The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away.  People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.

All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down.  If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel.  A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight.  Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason.  And a lack of highway funds.

None of that will happen rapidly, of course.  Or maybe at all.

September 30, 2023.

We’re likely to avert a shutdown, but the clown show continues

Let the grousing now being.

Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday.  In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:

We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.
Well now he has 45 days to see if he can do that.

The bill omitted funding for Ukraine.  President Biden noted that in his address regarding the stopgap bill.
Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.
 
But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.
 
While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.

McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right. 

October 4, 2023

Facebook's parent company Meta is laying off 11,000 employees.

October 5, 2023

75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees went on strike Wednesday. Staffing levels are an issue.

October 8, 2023

California has put into effect a law requiring  requires public and private US businesses with revenues greater than $1 billion operating in California to report their emissions comprehensively.

October 9, 2023

Workers for Mack Truck are going out on a UAW strike.

October 11, 2023

The UAW's strike has expanded to include a Ford plant in Kentucky.

October 15, 2023

The price of oil has jumped 6% since April.

October 24, 2023

Icelandic women are on strike for wage equality.

October 27, 2023

The economy grew by 4.9% last quarter.

October 28, 2023

Governor Gordon sounded climate alarm bells in a speech at Harvard this past week, noting that Wyoming needed to decarbonize. This caused the Wyoming Freedom Caucus to freak out.

October 31, 2023
Robert Reich.

November 2, 2023

Headline:

Union sets its sights on Tesla

November 5, 2023

Voters in Maine are voting on a referendum to replace the state's two electric companies with consumer-owned Pine Tree Power Company.

The proposal goes to the polls on Tuesday.  It states:
















November 9, 2023

The Air Force wants Congress to restrict the placement of wind farms near nuclear missle silos.

November 10, 2023

Moody’s Investors Service is revising the outlook on the U.S. government’s ratings to negative from stable but affirming the long-term issuer and senior unsecured rating at AAA.

Lest anyone doubt, this is bad for the economy and reflects a years long inability to get the deficit under control.

November 21, 2023

Ontario Knife Co. was sold to Blue Ridge Knives and all 56 employees at its Frankliville, New  York plant lost their jobs as a result.  Blue Ridge owns 800 brand names.

Last prior edition:


Saturday, November 18, 2023

Thursday, November 18, 1943. The (Airborne) Battle of Berlin commences.

The RAF commenced the airborne Battle of Berlin on this day in 1943, hitting Berlin with 440 Lancaster bombers in a nighttime raid.  The raid killed 131 Berliners, caused light damage and resulted in the loss of nine aircraft with 53 airmen.   Raids would continue through March, 1944.

Cordell Hull addressed a joint session of Congress on the Moscow Conference.

The Germans opened the Ebensee concentration camp, with the first prisoners being non-Jewish.

The 1st Panzer Division pushed the Red Army out of Zhytomyr.

The U.S. Army issued a report on a newly encountered rifle, the FG42

German Paratrooper's Rifle F.G. 42" from Tactical and Technical Trends

German paratrooper in raid to free Mussolini carrying a FG42. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-567-1503A-01 / Toni Schneiders / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5412659

Never completely finished in terms of design, the FG42 was arguably the world's first battle rifle, although it is often called an assault rifle. The selective fire rifle, firing the standard full sized German 8x57 round and was designed to fill the role of rifle, light machinegun and submachinegun.  It was made in fairly limited numbers.

Following World War Two, the concept would be adopted by NATO countries, in part because of the U.S. rejection of intermediate sized rounds.  The FAL, G3, Stg 57, BM59 and M14 are all examples of post war battle rifles.

The Army also reported on German armored cars:

"German Four-Wheeled Armored Cars" from Tactical and Technical Trends

British soldiers exam a disabled SdKfz 222, the most common German four-wheel armored car.

The Germans, like the British, liked armored cars and used four wheel, six wheel and eight wheel varieties, the latter of which proved influential after World War Two and which inspired armored cars currently in use by the U.S., Canada and Germany.  Their four wheeled variants were in the Leichter Panzerspähwagen class and used for reconnaissance.

The U-718 accidentally rammed and sank the U-476 in the Baltic.

The Greek sailing vessels Agios Demetrios  and Kanelos were shelled and sunk south-east of the Kassandra peninsula and Strati, Greece by the Royal Navy, although I don't know why.

The HMS Chanticleer was torpedoed off Portugal and damaged beyond repair.

The Empire Dunstan was torpedeoed and sunk in the Ionian Sea.

German patrol boats sank the Soviet No. 35 motor boat in the Black Sea.

