A few SWAGs for 2023

For people who have been in business, a term that gets floated around by accountants and controllers is WAG, which is short for Wild Ass Guess. Now, a SWAG has more perceived veracity as it comes from an experienced source or uses a little bit of data. It stands for a Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess.

Not that I am experienced, but I do try to pay attention to reputable news sources. So, with this in mind, here are a few self-anointed SWAGs for what may happen in 2023. After reading them, you may say these are just WAGs, as they have little sophistication involved. That is more than OK, but please feel free to share with me your thoughts.

With supply troubles continuing and the inability for some industries to keep a full labor force, my guess is inflation will remain with us throughout the year. Everything seems to cost more. And, it should be noted that there are some companies who are taking advantage of uncertainty, by adding premiums to their prices. This is a form of price-gouging that I hope customers witness and act upon when they can.

We may have certain regions of the world that will see some recession. Our friends in the UK will continue to see recessive woes from Brexit, as they were forewarned of even before the vote. And, Ukraine continues to be compromised on its ability to provide the same level of food production given the Russian invasion. Of course, the invasion also impacts Russia’s distribution of oil and natural gas to others. Given Russia’s economic woes, invading Ukraine continues to appear to be a monetary drain.

The Republican party in the US will continue to find it difficult to corral its elected officials into a common purpose. There are too many strident thinkers who got elected over the last few years due to surgical gerrymandering and support of the wishes of a strident base of voters beholden to the former president. While Trump will eventually become even less relevant this year, Trumpism will survive but it will likely never be confused with good governance.

I believe the GOP leaders in the House will make a huge mistake if they start doing a series of non-important investigations. But, it won’t stop that train. They like to point to the January 6 Insurrection House Committee as a reason, but this one was important as it was trying to look into the insurrection on the Capitol building fueled by the former president. The GOP leadership made a huge mistake by not offering people who would be good candidates for the Committee. At least two of the nominated GOP folks had conflicts of interest as they were persons of interest.

Trump will become increasingly irrelevant over 2023. He will be an embodiment of the Shakespeare quote as he fumes and fusses as people pay him less attention.

“Life … is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

My guess is in an attempt to garner more attention, he will threaten to run as an independent. Some Republicans will fear him doing that as he would take the party down with him, but I think the right response to that is “knock yourself out.” He needs money to run and funders want to back a winner. Funders will see that they have a better chance without him, so he will fume and fuss some more.

And, that may be the easiest prediction of them all. The former president will do a lot of fuming and fussing in 2023.

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To little hype, several climate change initiatives passed in last week’s elections

In an article by Frida Garza of The Guardian called “Voters pass historic climate initiatives in ‘silent surprise’ of US midterms,” some very good news occurred while we weren’t paying too much attention.

The full article can be linked to below, but here are a few paragraphs that summarize the story:

“While the economy and abortion rights drove momentum behind the midterm election this year, voters in cities and states across the US also turned out to pass a number of climate ballot initiatives .

Among the measures passed were a historic multibillion-dollar investment into environmental improvement projects in New York state, including up to $1.5bn in funding for climate change mitigation. This election also saw a $50m green bond act pass in Rhode Island, and in Colorado, the city of Boulder approved a climate tax as well as a ballot measure that will allow the city to borrow against that tax to fund climate projects.

‘Climate voters were the silent surprise of election night,’ said Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder of the Environmental Voter Project. ‘We weren’t loud, and nobody saw us coming, but we showed up to vote in huge numbers.‘

The electoral support at the state and local levels for more climate action comes at a time when world leaders meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss the climate crisis at Cop27. Joe Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, were both in attendance last week, urging leaders at home and abroad to meet the moment and take action against the climate crisis now. Because of the timing of the global summit and the US midterms, the Biden administration also had the pressure of a political shift that could mean stagnation of any further climate action after the president’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.“

It is nice to see such movement, as we need a lot more of the same. With a split Congress, we will have to rely on the states and the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act which has climate change mitigation in its midst. To this independent voter, we lost twelve years with the Bush and Trump White Houses to fight climate change, years we will never get back. So, we must act now. I am encouraged by offshore wind projects that are gaining footing, to catch up to the great strides in onshore wind projects in the plains’ states and elsewhere as well as the solar energy development keeps on going strong.

Please push our lawmakers at all levels to move forward. If someone is a naysayer, move on to those who share your concern. We are already late to the party and we unfortunately still must combat a mountain of money being put in some folks pockets by the fossil fuel industry to deter the fight and keep their profit margins.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/18/climate-initiatives-passed-us-midterm-elections

Sucking the oxygen out of the room

I have written often about relevant issues not getting discussed as certain politicians and sloppy reporters and opinion people would rather discuss sensationalized and exaggerated issues, which may not be that big of a deal to begin with. Or, worse, the party complaining the most chose not to act to leave an issue open to blame the other side for its failure to address it. This last step is happening too often for my tastes. It truly sucks the oxygen out of the room.

