All Things Economic

"I think that the emphasis on everyone going to college is misplaced and is the wrong policy."

It's a terrible policy. Of course, I also think the general run of things in high schools before "everyone goes to college" became a thing, which was largely to stigmatize shop kids, was also pretty terrible. It's actually a rare kid who can't shine at something, given an opportunity, and the trades are full of smart, interesting people, but our education system doesn't seem to know what to do with those notions.

I think that the emphasis on everyone going to college is misplaced and is the wrong policy.

And that is coming from someone with a Ph.D. in Higher Education.

My wife is a journeyman painter and makes a decent wage.

I will kinda take the other side.

Student debt is a relatively recent phenomenon. My stepfather came out of medical school in the early 1960s with no student debt.

Because we funded higher education to the extent it needed to be funded.

When my mother went to college in her late 30s, in the latter half of the 1970s, there was no tuition at community college. Bought your books, which were much cheaper than now, and you were good to go.

When she transferred to SDSU, it was $100 a semester.

When I started comunity college in the early 1990s, tuition was $18 a unit. SDSU was $900 a semester.

Now community college is $46 a unit and SDSU is over $4,000 semester. And that is a deal compared to a lot of other states.

We funded higher education to the extent we needed to, and this led to the expansion of the middle class.

Basically what has happened is that the Greatest Generation has gotten theirs, and pulled up the ladder on the generations coming after them.

Now there are a lot of other issues going on here, but I will leave them be for now, unless someone wants to discuss.

"Anyone care to take the other side?"

Nope.

My bff is crushed by student loan debt and is in favor of debt forgiveness, although not for herself. She can't clearly explain why though, other than with an explanation of how crushing student loan debt is crushing.

Take out a loan... pay it back.

Seems self evident.

President Biden is apparently again toying with the idea of a blanket forgiveness of Federal student debt. Not clear to e to what extent this could be done by executive action. If it requires congressional approval it seems like lip service. If an actual proposal I think it's bot a political mistake and a bad idea. Indebting oneself, to the extent that there is not fraud or predatory behavior invlolved, should have consequences IMO.

Anyone care to take the other side?

Saw an eMustang yesterday, Sure wish i bought one when first offered. But was always afraid of buying any new type American made vehicle, so many flaws to work out usually, had not heard of too many issues with eMustang...Pickup looks good but too many cnotes..

@8-inch

The Ten Year treasury yield is already on a tear and pricing in a fed tightening. Closed at 2.91% Friday, up 9 basis points from the previous week and 19 basis points over two weeks. The 30 year fixed rated are pretty much tracking ten year yields.

I understand the continued uptick in median price given that the lower price points are dropping out, but I don't understand the continued appetite for high end record priced homes. Cash sales or otherwise, the handwriting as far as the top of the market, if not a correction, or even a bubble popping, is pretty clearly on the wall. On the other hand if you made your home stake in Bitcoin, you might not have much of a belief in the existence of economic gravity.

"Mortgage rates spike to 12-year high"

By Theunis Bates, Editor at LinkedIn News
Updated 16 hours ago

Mortgage rates have surged for their seventh straight week, hitting their highest level in 12 years and sharply raising the cost of buying a house. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.11% in the week ending April 21, up from 5% the week before and 2.97% this time last year. And mortgage rates are likely to keep climbing higher with the Federal Reserve expected to hike its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point in May.

The monthly payment on a $405,000 home — with an interest rate of 5% and a 20% downpayment — is now $481 more than it would have been a year ago.

Many buyers are being priced out of the market: existing home sales dropped 2.7% in March from the previous month and were down 4.5% compared to March 2021.

But limited inventory means the median price of an existing house keeps rocketing, spiking 15% in March from a year earlier to a record high of $375,300.

SOMEONES

The tricks the manufacturers pull to get those mileage figures for their window stickers and CAFE standards are crazy.

Just buy a Toyota, it will run forever on anything....