The Columbian Ruby was sunk by the U-516.

The Liberty Ship Sambridge was sunk by the I27 in the Gulf of Aden, where you don't really think of Japanese submarines operating.

The Sanae, a Japanese destroyers, was sunk by U.S. submarines.

French aircraft carrier off of Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, November 18, 1943.

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Wednesday, October 31, 1923. Too many beans.

A gas station at 376 Dupont Street, Toronto.  October 31, 1923.  The area today: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6739711,-79.4102822,3a,75y,345.25h,62.37t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHGkK4kB8gL_d4klZCcG4xA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

Sometimes, you get too many beans.



I actually put this up because of the article on the Rialto Theater, which is still there and currently for sale.
D. W. Griffith on movie location.  Probably the movie "America".


Thursday, September 21, 2023

Friday, September 21, 1973. Kissinger confirmed as Secretary of State.

Henry Kissinger was confirmed as Secretary of State by the Senate.  He had been serving as National Security Advisor under Nixon prior to that.


Kissinger is still alive at age 100 and still occasionally gives his views on foreign policy.  Born in Weimar Germany, he immigrated with his parents in 1935 and served in the U.S. Army during World War Two.

A practitioner of realpolitik, I'm frankly not a fan, and regard him as complicit with Nixon in a cynical abandonment of the South Vietnamese.

Ford Motors introduced the lighter, disappointing, Mustang II, demonstrating the decline in American automobiles of the early 1970s as the realitites of being a petroleum importing nation started to set in.

Friday, September 15, 2023

I know how.

I have lived in a cramped camper van with my wife and our cat for 8 years. Here's how we make it work.

You never had children, that's how.

The article was from Business Insider, which is on my news feed for some reason, even though I'm not really a fan of it. The headline comes from a blog entitled:

Van Cat Meow

Now, I'll be frank that at my stage of my life, having worked since age 13 and now 60, a life in which I could take my wife in our camp trailer and go annually from Alaska back home, catching the seasons (fish, hunting, etc.) would appeal greatly to me.

It wouldn't appeal to my spouse, so this will be another dream unrealized.

But two young people living as vagabonds with a cat?  Well, it's not for some reason.

Let's be even more frank. This trip is made possible only by the pharmaceutical industry as it's made possible, probably, only due to birth control.  There's something weirdly narcissistic and self focused about it, therefore.

In a prior age, being an adult for most people meant taking on adult things, and that meant for most people, given the nature of nature and what that means, ultimately meant getting married and having children, the second following from the other.  Chemicals made the first possible without the second, which ultimately radically muddled the minds of many as to the true, deep, existential nature of the essential act that goes with that marriage.  In turn, that really gave rise to the "alternative" definitions of everything we have today, as the deep natural nature of that relationship became one for self defined entertainment, although at some level the deeper meaning is never lost.

Also lost, however, that going forward with the true nature of the relationship is deeply adult.

Or, in a former era, for one reason or another, it meant going into adult life on your own, and plenty did it.  But that was a pretty serious affair in and of itself.  People like to say "marriage is hard", which it isn't. Being on your own, as an adult, and as you age, is hard.  Frankly, for most people, it got pretty hard in all sorts of ways by the time a person was in their late 30s.

Traveling by van around Australia?  I'm sure it's fun.  But is also dropping out, in more ways than one, including dropping out of a part of nature while viewing it. The cat?  Probably not a conventional pet the way pets were in prior decades, but a substitute child, that instinct never really gone.

Dropping out, however, also says something about the state of our world.

Some people have always dropped out of the active world, to be sure.  But it's become a sort of post-pandemic pandemic.  Quietly Quitting, Laying Flat, and this. All symptoms of a world we've built that we don't like.

In an earlier era, this very British couple (and I know that one is Australian) probably would have met and farmed.  They seem to be angling for a simple life.

One pretty hard to achieve in our world today.

Related threads:

July 29, 1968. Humanae Vitae

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XIV. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 


June 5, 2023

Saudi Arabia is cutting its petroleum production by 1M barrels a day.

June 6, 2023

Ukrainian wheat prices have jumped.

June 9, 2023

Wyoming will divest itself of investments in China.

June 22, 2023

Ground was broken yesterday, after a decade and a half was expended on permitting on the Trans West Transmission project.  The event took place near Sinclair.\

June 27, 2023

Ford Motors is laying off salaried workers and engineers in order to save costs.

June 28, 2023

WYDOT approved a grant to Jackson to use Federal money to purchase EV buses.

June 29, 2023

Walgreens is closing 150 stores in the U.S.

In a tragedy, National Geographic magazine laid off its last remaining staff writers.

