Free Republic

Middle-class families in California are getting slammed with an "unreasonable" cost-of-living-penalty for simply residing in the Golden State, according to a new report. According to data from the Transparency Foundation's Cost of California Report, a typical middle-class family of three earning $130,000 a year faces a financial burden of more than $26,000 because of higher living expenses. The nonpartisan group's report compares costs such as housing, utilities, food, gas, child care and health care, in every major household budget category between California and national averages. The foundation's data showed that on every household budget, the cost to live in California...

American Thinker is fortunate enough to have a number of friends around the world, and one of those friends, an Aussie, sent me a story with this lede from the JoNova blog:Hertz was aiming to make 25% of its fleet electric by 2024, but is finding 11% is too much. Given there are whole nations pushing for 100% EV by 2035 there seems to be a message here…The original item came from a car outlet, and reported that Hertz was dialing back on promises the company had made to transition a sizable portion of its rental fleet from gas-powered vehicles...

Recent proposed solutions for healthcare are what systems thinkers call fixes that fail or backfire. They are like a doctor giving opioids to a cancer patient. Painkillers mask the symptoms but never get at the root cause of illness: the malignancy that is making health care unaffordable and unavailable.Following are some recently touted healthcare fixes followed by why they won’t work. Implementation of artificial intelligence (AI)o AI cannot replace human clinicians, who are in very short supply California passes $25/hour for healthcare workers o Safety-net hospitals say they will close because they cannot afford $25/hour Expanding care for homeless, called...

The cost of an electric vehicle (EV) battery pack can vary depending on composition and chemistry.In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti and Sabrina Lam use data from Benchmark Minerals Intelligence to showcase the different costs of battery cells on popular electric vehicles.Size MattersSome EV owners are taken by surprise when they discover the cost of replacing their batteries.Depending on the brand and model of the vehicle, the cost of a new lithium-ion battery pack might be as high as $25,000:The price of an EV battery pack can be shaped by various factors such as raw material costs, production expenses,...

A restaurant fired back at New York Times columnist David Brooks after he complained Wednesday on social media about the cost of his meal, saying, "This is why Americans think the economy is terrible." "This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible," Brooks wrote with a picture of his dinner, which consisted of a cheeseburger, fries and what appears to be an alcoholic beverage. However, the restaurant 1911 Smoke House Barbeque pushed back on Brooks' post on Facebook Thursday. "Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks - Bar...

New York taxpayers will dole out $20 million a month to house migrants on Randall’s Island, according to a state source — or $10,000 per asylum-seeker if the site fills all of its 2,000 beds.The makeshift facility off Manhattan is one of four migrant housing sites fully funded by the state as part of a desperate effort to keep up with the flood of migrants who have New York City at its breaking point.A well-placed source with the state told The Post over the weekend that the state is providing $20 million a month to run the Randall’s center.New York...

A July 2023 study touted a 13.4 percent return on investment for healthcare stocks, when returns on T-bills and I-bonds were 3.96 percent and 4.3 percent respectively. According to one analyst, “Whether you're seeking dividends or explosive growth, the economy's most reliable sector [healthcare] has something for you.” For private investors, both individual and corporate, the first goal is always financial. When politicians expend taxpayer dollars, i.e., investing our money, it is presumably to create a better life for Americans. 1. What are politicians’ goals when investing, specifically in healthcare? 2. How does investing in healthcare, private or public, affect...

Washington's latest solution to the high cost of health care is to mandate price transparency, at present for institutions like hospitals and outpatient facilities, but eventually for everyone — even solo practitioners (if any still exist). Advocates claim that since price transparency works to drive down prices for other commercial activities such as buying a car, it will bring down the unaffordable expense of health (medical) care. Price transparency won't work, for six compelling reasons. First, there is healthcare (one word) versus health...care (two words). The former is a massive, Byzantine system consuming 18.3 percent of U.S. GDP. Health (medical)...

The nation’s illegal alien population has hit nearly 17 million, an increase of more than two million since President Joe Biden began implementing his Catch and Release network at the United States–Mexico border, an analysis reveals. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released its annual report estimating the size of the illegal alien population residing in the United States. Based on the latest Census Bureau data, FAIR researchers found that there are at least 16.8 million illegal aliens now living in American communities — an increase of 2.3 million illegal aliens since Biden took office in January 2021 and...

In 2020, Illinois became the second state (California did it a year earlier) to extend Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants. Activists wanted to extend the plan to everyone but in the end the state went with a plan that was limited to those aged 65 and older.Healthy Illinois pushed state lawmakers to offer health benefits to all low-income immigrants. But the legislature opted instead for a smaller program that covers people 65 and older who are undocumented or have been legal permanent residents, also known as green card holders, for less than five years…Under federal law, undocumented people are generally...