When Donald Trump used “build that wall” as his bumper sticker theme in 2016, immigration was a problem, but down on the list of issues causing disenfranchisement in people in run-down areas. The two main culprits of companies chasing cheaper labor and technological advancements would not fit on a bumper sticker. Plus, it is hard to fear a robot like you can an illegal alien brought in as cheap labor in some industries. But, it should be noted when his bluff was called on his number one issue and Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham got him to agree on a wall funding for DACA being made law, he reneged on his promise in a matter of a few hours as not solving immigration was better as a campaign issue.

Right now instead of discussing more our US and global water crisis, our poverty and hunger problems, the threats to our civil rights and democracy, the need to further stabilize health care costs and access, the continuing threats to inflation and climate change, etc., we spend far too much time speaking about things that are not really problems based on some variation of “fear the other” as a threat. When I see “fear the other” issues being bandied about, I just move on as these are purposeful wedge issues to garner votes.

We just passed a good, but imperfect Inflation Reduction Act that included elements to reduce the deficit with increased taxes on the wealthy, help with renewable energy investment and stabilizing health care premiums continuing what happened with the pandemic funding. Although Republican led states will benefit from this, no Republican voted for it. If a party is going to complain about inflation, why did no one vote for it? No legislation is perfect, but no one, even when your state benefits?

Democrats have just done a similar ploy delaying a vote of the marriage equality act until after the election. It is arguable that it could not have passed, but the Democrats feel some lame duck moderate Republicans will be more inclined to vote in favor after the mid-terms. Yet, the bill had support and some momentum. Some Republicans in tough campaigns wanted to vote for it.

Politics has become a new sport with a zero-sum mindset – I must win and you must lose. We even have folks who taunt the other side. In this construct, the people who lose are the voters and citizens of our country and other countries. When the US fails to be a responsible global partner and citizen, then the rest of the world thinks less of us. Botching our pandemic response showed that the US cannot effectively deal with a major issue. The January 6 insurrection showed that even the US can look like a Banana Republic. The unproven bogus election fraud claims planned and touted by the losing former president, made us look like an autocratic country pretending to look like a democracy.

We must strive toward our better angels and civilly discuss our problems truthfully and factually. If any leader from any party cannot do this, then he or she needs to resign. And, we certainly do not need them running for office. Full stop.

A four-year old post showed clean energy progress is happening

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act which includes very significant renewable energy funding is a huge step forward. Even Republican legislators who were told not to vote for it, are silently celebrating the needed investment in their states that will be forthcoming.

Four years ago, I wrote the following post which sheds progress at the same time the former president was pulling the US away from the adult table on fighting climate change. President Joe Biden has gotten us back to that table and helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Please note the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has caused some hiccups to the progress with Russia punishing its critics with fossil-fuel restrictions, but the progress continues.

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“Global citizens are rightfully concerned the US President Donald Trump is pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Change Accord, but progress continues as “we are passed the tipping point on renewable energy.” Even the US pullout cannot stop the train, as states, cities, businesses and other countries continue the push. It just means the President and his team will not be at the adult table on this issue and may not be invited at all.

Here are a few miscellaneous energy tidbits that should offer encouragement.

Per the UK Based organization Carbon Tracker, here are a few highlights from the past year:

• more than 1/2 of the US coal plants in existence in 2010 have been closed;
• more than 1/2 of the remaining coal plants in Europe are losing money;
• the UK has slashed electricity from coal usage from 40% to 2% in the last five years; and
• there have been big strides in China and Australia on reducing coal usage.

Per the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the five member, Republican dominated agency denied the request by Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry to fund the building of more coal-fired and nuclear plants. This was a surprise move given the make-up of the committee. I would call this decision as not wanting to throw good money after bad.

It should be noted, it is not just coal that is giving the FERC commissioners pause. The US division of Westinghouse Electric Company had to declare bankruptcy for cost overruns on a new nuclear power plant for SCANA, the South Carolina utility. As a result, the new plant is being shuttered and SCANA is being sold to Dominion Resources, so as not to overburden SC citizens with the cost of the lost investment.

The International Energy Agency in their 2017 Energy Outlook notes the cost of new solar photovoltaic electricity has declined by 70% and wind energy has fallen 25% since 2010. It should be noted the IEA has tended to favor fossil fuel energy in past releases. China, the new country leader in the climate change fight, will be investing US$360 billion more in renewable energy by 2020. Plus, the price of solar has fallen so much in places like Zambia, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, it has won bidding contests against fossil fuel energy sources for projects.

Finally, any discussion on future energy cannot exclude the declining cost and increasing capacity in battery storage. Per Bloomberg New Energy Financials, energy storage will double six times between 2016 and 2030. Elon Musk just helped southern Australia go live with a major battery installation and 21 states in the US have planned projects on energy storage.

All of the above stories are important because it has always been a financial argument to combat the environmental concerns, whose long term costs have been undervalued. Now, the financials are favoring the renewable energy engine, so market forces will continue to force the ultimate demise of coal-fired energy, which started with the lower cost of natural gas. If a company can find a clean energy source which is cheaper and more predictable long term, that is easily the better path forward. If you don’t believe me, just ask companies like Google, Facebook, Walmart and IKEA to name only a few.”