The magazine has been independent of the National Geographic Society since 2015, when it was sold to Fox.

Wyoming and Colorado Sign MOU Regarding Direct Air Capture

MOU outlines commitment to exploring direct air carbon dioxide capture (DAC) industry development

BOULDER, Colo.  – The State of Wyoming and State of Colorado announced today that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding direct air capture (DAC) activity and development. The bipartisan inter-state agreement will focus on the DAC industry’s potential to complement existing and emerging industries and increase jobs and economic development in both states while simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Governors Mark Gordon and Jared Polis announced the news during the Western Governor Association meeting today in Boulder, Colorado.

Direct Air Capture is a method of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in which CO2 is removed from the air and then sequestered and stored to produce high-quality carbon removal credits or used for industrial applications, such as enhanced oil recovery or as a chemical feedstock for other products. The federal government has established several significant incentives and competitive grant opportunities to test and scale direct air capture technologies and projects. The mountain west is uniquely positioned to lead on these efforts, and this bipartisan agreement represents the first such multistate partnership in the county. 

The MOU outlines the partnership between the states through potential collaborations such as: applying for grants, identifying necessary infrastructure, defining carbon removal measurement standards, analyzing atmospheric CDR markets and their growth opportunities, identifying a process for resolving issues with cross-border CO2 sequestration, developing a commercialization pipeline for nascent technologies, and ensuring that local, tribal, and state stakeholders are empowered participants in shaping the future of this innovative technology and its significant economic opportunity. 

“Wyoming is a longtime leader in carbon management practices and policy,” said Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon. “We believe direct air capture could complement efforts for point-source carbon capture and the related infrastructure. Colorado and Wyoming each have pieces of the puzzle necessary to develop a carbon removal market and industry. Together, we have a powerful combination of assets, infrastructure, policy, markets, people, geology and mindsets that are needed to accelerate the development of the industry. This agreement focuses on working together on the most important questions related to DAC, including measurement standards that work to create more transparency in markets and benefits to communities.”

“This exciting bipartisan partnership builds upon our nation-leading work in Colorado to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2040 while adding good-paying jobs. I am proud to partner with Gov. Gordon on this innovative work that benefits both Colorado and Wyoming as we continue to find creative ideas and common-sense solutions in the fight for clean air that won’t just benefit Colorado and Wyoming, but the entire world,” said Colorado Governor Jared Polis. 

The MOU highlights the combined assets, infrastructure, policy, markets, resources and geology that make the region a strong contender for developing a direct air capture industry. Wyoming has world-class carbon capture, use and sequestration (CCUS) assets, including permanent geologic storage – in addition to existing infrastructure, manufacturing and energy workforce. Colorado has been developing a policy environment to evaluate the regulatory, economic, technological, and research opportunities in the carbon dioxide removal and direct air capture area and is home to the world’s second-largest operating DAC facility. 

This agreement builds on further regional collaboration between Wyoming and Colorado with Utah and New Mexico to develop the Western Interstates Hydrogen Hub. This existing partnership will mobilize  billions of dollars of investment in clean hydrogen infrastructure, another emerging technology to reduce pollution and continue the West’s leadership on global energy solutions.  

For more information, read the Memorandum in full.

June 30, 2023

UW is receiving a Federal grant for nuclear chemistry research.  The grant is in the amount of $300,000.

A headline:

Sriracha prices soar amid ongoing supply shortage linked to droughts

July 3, 2023

In an effort to cause prices to rise, Russia is cutting petroleum production by 500,000 bbls per day.

July 12, 2023

Inflation has fallen to 3%.  Historically, while it's perfectly possible to have even lower inflation, or deflation, that's a pretty good rate.

That we allow for government induced inflation through monetary policy is inexcusable, however.

The official aim is for 2%:

Why does the Federal Reserve aim for inflation of 2 percent over the longer run?

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) judges that inflation of 2 percent over the longer run, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s mandate for maximum employment and price stability. When households and businesses can reasonably expect inflation to remain low and stable, they are able to make sound decisions regarding saving, borrowing, and investment, which contributes to a well-functioning economy.

For many years, inflation in the United States has run below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent goal. It is understandable that higher prices for essential items, such as food, gasoline, and shelter, add to the burdens faced by many families, especially those struggling with lost jobs and incomes. At the same time, inflation that is too low can weaken the economy. When inflation runs well below its desired level, households and businesses will come to expect this over time, pushing expectations for inflation in the future below the Federal Reserve’s longer-run inflation goal. This can pull actual inflation even lower, resulting in a cycle of ever-lower inflation and inflation expectations.

