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Strategies & Market Trends : The Financial Collapse of 2001 Unwinding -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (11983)	12/31/2023 11:59:45 AM
From: robert b furman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13783

Happy New Year EL, Call me stuck in the 2020's, but I still maintain the EV is an urban niche vehicle. China's huge and crowded cities with the World's worst pollution is a solution to a problem that many cities and countries do not share. It may well yet prove to be true that EV's are not the be all fix all to personal transportation. I am waiting to see how the transition to renewables end result is not what it has been billed to be. Note the huge differential in Germany's cost of electricity. So much so, it is hollowing out Germany's industrial base. Sound planning to future energy transitions require that cost and reliability become the footings of future plans. So far they've resulted in poor results in both perspectives. Those two inconvenient truths, have the potential to make ICE's the best, least exepnsive approach to our personal transportation needs. It allows us to side step the huge UNPLANNED NEED FOR A MASSIVE REDO ON OUR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE. Note to file: CHINA'S continued reliance on coal gives us a clue as to what their long term game plan is. North America combined with South America has the fossil fuel resources to displace the Middle East's grip on pricing. Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and Brazil could make fossil fuels cheap vs renewables once a the need for infrastructure is considered - so far it's been ignored! With GM and Ford now acknowledging the EV models introduced so far have been a flop, the OEM's who have not yet taken the complete 100% EV plunge may well Thank their lucky stars they have a "paid for", high margin ICE market share dominance. Make fossil fuels more powerful with longer ranges and less expensive and you'll see all of the mandated legislation become a pariah. This entire EV transition has been imposed on the public WITHOUT a vote by the people. When they learn it to be more expensive and not as reliable (which is happening at a faster rate than ever before), we'll seek out who the fools were that passed all this mandated legislation (follow the money and they'll get hung hopefully, and voted out of office at least). Everyone driving EV's, being charged by coal fired electricity plants is not the "FINAL SOLUTION" PERIOD. It's a failed plan. Follow the money as to how it got this far! Just as the CCP amazed the world with a 6-8 percent GDP, only to realize that real estate has cycles and when it is over built, the economy tanks. China may just choke on their pollution problem and then have to chew on a parking lot of small expensive to charge EV's. Just saying the logic is not their and Germany is the poster child to embracing it all too fast and then rewriting poorly mandated legislation. The Jury is out and it is early in the the top of the first inning. Europe will revert back to their MO and pass protective tariffs. That will also bring about a realization that they have fallen further behind in technology. They've embraced the experience vs. the innovation of technology. Let Europe fight over where to go on vacation and compete with Greece. <smile> Wishing you a prosperous New Year. We'll see if inflation is really beat. Covid has caused a complete reshuffling of supply channels and China is indeed the BIG loser. EV's/renewable energy have not proven to be either reliable or inexpensive. Inflation has boosted most items up bu 17% to 20% while housing and autos are now more expensive to buy than ever before - due to higher interest rates. Rates have come down a lot of late, but prices have not. Only the rate of inflation has. I give more credit to the supply channels coming around than anything else. Inflation has slowed for things and is sticky for services. The only thing I see as being powerful enough is a reduction in the cost of fossil fuels. That truly does reduce almost everything, and can indeed be the big mover in bringing down costs. 2024 has the potential to be a huge turnaround, or it can continue to go the wrong way and cost more for all. If it does not turn out to be common sense and free market pricing, we'll see higher for longer maybe and high and much longer forever. I do not see the return of ZIRP. Free manoey has pulled almost everything from the future to the current. Adjustments for such political policies are long in curing,and take time. The Great Financial Crisis taught us how long it takes for real estate to recover, and China's overbuilt real estate along with overbuilt manufacturing (The World's Manufacturing Center another falsehood) is a double whammy. Excess capacity takes a long time to unwind (2003 to 2018 for US real estate and decades for manufacturing excess capacity in the US. No doubt technology will accelerate the time period of making existing plants obsolete, but lengthy it will be. IMO I'm playing it very conservative with high quality equities that pay a dividend and have little to no debt. I have also placed all cash in Treasurys and/or JPM CD's and Schwab money market funds. I'm not sure more money will fix our problems anymore. Time to watch and be nimble. That old pendulum swings both ways, for a split second , it stops and then reverses. I think we'll revisit where politicians have taken us without our approval, over false science and costs that higher interest rates on capital have shown to be "NOT TRUE" let alone sustainable. Have you seen where the ESG stocks have tanked? It already is a huge loser. Wait till Ford and GM write-off 5-15 billion each. It will be a time of huge losses and re-analysis of where we need to go. nrdc.org The little guy who has had electricity go up 50% in the last 3 years is NOT going to be happy! We need cheap fossil fuels and cheap fertilizer and massive ag yields with a growing population needing all of the above. We (North and South America) have the resources to sell fossil fuels to the world. We simply need to know our competition and more importantly enemies fund programs that do not have our best interests in mind for us. We need straight talking, tough minded politicians to stop funding and defending the World. If it is worth defending, then they can repay us the cost of saving them. If not, make it a state of ours and we'll make it right. There are not many situations where that should apply. I'm far more protective, than I am colonialist. Rant over. Be well this year, I enjoy your provocative questions and sound views. Bob