“FDA seeks to ease cancer drug shortage with China-made imports” was the headline on a USA Today article on June 5. Other media outlets covered the same story with similar headlines about the Food and Drug Administration’s move.While the China angle and the cancer angle were the most attention-grabbing elements, the bigger story is the long-standing, and increasingly frequent, problem of prescription drug shortages.As individual shortages pop up, the FDA works with manufacturers to try to resolve them. Yet collectively, the situation increasingly resembles a game of “whack-a-mole.”One idea gaining traction, both inside and outside of Congress, is to help...

San Francisco's proposed reparation payments to eligible Black residents could cost the city over $100 billion dollars, the New York Times reported Friday. San Francisco's African American Reparations Advisory Committee unveiled its recommendation in January, arguing that the city owed millions of dollars in compensation to Black residents for decades of discrimination. "The $5 million payments could top $100 billion — many times the $14 billion annual budget in San Francisco — and London Breed, the city’s mayor, has not committed to cash reparations," the Times said.

In the real-world, the costs are all we know for sure and profits remain elusive and contingent.No one knows how the flood of AI products will play out, but we do know it's unleashed a corporate frenzy to "get our own AI up and running." Corporate fads are one of the least discussed but most obvious dynamics in the economy. Corporations follow fads as avidly as any other heedless consumer, rushing headlong into whatever everyone else is doing.Globalization is a recent example. Back in the early 2000s, I sat next to corporate employees on flights to China and other Asian...

Washington | Australian shipbuilder Austal could be barred from bidding on future US government contracts after current and former executives at the company’s American arm were charged with misleading shareholders and investors. Austal, which is 19 per cent owned by Australia’s richest man, Andrew Forrest, builds ships for the US Navy and is working on parts of the nuclear-powered Virginia class submarines that Australia will purchase under the AUKUS agreement.

A majority of Americans now believe that the cost of a college degree is not justified, marking a shocking decline in support towards a traditional aspect of the American dream.According to a recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NORC, a nonpartisan research organization at the University of Chicago, 56 percent of Americans consider pursuing a four-year college degree to be a risky investment, while 42 percent still believe in the value of such a qualification.Skepticism is highest among those aged 18 to 13, while those with college degrees have similarly experienced a significant decline in their confidence, indicating...

Every place that tries increasing the percentage of electricity generation that comes from wind and sun then experiences rapidly rising consumer electricity costs. The reasons why this happens are not complicated. Even at relatively low levels of wind and solar penetration, backup fossil fuel or other generation cannot be closed, so consumers must pay for two duplicate generation systems. At higher levels of wind/solar penetration, things like overbuilding, curtailment, and hugely expensive grid-scale energy storage come into play. In my post of February 8, 2023, I asked “Could anybody possibly be stupid enough to believe the line that wind and...

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on March 22 to discuss the pricing of the COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna are preparing to offer their vaccines in the private sector, without the federal government covering the cost. This will be necessary, given that the COVID-19 national and public health emergencies will expire on May 11. This will also shift the cost burden to health insurance companies, or for some people, be an out-of-pocket expense, although Moderna has indicated they will provide their vaccine at no cost to the uninsured and underinsured. The federal...

Last February the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced that the price for the state’s planned bullet train had gone up from $100 billion to $105 billion. A few months later they clarified it was actually going to be $113 billion. Yesterday there were more reports about delays and price increases.High Speed Rail Authority officials on Thursday could not provide an estimated completion date for the original vision pitched to voters but said the price tag for the entire project is now up to $128 billion, a 13% increase from last year’s projections…Construction is currently focused on a segment in the...

As California goes, so goes the nation, or so they say. If that rings true, the nation is set for a reversal of some of its strictest renewable energy plans, after the Huntington Beach City Council voted to dump its plan for 100% renewable energy...Huntington Beach, California, is changing the plan it had in place with the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) - a nonprofit offering clean energy.But its recent history in a rather unfavorable media limelight has given the city council pause.And Huntington Beach wasn’t the first municipality to pull out - Orange County bailed on the green power...

Hunter Biden’s legal defense against both the Justice Department and congressional probes could cost more than $100,000 per month, legal experts told Breitbart News, as the scandal-scarred first son faces mounting scrutiny for his mysterious business practices. According to Hunter’s previous statements, he is not cash-rich. Hunter was nearly penniless while Joe Biden was vice president, living paycheck to paycheck after out-of-control spending, according to Hunter’s ex-wife. From 2018-2019, Joe Biden even committed to wiring Hunter $100,000.