If inflation expectations fall, interest rates would decline too. In turn, there would be less room to cut interest rates to boost employment during an economic downturn. Evidence from around the world suggests that once this problem sets in, it can be very difficult to overcome. To address this challenge, following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation modestly above 2 percent for some time. By seeking inflation that averages 2 percent over time, the FOMC will help to ensure longer-run inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 percent.

1% would be better.  0 would be even better.  Very difficult to achieve.

And in actuality, with a labor demand that exceeds employment, a slight deflation, over a decade, would be nice.

July 13, 2023

A study published in Joule maintains that ending fossil fuel use will impact the net worth of only the very wealthy.

Swiss voters have voted to reach net carbon zero by 2050.

July 16, 2023

Hollywood actors and writers are on strike, something that could carry on forever as far as I'm concerned, given the overall negative affects the industry has had.

July 19, 2023

Wheat prices have jumped 8% due to Russia pulling out of the Black Sea grain shipment arrangement.

July 20, 2023

NON-ENERGY MINERALS ON PUBLIC LANDS ARE A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTOR TO ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND JOBS

July 22, 2023

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles lost its renewed legal battle seeking to keep Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. from selling the redesigned Roxor off-road vehicle in the US.

The lawsuit claimed the designed trespass on protected elements of the Jeep.  I don't know the details of the suit, but the Roxor is pretty clearly a Jeep externally, and more particularly the old CJ-5.

July 28, 2023

Supreme Court rules in favor of Mountain Valley Pipeline  

Or;

Supreme Court rules in favor of Mountain Valley Pipeline

Thumbs Up Emoji Costs Canadian Farmer $82,000

August 3, 2023

Sales of Bud Light have fallen 10%.

August 4, 2023

Saudi Arabia extended production cuts.  U.S. oil prices are at a nine-month-high.

August 8, 2023

Two out of three of the major credit rating entities have downgraded the US rating from AAA+ to AAA. This occured to the lunacy of current American politics and the high U.S. debt.

And, locally:

Environmental Groups Lose Appeal Of Wyoming 3,500 Gas Well Project at Jonah Field

Last prior edition:

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XIII. The Economic Doomsday Clock

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Monday, June 26, 2023

Tuesday, June 26, 1923. Harding in Utah, RAF Expands.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced that the Royal Air Force would add 34 squadrons, bringing its total to 52. The RAF, at that number, would remain smaller than France's air force, not surprisingly given the very large size of the French military.

This followed PM Stanley Baldwin's announcement that:

British Air Power must include a Home Defence Air Force of sufficient strength adequately to protect us against air attack by the strongest air force within striking distance of this country…. In the first instance the Home Defence Force should consist of 52 squadrons to be created with as little delay as possible.

35 of the squadrons were to be bomber squadrons, 17, fighters, showing an appreciation of strategic airspace well before World War Two.

The Tribune reported that President Harding's stop in Cheyenne had been a big success.


He was on to Salt Lake City, Utah.

He addressed the city, stating:

My Fellow Countrymen:

There is a suggestion of personal tribute in choosing my topic for an address in Salt Lake City. I have so long associated Senator Smoot with great problems of taxation, and have witnessed so much of his able and faithful endeavor to enforce economy and thereby lift the burdens of taxation, that I find myself involuntarily thinking, when I come to your state, of the menace of mounting taxes # and growing public indebtedness. The removal of this menace is not alone a federal problem, for we are recording gratifying progress so far as the nation is concerned, but the larger menace to-day is to be faced by municipality, county, and state. The federal Government is diligently seeking to prove itself a helpful example, but the improved order must come in the units of government into which federal Government never intrudes. There is no particular reason why I should speak of it, except that we are all concerned about general public welfare, and I have thought that possibly a recital of federal accomplishment would serve to encourage in a state and local work which must be done.

A short time before I became President, a trusted but cynical old friend said to me one day that he understood I intended to make a specialty of economy in administration. I admitted my aspirations in that direction, and he replied:

"Well, that's the right idea, but don't tell anybody about it. You may think it will be appreciated, but it will not. Every time you lop somebody -off the government pay roll or keep him out of a profitable piece of government business, you make him and all his friends and associates your enemies; and, on the other side, not a soul in the country will ever thank you for it. Everybody grumbles about taxes, and nobody ever demonstrates any appreciation of the man that tries to save them from taxes."

A short time before we left Washington on the present trip another friend said to me: "The Administration has saved the country a good deal by reducing its expenses and cutting down the tax burden. But take my advice, and don't talk to any of your audiences about it. People always grumble about taxes, but they don't want to hear anybody talk to them on that subject."

