Posted on 01/29/2026 4:49:47 AM PST by MtnClimber
“Affordability.” That’s the new political mantra of Democratic politicians. Or maybe it’s one of two mantras, the other being that deporting illegal aliens makes ICE the modern-day “Gestapo.”
So, how to achieve “affordability”? There are two approaches, which are essentially opposites of each other. Can they both be right?
Approach Number 1 is that the government orders producers not to increase prices, and sometimes also offers handouts of one sort or another to favored constituencies to reduce their effective costs. Approach Number 2 is that the government mostly keeps out of the relationship between producers and consumers, and thereby makes the producers reduce their costs if they want to attract customers.
My observation would be that there exists an enormous amount of evidence on this subject, all of which supports that proposition that Approach Number 2 works, while Approach Number 1 is counter-productive. But maybe that’s just me.
So there was Mikie Sherrill last week in Newark, getting inaugurated as the new (Democratic) Governor of New Jersey. New Jersey was one of only two states that had gubernatorial elections in 2025, the other being Virginia; and in both cases the winning (Democratic) candidates made “affordability” the central theme of their campaigns. For Sherrill, among various areas of concern, the most significant as to “affordability” was electricity. The cost of electricity to consumers in New Jersey had soared by some 15-25% within just the past year under prior (Democratic) Governor Phil Murphy.
Murphy had spent his eight years in office setting aggressive “green” energy targets and promoting wind and solar electricity generation as the wave of the future. In a piece in October 2025, New Jersey Monitor summarized Murphy’s approach to electricity generation:
Murphy’s energy goals were always ambitious. In successive pronouncements, the governor called for New Jersey to draw 100% of its energy from clean [i.e., wind and solar] sources, first by 2050 and then by 2035.
Here is their summary of Murphy’s record as to implementation of his green energy plans:
Murphy presided over a broad expansion of solar power in New Jersey[;] his greater plans to produce thousands of megawatts in offshore wind generation ultimately failed to create any new power, even as some existing power plants were shuttered. . . .
Readers here will not be surprised that Murphy’s plans resulted in rate increases in New Jersey beyond the national norms.
So in the face of Murphy’s record, how is Sherrill now going to achieve the Holy Grail of “affordability” in electricity prices? She addressed the subject in her inaugural address, delivered on January 20:
I’ve heard you, New Jersey — we are facing an affordability crisis, and you want costs to come down. And you want that to begin today. . . . So, right now, yes, before I even finish this speech, I am going to sign my first in a series of executive orders to declare a State of Emergency on Utility Costs.
Step 1: declare a state of emergency! Surely that will work. What else?
I am issuing an Executive Order giving the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities the authority to pause new utility requests for additional rate increases, and I will freeze rate hikes to finally provide families with real relief on their energy bills.
Step 2: decree a rate freeze! Another sure thing. And then there’s Step 3:
I am issuing an Executive Order directing the Board of Public Utilities to open solicitations for new solar and storage power generation, to modernize gas and nuclear generation. . . .
In short, it’s the usual prescription of backing politically favored but costly producers and attempting to order prices not to increase. At least Sherrill didn’t rule out continuing to use existing gas and nuclear generators (although her use of the term “modernize” in this context would seem to imply only upgrading existing facilities as opposed to building any new ones). We’ll have to check back in four years to see how New Jersey’s electricity rates have performed as compared to those in other states that let the utilities build the least costly production.
As our attempt to peer into New Jersey’s future, we can look to California. That state has gotten way out ahead of the others in building new “renewable” electricity generation capacity, in their case mostly solar. California has also similarly followed my “Approach Number 1” to affordability in numerous other areas, from gasoline production to housing, and many others. Something called the Transparency Foundation then did a big Study that came out in November 2025, benchmarking the costs of various things in California versus the norms of the other states. The title of the Study is “The Cost of California 2025.”
Let’s start with the cost of electricity. You will find the Transparency Foundation’s cost comparisons in a chart on page 14 of the Study:
Electricity costs are 101% higher versus the national average. That’s almost exactly double. Keep at it, New Jersey, and you can get there. Just keep building solar and wind generators — plus the backup and storage needed to make them work even a little.
Go through the Transparency Foundation Study on California, and in one category after another California is not just a little, but a lot more expensive than the national norms. Gasoline prices are 50% higher than the national norm; housing costs are 50% to 124% higher. (depending on data source) Granted, this last category requires some judgment calls, but whichever data source is used the comparison is not even close.
Well, New Jersey, you voted for the candidate who promised to deliver “affordability” via decrees and subsidized producers. You’ll just have to be example number two thousand of why this approach doesn’t work.
