I don’t personally believe there really is a “True Center” policy position, because while the parties exist on a spectrum, the policies themselves do not; they’re binary positions.

And similarly, why are the more “bad” scores than “good” scores? Anything less than 600 is usually considered Poor. That means there are 300 “Poor” scores and 250 “Not Poor” scores. And really, anything south of 650 is close enough to “Poor” to be considered essentially the same. I wouldn’t say 650-699 are typically…

There’s nothing fair about forcing your local college graduate to fund PPP loans to millionaires. Or fund agricultural subsidies to multi-billion dollar corporations. Or subsidize fossil fuel production AND charge exorbitant prices to the same college graduate. Or fund wars that accomplish literally nothing but kill a…

Oh that’s just more Chicken Little talk. There’s no “physics issue” are play here at all. Will EVs go as far as ICE today? Probably not, but then again, people don’t need to go as far as they think anyway. My car will go 350+ miles on a tank of gas. I don’t go 350+ miles in a week. I’m over buying capacity for my…

Ok, I have nothing of value to add on the Wilde/Sudeikis issue but.... not for nothin’ I genuinely believe based upon your small sample here, SOMEONE needs to turn that into a “My Name is Earl”/”Brockmire” treatment for a comedy/dramedy about a down on his luck sorta goodish person but sorta scumbag who resorts to…

Sure they will. They won’t get the job done at a reasonable price for all people at the exact same time.  Neither did fossil fuels until someone came along and figured out how to make cars cheaper.  That’s why this ban doesn’t go into effect today, but in 13 years.  Eventually it will be just as cheap to manufacture…

Good point! Another thing those articles highlight is that there’s going to be a lithium shortage in the medium term, meaning the ‘easy to get’ lithium. That’s likely going to cause prices to rise, which means it’s just going to get more profitable to look for other ways to get lithium, like battery recycle and other…

Yeah but.... who cares? It doesn’t matter which is better. It matters which of the two can get the job done. Twenty odd years ago fossil fuels could and batteries couldn’t. Today, batteries can get a LOT, if not the majority, of the jobs done.  It’s a pass the line test.  If you can pass the line, that’s all that…

Yes, but I want you to understand.... humanity has done this before. Many, many, many, many times in the history of humanity. Hell, many times since my 86 year old father has been alive. We just got done with a pandemic in which a vaccine was constructed in record time. We can do this because the technology is already…

Lithium batteries have been around longer than Bluetooth has been around. Or touch screens, at least in mass market items.

Did you even read that link?

Look, here’s the problem - we can’t do TODAY what we need to do in 10 years. Who cares? Nobody is asking anyone to do it TODAY. We literally are finding new rare earth metals each year. We literally are making batteries more efficient each year with the rare earth metals we have. We are literally finding ways to power…

According to the Whitehouse.gov website, “Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans”. There is no mention of “loans” generically, but specifically “undergraduate loans” only. If you have grad schools loans, you do not get your monthly payments capped at 5%.

For undergraduate loans only.  Graduate loans do not qualify for that relief or cap.

That’s 5% of discretionary income for Undergraduate loans ONLY.  Grad students still have to pay 10% and interest to boot.

But again... we don’t need it RIGHT NOW. We need it in 10 years. What will change in 10 years? Well, for starters, there will be 2 million more people wanting cars that run on batteries. That demand will stimulate growth rates. Growth is almost never linear anyway and that’s especially true in technology. As demand…

A decade ago, Apple Carplay and Android Auto didn’t exist. A decade ago, the Model S was released. A decade ago, touch screens weren’t any much of any manufacturer’s radar. A decade ago, car automation was science fiction no mainstream had bothered to invest in, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Sure, it isn’t a trivial problem, but it also isn’t an unsurmountable problem either, especially in a decade.

We don’t need to builde enough EV’s right not to replace ICEs. We need to build enough EV’s in California to replace ICEs in California. That scales the problem significantly. Furthermore, even if we use your own timeline, we don’t need it now.... we need it five years from now.

Taxes, plus benefits like insurance, life insurance, retirement, that sort of thing, likely makes that take home pay closer to $8,000/month than not. So at $1,800 a month for student loans, that’d be roughly 22% of take home pay.  I mean I’d love to be forced to live on $6,200 a month, but losing 22% of anyone’s…