To which I replied that I believed, in the present state of affairs, all such rules were suspended, and any public man who had anything cheerful to say on the subject of taxes and Government expenses, would find plenty of audiences altogether willing to listen to him. I believe the American people are so profoundly interested in the subject of taxation and Government costs nowadays that an audience like this will even be willing to let me talk to them a few minutes on the subject.

One of the financial incidents to our participation in the war was to loan a vast sum of money to our allies. I wonder how many of you ever stop to think that the $10,000,000,000 which we advanced to our allies, after our entrance into the war, was just about the same as the total cost of the Civil War to North and South together. The Civil War lasted four years and strained every nerve and resource of the nation. Yet its actual cost to the Governments of both sides was considerably less than the amount we advanced to the Allied Governments during the World War.

And that was only a mild beginning of our financial transactions in war. For every dollar we loaned to our allies, we spent about three more on our own account. In a little more than three years, between the day war was declared and peace was signed, we spent twice as much money out of the public treasury as had been spent by the national Government in all of its previous history. I am not going to talk to you to-day about whether the money was all wisely spent. Whether it was or not, the results were worth all they cost, and a good deal more. What I propose to present to you now is some consideration of the fact that no matter how willing we were to make the sacrifice, no matter how cheerfully we incurred the obligations, we had to face at the end the big and very practical reality that these obligations must be paid.

You have inferred from what I said a moment ago that we spent roundly $40,000,000,000 on the World War. How many of us ever stopped to think that that was rather more than the total wealth of the nation at the time of the Civil War? We paid out of our current taxes, while the war was going on, more than 25 per cent of its cost; that is, as much as the entire national wealth so late as the year 1820. At the beginning of August, 1919, the public debt reached the highest point in its history, $27,500,000,000. That was just about ten times the amount of the national debt at the close of the Civil War.

We are still too close to the events of the Great War to be able to realize the enormous burdens placed on our country. Quite aside from the large operations of public finance which it necessitated, private finance has been tailed upon from the very beginning in 1914 to make special arrangements for financing the huge foreign trade that resulted from Europe's extraordinary demands. Long before we were in the war our financial machinery had been compelled to shoulder the financing of an enormously exaggerated export trade to the warring Powers. For a time Europe withdrew gold from us in great quantities, but presently it returned in yet greater, bringing to us and to the European countries the difficult problem of maintaining the exchanges and supporting the gold standard. Costs of everything rose to an artificially high basis, and in every direction expenditure was stimulated.

Altogether, the war was not only the greatest horror the world has ever known, but the greatest orgy of spending. This was inevitable, but that fact does not make the results any easier to deal with. The cost of government, of business, of every domestic establishment went up enormously. Every business man, and every householder, knows how it affected his personal concern. I want to suggest some of the ways in which it affected the whole business of government; government of the states, the cities, the nation, the expenses of every revenue-raising and spending division throughout the nation.

Recently I have been furnished with some specific figures on this subject of the cost of government by the Bureau of the Census. I am not proposing to impose upon your patience with an elaborate presentation of figures, but I want to suggest a few that will point my observations about the enormously increased cost of government everywhere. Take the cost of state governments. I am informed that the revenues of the states in 1913 aggregated $368,000,000, and that in 1921 they had increased to $959,000,000; that is, they had increased 161 per cent, and every dollar of that increase had to come in some way or other from the public. The expenditures of the states in 1913 aggregated $383,000,000, and in 1921 they were $1,005,000,000; an increase of 163 per cent. The indebtedness of the states in 1913 amounted to $423,000,000, and in 1921 to $1,012,000,000; an increase of 139 per cent.

Turn now to the cost of city government. The Census Bureau has compiled data on the governments of 227 of the large cities. It is shown that these cities in 1913 collected $890,000,000 in all revenues, and in 1921 they collected $1,567,000,000; that is, they were compelled to take 76 per cent more in taxes in 1921 than they had taken in 1913. The same group of cities expended in 1913, $1,010,000,000, and in 1921, $1,726,000,000— an increase of 71 per cent. The total debt of this group of cities in 1913 was $2,901,000,000, which by 1921 had risen to $4,334,000,000—an increase of 49 per cent.