MAYHEM

If you want to get really scientific, which I typically don’t, the alcohol doesn’t actually mix with water. The alcohol molecules attach themselves to the water molecules, like metal filings do to a magnet. The water molecules, completely surrounded by the alcohol, then get carried away. That’s how gas line anti-freeze, whether it be isopropyl alcohol or methanol, protects a fuel system. Enough alcohol surrounding the water, and it gets burned with the gas.

What many people don’t realize, is that 10% ethanol blended gas has that protection built in, so there is no need for the extra additives.

There is a way to seperate ethanol from gas. Alchohol will mix with water. Gas will not. You add some water (dyed red or blue so it stands out more), shake, then let settle. You can seperate the colored water/alcohol from the gas by syphoning off the gas at the bottom or drawing the gas out from the bottom if it's in a container with a spigot at the bottom.

DB

I'm guessing it was ethanol free. I seek this out for use in small engines and it's generally at a premium. I take this to mean most gas is now blended unless otherwise specified.

years ago, a client, who was a petroleum engineer, gave me a quick primer as to mileage potential: Weigh the fuel. Diesel is heavier than straight gas. Straight gas is heavier than E85 which is heavier than pure ethanol. The weight difference is due to the carbon in the fuel. Carbon=potential energy. So the heavier the fuel, all else being equal, the better the mileage.

Of course it also equals environmental destruction. But we have not yet figured out a way to monetize that. I've said before, I feel that (carbon pricing via some method, hopefully simple) is fundamental to addressing climate change.

I've been to Paducah,KY a handful of times years ago...a kinda odd town on the Ohio River off the beaten path. cheap place to retire...

CURRENT

Our winter blend typically costs more, due to the extra additives added to prevent issues when the temps are 25 below zero. Add to that the lower fuel economy from winter blends, and May can't get here fast enough.

Interesting (to me) side note. since the end of January, i have made 2 driving trips to the south. Both times, I got the best fuel economy form the tankful purchased at the Sam's in Paducah Ky. Why? I have no idea.

It used to be that winter gas contained ethanol as an oxygenating agent to reduce stagnant air quality issues. One economic consideration is that ethanol containing gas yields lower mileage due to its lower latent potential energy. On the bright side, this difference is directly related to its lower carbon content.

One thing that I did not see this year was the effect from cheaper winter gas. There is a different blend for the winter due to the cooler dryer air, and from what I've read, it is less expensive to make than summer gas. We are at a point that we could be using summer gas, but the prices have dropped rather than risen. Definitely other factors at play this year.

I think fracking changed the "peak oil" calculation fundamentally - it terms of timing. The argument is compelling from the standpoint of geology and physics.

The fundamental problem that the discussion of peak oil ignores is climate change. The oil in the ground represents tens of millions of years of carbon bound by solar energy (interestingly it is essentially it is stored solar energy) that will, in any realistic scenario, be re-released into the atmosphere over at most hundreds of years.

One realistic counterbalance that I see as an increasing possibility is a massive reduction in demand through a global conflict, likely nuclear, that would end civilization in its current form.

Typo, Mahym, mean't to say past recent years we had cheap gas and did NOT appear to lower production....

Nissan range not so good...

Nissan has a cheap EV , probably less then 35k

Mayhem, we did enjoy fairly low gas prices for many years so low prices appear to have caused reduced production..Problem is oil companies now got the fever and will now expect to have high prices/profit from now on. Can't wait to get a plugin hybrid...

In some areas of the internet there is a spirited discussion about "peak oil," Or when is oil extraction going to start a downward spiral not because of demand, but because of difficulty extracting.

But you don't hear as much about that as you did a couple of years ago...

There is a tremendous amount of oil and gas available . There are just not a lot of investors and the permitting is an endless endeavor. We have played this foolish game and now we don’t have people or equipment . The supply chain to build new equipment has long leadtimes . Go try to buy 4140 steel or something like a Cummins 3000 HP engine . Biden and his admin. are trying to end oil. The Shale plays are incredible and when the business works everyday they find new fields available with new processes.