“How about making the ‘less fortunate’ much more accountable for their OWN well-being”
Absolutely. And that phrase “less fortunate” aggravates me. That implies that those who live well, i.e., are MORE fortunate, are just lucky. No! We worked our asses off and saved; no “luck/fortune” was involved.
There is no cure for inequality.
Tell us again...... what is your degree in?
“government mostly keeps out of the relationship between producers and consumers”
Zoning laws are Crony NIMBY Goobermint Grifting.
Those that got theirs cheap, keep out all future purchasers.
5 acre SFH lot laws in Suburbia?
Could put 10 <1,000sf starter homes. (Not “Tiny Home” trailers)
Remember Mother-Daughter houses?
Accessory Apartments?
SRO in residencial neighborhoods?
Not wrecking places.
But doing what had always been done until recently.
He forgot the most popular number 3. Tax the “rich” and give out subsidies.
You know, like “affordable housing, SNAP free food, etc.
I’ll add to my first list and say, stay away from drugs, and That includes pot. Marijuana is not harmless. It will destroy both your mind and your body. You’re going to need both if you’re going to be successful in life.
************
They'll never learn. Stuck on stupid.
“The only solution is deregulation but there is no way a deep blue state is going to allow the free market economy to work.”
************
They love the notion of a nanny state. Its a mindset that is nearly impossible to break out of.
Yes, if you are going to be a looter there needs to be something to loot.
I travel to New Jersey regularly for business. I can’t remember the last time I patronized a business establishment with minimum-wage workers.
It would be great if our prescription drugs were cheaper. My wife just paid her entire Social Security check for one drug - Dupixent. Maybe if they quit spending all the money on the fancy TV Commercials they could lower the costs to us poor old folks.
You can complain all you want about “Crony NIMBY Goobermint Grifting,” and some of that may be true. But in my experience the biggest limiting factors in new development are the capacity of infrastructure (transportation, sewer and water) and schools.
Price changes in consumer goods and services in the United States (1997 to 2024)
That is an interesting chart.
It does nothing.
1) What was the cumulative inflation from 2020 to 2025?
AI: "Based on the search results, cumulative inflation in the United States from 2020 to 2025 was approximately 23-25%"
2) What was the cumulative wage increase for American workers between 2020 to 2025?
AI: "Cumulative Growth Since 2020: The search results don't provide a single cumulative percentage for the entire 2020-2025 period. However, they show that:
Nominal wages have generally been growing between 3-5% annually in recent years"
On paper, the economy is thriving but that's not what people are experiencing because inflation has far exceeded wage growth.
Whatever politicians campaign on, whatever they promise their going to fix, they end up doing the exact opposite!
Casa Griffin is a concrete block house. The front wall is 48 feet long, the longest side wall is 32 feet long. The concrete block walls are 160 feet long.
An 8”x8”x16” concrete block was $2.17 at Lowe’s when I checked.
My Florida house would be built on a slab with integrated poured footings nowadays. That means stacking those blocks 12 high for 8’-foot ceilings.
To run 16” blocks 160 feet means 120 of them.
Leaving out windows which are more costly than blocks, that would mean 12x120 blocks or 1,440 blocks which at $2.17 each would cost $3,124.80 for concrete blocks to build Casa Griffin.
Casa Griffin is L-shaped and its front wall is 48 feet long and its longest side wall is 32 feet long and the shortest side wall is about 27-feet long.
Its slab areas are a 10’x10’ lanai slab plus the main slab of 48’x32’[1,532 sq. ft.] less roughly 34’x5’[170 sq. ft.], with the garage being on a lower slab, for a total of 1,452 sq. ft., for about 18 cu. yds. of concrete 4” deep.
Adding in concrete of about 1.5 cu. ft./linear foot to form a footing for what would be the main slab would add about 240 cu. ft.
Adding in concrete of about .75 cu. ft./linear foot to form a footing for what would be the lanai slab would add about 30 cu. ft.
Together, the slab concrete if Casa Griffin was to be built in 2025 would be about 28 cu. yds.
To add in footing concrete for a lower garage slab would add about 60 cu. ft., for about 30 cu. yds.
To fill an 8”x8”x16” concrete block would take about 1/3th of a cubic foot of concrete. To fill 1,440 of them would take about 480 cu. ft. or about 18 cu. yds.
That’s about 48 cu. yds. of concrete to build Casa Griffin. At $180 per cu. yd., the concrete would come to $8,640.
Its driveway is 10 feet wide and 60 feet long. Its sidewalk is 3 feet wide and 25 feet long. At 4” thick, that would come to 8⅓ cu. yds. of concrete and about $1,500.
The cost of the concrete would sum to about $10,140.
[That would not include the webs, reinforcing bars or their supports.]
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