County administration appears, from the rather limited information which at this time the census authorities have been able to produce, to have shown a much larger proportionate increase in cost and tax collections than did the government of cities. It is stated that for 381 counties, distributed among 38 states, and regarded as fairly typical, the increase in receipts from principal sources of revenue increased 127 per cent from 1913 to 1922; that is, for every hundred dollars of revenue collected in 1913, $227 was collected in 1922. And that is not all of it. The total indebtedness of these same 381 counties increased 195 per cent in the same period; that is, for every hundred dollars of debt in 1913 they had $295 of indebtedness in 1922. Statistics were not available dealing with cities and towns of less than 30,000 population; nor with townships, school districts, drainage districts, irrigation districts, road districts, and other subdivisions which exercised the power to raise revenues and incur debts. It is well known, however, that substantially similar increases have affected all these taxing subdivisions.

The figures of both the Treasury and the Census Bureau, in short, make it perfectly plain that whereas the cost of the federal Government is being steadily reduced, the cost of state and local governments is being just as steadily increased year by year. In nearly all of the states the cost of state and local governments increased from 1919 to 1922. The Treasury made up statistics on this point for one group of 10 states— Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. For this representative group it is shown that while federal taxes paid by these 10 states declined from over a billion dollars in 1920 to $650,000,000 in 1922, their state and local taxes rose from $728,000,000 to $965,000,000 in the same period. In another tabulation, covering 28 states, which was the entire number for which the statistics were available, it was shown that from 1919 to 1921 there were increases in local taxes in 23 states and reductions in only 5. In spite of the enormous burden of paying for the war and paying interest on the war debt, state and local taxes in 1922 represented 60 per cent of all taxes paid.

Let me present another aspect of the same matter. We hear much about the grievous burden of the income tax, and everyone of us who pays it is able fully to sympathize with everyone else who pays it. But it is fair to consider what our income taxes would be if we lived in some of the other debt-burdened countries of the world. A married citizen of the United States, with two children and an income of $5,000, paid $68 tax on that income in 1922. If he had been a citizen of Canada he would have paid $156. If the German tax rate had been applied to his income, it would have cost him $292. If he had been a Frenchman the French rate would have required him to pay $96, and if he had been a British citizen, instead of giving up the $68 which he paid to Uncle Sam, he would have drawn his check for $320.76. The same man, with an income of $10,000, would have paid $456 income tax in the United States and $1,128.32 in England.

The great burden of the war was, of course, imposed on the national Government. The Department of the Treasury states that in 1917 the federal Government's revenues were $1,044,000,000; in 1918 they were $3,925,000,000; in 1919 they were $4,103,000,000; in 1920 they were $5,737,000,000; and in 1921 they were $4,902,000,000. For 1922 the total dropped to $3,565,000,000, and for 1923 it is estimated at $3,753,000,000. Assuming continuation of the present basis of federal taxation, the receipts for 1924 are calculated at $3,638,000,000, and for 1925 at $3,486,000,000.

Not all of this revenue is raised by direct taxation. The Treasury estimates indicate that in 1923 only $2,925,000,000 and in 1924 $2,850,000,000 will be produced by direct taxation; the remainder will come from various miscellaneous receipts of the Government. You will, I am sure, be interested in the Treasury's statement that whereas in 1914 the per capita cost to all the people of the federal Government was $6.97, in 1918 it reached $36.64 and in 1919, $37.91. It might reasonably have been presumed that with the war now long past taxes would have begun to fall off, but the statistics show the contrary. Instead of a reduction, taxes for the fiscal year 1920 rose to $53.78 per capita, which was the peak of the war burden. Even for 1921 they only fell to $45.22. But in 1923 they will be $26.29, or considerably less « than half as much as in 1920. Figures, especially the figures which represent such an authority as the Treasury Department, are conclusive arguments. These figures show that for two years after the war ended federal taxes continued much higher than at the height of the struggle. They show that in the first two years of peace the cost of Government was still continuing above the 1918 level, but that since the high point of 1920 they have been reduced more than one-half. It is a record of business administration to which the party now in control of the administration feels justified in referring with no small measure of satisfaction.

I have observed that the cost of the war to our Government was around $40,000,000,000. After paying a generous share, about 25 per cent, from current revenues collected while the war was in progress, we still had to borrow enormously. At its highest point, on August 31, 1919, the national debt was $26,596,000,000. I know you will be interested to be told that from that day, August 31, 1919, to June 30, 1923, we have reduced it to $22,400,000,000—a reduction of considerably more than a billion dollars a year. Moreover, we are now working under a program which involves extinguishing a half billion of the debt each year. No other country in the world has been able to make such a record.

In addition to all this, we have within the past year settled the British war debt to our Government, arranged for its funding and its gradual extinction over a long period of years. In recognition of the notable service of Secretary Mellon, his associates at the Treasury, and the members of the Debt Funding Commission and the American ambassador to Great Britain, I wish to say that this settlement of the British debt has been acclaimed all over the world as one of the most notable and successful fiscal accomplishments ever recorded. Not only does it insure that the regular quarterly payments which the British Government will make to our Treasury will correspondingly relieve the burden upon American taxpayers, but the more important fact, in a time of widespread uncertainty and misgiving throughout the world of business everywhere, that these two great Governments could get together and arrange such a settlement has been one of the most reassuring events since the armistice.

There had been too much talk of possible cancellations or repudiations of the war debt. Such a program would have wrecked the entire structure of business faith and of confidence in the obligations of Governments throughout the world. There was need, pressing and urgent need, for such a sign of confidence, assurance, and faith in the future as this settlement furnished. When the British and American Governments united in this pledge that their obligations would be met to the last shilling and the last dollar, there was renewed financial confidence in the world. I undertake to say that no event since the conclusion of hostilities has contributed so much to putting the world back on its way to stabilization, to confidence in its Governments, and to the established conviction that our social institutions are yet secure.

No consideration of public finances can omit the fact that the single item of interest on the public debt exceeds $1,000,000,000 annually. For the fiscal year 1923, this item, will be $1,100,000,000. Beyond this, we will reduce the public debt this year by $330,000,000, and next year by approximately $500,000,000. That is, over 35 per cent of the national revenue will this year go to paying interest or extinguishing the principal of the public debt.

I have not been able to gather conclusive statistics as to the accomplishments of states, cities, and counties, to compare with this showing of the federal Government. But with some general knowledge of the fiscal positions of states and cities in general, I feel quite safe in proffering my congratulations to any state, any city, any foreign country, which has made a better showing in the matter of reducing its public debt within the period since the war. I most earnestly regret that all have not been able to make a similar showing.

On this latter point I wish to say a word further. Taxation decidedly is a local as well as a national question. Prior to the war, federal taxation was an unimportant item; so small that in 1917 state and local taxes, in a group of 10 representative states, in all parts of the country, constituted 73 per cent of the entire tax burden.

The federal tax was indirect and unfelt. Then came the enormous cost of the war, which the federal Government had to bear, and in 1918 state and local taxes constituted only 42 per cent of the entire tax burden. In 1919 they represented 44 per cent of the whole; in 1920, 41 per cent. But in 1922, the last year for which figures are available, state and local taxes were again in excess and represented 60 per cent of the entire tax burden. The states represented in this calculation are Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The world, its Governments, its quasi-public corporations, its people, acquired the spending habit during the war to an extent not merely unprecedented, but absolutely alarming. There is but one way for the community finally to get back on its feet, and that is to go seriously about paying its debts and reducing its expenses. That is what the world must face. The greatest and richest Government must face it, and so must the humblest citizen. No habit is so easy to form, none so hard to break, as that of reckless spending. And on the other side, none is more certain to contribute to security and happiness, than the habit of thrift, of savings, of careful management in all business concerns, of balanced budgets and living within incomes. If I could urge upon the American people a single rule applicable to every one of them as individuals, and to every political or corporate unit among them, it would be to learn to spend somewhat less than your income all the time. If you have debts, reduce them as rapidly as you can; if you are one of the fortunate few who have no debts, make it a rule to save something every year. Keep your eye everlastingly on those who administer your governmental units for you: your t6wn, your county, your state, your national Government. Make them understand that you are applying the rule of thrift and savings in your personal affairs, and require them to apply it in their management of your public affairs. If they fail, find other public servants who will succeed. If they succeed, give them such encouragement and inspiration as will be represented by a full measure of hearty appreciation for their efforts.

This brings me to a brief reference to what has proven so helpful to the federal Government in effecting the approach to the expenditures of normal times. For the first time in our history we have the national budget, under which there is an effective scrutiny of estimates for public expenditure. More, we have coordinated Government activities in making the expenditures which Congress authorizes.

It seems now unbelievable that we should have been willing to go for a century and a third without this helpful agency of business administration. But we did, and only now have we come to an appraisal of the cost of this great neglect.

It has been no easy task to establish the budget and make sure of its acceptance. Out of long time practices the varied and many Government departments felt themselves independent institutions, instead of factors in the great machinery of Government administration. They often got all they could from Congress, and made it a point to expend all they got.

Under the budget plan we were able to reverse the policy and awaken a sprit of economy and efficiency in the public service. We not only insisted that requests for appropriations should stand the minutest inquiry, but after reduced appropriations were granted, we insisted on expending less than the appropriations. There was no proposal to diminish Government activities required by law or demanded by public need, but there was first the commitment to efficiency and then commendable strife for economy.

We effaced the inexcusable and very costly impression that Government departments must expend all their appropriations, that no available cash should return to the Treasury. And we sought to inspire as well as exact in the practices of economy.

One illustration will not be amiss. On June 8, 1921, before the budget was in operation, word came to me that the business head of one of our institutions, far from Washington, was puzzling how to expend $42,000 which he had in excess of actual needs. Ordinarily such a matter would never reach the chief executive. But this one did, and I wired a warning, and followed it with a letter reciting the need of retrenchment everywhere, and expressed the hope that every Government official with spending authority would aid in reducing the Government outlay. The appeal was effective, and this one Government agent not only saved most of his available $42,000 for that fiscal year, but in 1922 he saved $81,000 more. He proved what could be done, and we are seeking to do it everywhere.

Do not imagine it has all been easy. It is very popular to expend, and there are ruffled feelings in every case of denial. But there are gratifying results in firm resolution and the insistent application of business methods.

The Budget Director is the agent of the President, and he speaks on the authority of the Government's chief executive. One day last winter the director came to me in great anxiety, telling me that a department chief would not sanction an $8,000,000 cut in his estimates. At that time we were seeking to prevent a threatened excess of expenditures over receipts amounting to $800,000,000 for the next fiscal year.

I sent for the department head, and he was still insistent in his opposition to the reduced estimate. I called for a conference of the department experts and the budget experts, and told them that if they could not agree, I would decide. They conferred, and instead of returning to me for decision, the estimate was cut more than $12,000,000. The point is that we have introduced business methods in government, and instead of operating blindly and to suit individual departments which had never visualized the Government as a whole, and felt no concern about the raising Of funds, we are scrutinizing, justifying, coordinating, and not only halting mounting cost, but making long strides in reducing the cost of Government activities.

Perhaps the budget system would not accomplish so much for taxing and spending divisions smaller than the state, but a resolute commitment to strike at all extravagance and expend public funds as one would for himself in his personal and business affairs will accomplish wonders.

It is largely unmindfulness that piles up the burden. Able and honorable men often press for a federal expenditure to be made in their own community or in other ways helpful to their own interests which they would strongly oppose if they were not directly concerned. This is true of federal appropriation as well as municipal, county, and state expenditure, and I know of no remedy unless public officials are brought to understand the menace in excessive tax burdens and indebtedness, beyond extinguishment except in drastic action, and resolve to employ practicable business methods in government everywhere, and resist the assault of the spenders.

It is too early to know whether there is a republic of ancient times with which appropriately to parallel our own. We know of their rise and fall, and we may learn the lessons in their failures. A simple-living, thrifty people, with simple, honest, and just government never failed to grow in influence and power. The coming of extravagance and profligacy in private life, and wastefulness and excesses in public life ever proclaimed the failures which history has recorded.

I would not urge the stingy, skimpy, hoarding life of individuals, or an inadequate program of government. The latter must always rise to deliberate public demand. But private life and public practices are inseparably associated.

I would have our Government adequate in every locality and in every activity, and public sentiment will demand it and secure it, and require no more, if we have the simple and thrifty life which make the healthful nation.

These reflections, my countrymen, are not conceived in doubt or pessimism. We have so nobly begun, we are so boundless in resources, we have wrought so notably in our short national existence, that I wish these United States to go on securely. I would like developing dangers noted and appraised and intelligently and patriotically guarded against. A nation of inconsiderate spenders is never secure. We wish our United States everlastingly secure.

War brought us the lesson that we had not been so American in spirit as we had honestly pretended. Some of our adopted citizenship wore the habiliments of America, but were not consecrated in soul. Some to whom we have given all the advantages of American citizenship would destroy the very institutions under which they have accepted our hospitality. Hence our commitment to the necessary Americanization which we too long neglected. The American Legion, baptized anew in the supreme test on foreign battlefields, is playing its splendid part.

Those who bore war's burdens at home have joined, and all America must fully participate. It is not enough to enlist the sincere allegiance of those who come to accept our citizenship; we must make sure for ourselves, for all of us, that we cling to the fundamentals, to the practices which enabled us to build so successfully, and avoid the errors which tend to impair our vigor and becloud our future.

The Tribune also reminded people that starting on July 1, they needed to have licenses for automobiles.

Edith Smith, age 46, the UK's first fully powered police officer, killed herself with an overdose of morphine.  She had been retired from police work for five years, but was working in nursing.  She had been heavily overworked for years, working seven days out of seven, and was low on funds.


Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton but Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, under martial law in order to investigate Ku Klux Klan activity.

Interesting radio ad from this day:  MacMillan Arctic Expedition.