Recession??

Fortunately for my the company I work for does well in good times and even better in hard times. I suppose it would take an economic collapse to end that. Hopefully for everyone that doesn't happen. If my company goes under there would be many folks in really bad shape.

I do IT for a major grocery chain. When the restaurants closed down we got really busy. Not that we're ever slow.

I know a lot of IT and electrical contractors are having supply chain issues. I work public sector IT and I am sitting on a lot of projects I can't start or complete due to supply chain issues. I have security cameras back ordered out the wazoo! Poles for one project expected ship date is August. It's a total cluster. I have inventory sitting there for multiple projects that lack other pieces before they can even be started.

My Brother just told me they will be balls out all summer. Big HVAC company.

Its certainly possible, if not likely. The Fed will engineer a recession, if necessary, to kill inflation. That is exactly what they did in the 80-82 period. Yesterday's inflation report was not a train wreck, but was worse than many hoped for.

The good news is that the economy is strong on the demand/employment side as of now, and the problem is on the supply side, as we know. Recessions driven by over capacity on the supply side tend to be longer and nastier. An overbuild on the supply side is a risk, as the issues on the supply side seem to be circumstantial (covid, war), rather than systemic. Reacting systemically to a circumstantial problem can get you into a deeper hole.

Not to get too deep into the political weeds, as I don't feel like being banned yet I feel a self-inflicted wound is the aggressive move to electrification at this time. Regardless of how you feel about hydrocarbon fuel vs electric fuel, I don't feel that it is the right time to be aggressive on this, given the state of the world. The facts on the ground are that restrictions on hydrocarbons are hurting the "man in the street", as well as contributing to the putative supply side recession.

If eliminating hydrocarbons is warranted, and it may be, the time to do so is when society has the capacity to suffer the effects of this transition, not at this time, when things are basically rough on alot of people.

JMHO, as an economist

What we need is someone who is honest. A scientist who can actually give the low down on global warming. And if the world goes electric with a lot of things likes autos, just how far off does this stunt global warming. Like in 100 years if we went all electric cars today where would we be? Yeah what about all the air planes, forest fires, volcanoes, big rigs, wars? These will likely still be doing their thing putting out whatever they do.

Remember we went to unleaded gasoline fuel back in 1975. And in late 90s diesel fuel was changed.
I have never heard an honest scientist say where we would be today if these 2 things wouldn’t have happened.

I wonder sometimes is this electric thingy hasn’t got more to do with some one or some countries making loot.

So if this global warming is happening and we as humans are the culprits. Then we have destroyed the world in a very short time haven’t we?

tnsharpshooter said:

What we need is someone who is honest.

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Not gonna happen. The separation of church and state was necessary to keep the kings and priest from making backroom deals. That same thing is happening now with "science" and state.

Rather than take a chance of getting banned for being political and lowering my future social credit score, I'll keep my comments to myself.

randy said:

Not to get too deep into the political weeds, as I don't feel like being banned yet t

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Coin-Saver said:

Rather than take a chance of getting banned for being political and lowering my future social credit score, I'll keep my comments to myself.

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Great idea.

I'm all for affordable, sustainable, clean, renewable energy but that doesn't mean an electric car where all the costs are hidden in the production and manufacturing of it and the end product doesn't use gas but probably took enough to drive a entire fleet of 60's muscles for a decade to put it in your driveway. Get the tech there, make it affordable and I'll bite. Until that happens I get what ever is easiest on my personal budget.

T-Man said:

I'm all for affordable, sustainable, clean, renewable energy but that doesn't mean an electric car where all the costs are hidden in the production and manufacturing of it and the end product doesn't use gas but probably took enough to drive a entire fleet of 60's muscles for a decade to put it in your driveway. Get the tech there, make it affordable and I'll bite. Until that happens I get what ever is easiest on my personal budget.

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With the current level of technology I prefer the hybrid model that can run on either electric only or in hybrid mode using both gas and electric.

There seems to be many newcomers to the "EV" market that could be rushing things too much and risking quality being in a rush to get their models on the road.

That is why I was a lot more comfortable with getting a plug-in hybrid from Toyota because they have been putting hybrids on the road for about 25 years now and have had a long time to fine-tuned their products.

Consumer Reports have listed the Toyota Prius and "Prius Prime" (the plug-in hybrid) at the top of their reliability list for years.

We got a new 2020 Prius Prime that is effectively averaging about 109 MPG between using it in EV and hybrid mode.

Before we bought it my wife simply wanted a Toyota based on hearing about the overall dependability of the brand. So I started researching what model we might get and out of the various models we might choose from (including gas only models) I saw that with the prices of the "gas only" models we would consider that we could get the plug-in hybrid Prius Prime for close enough to the same price range to make it worthwhile, even though at the time gas prices were not out of hand I told my wife you never know when goofy stuff can happen in the world and gas prices go up, so why not be prepared and she agreed, we were happy with the car regardless of gas prices, but even more happy now

Anyhow, just saw an article where Toyota is planning on using the solid state battery technology which not only will make the battery faster to charge but make the battery much less expensive so as to make such cars closer to the level of "gas only" cars price wise.

Toyota Debuting Solid-State Batteries — in a Hybrid

https://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2022/01/toyota-debuting-solid-state-batteries-in-a-hybrid/

T-Man said:

I'm all for affordable, sustainable, clean, renewable energy but that doesn't mean an electric car where all the costs are hidden in the production and manufacturing of it and the end product doesn't use gas but probably took enough to drive a entire fleet of 60's muscles for a decade to put it in your driveway. Get the tech there, make it affordable and I'll bite. Until that happens I get what ever is easiest on my personal budget.

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I am the same way. My SUV has been paid off since 2016 and is still serving me well. I am fortunate to have a coworker living a few blocks from me and we have been alternating weeks driving. For what new gas vehicles are going for (let alone hybrids or fully electric) I can afford to buy a LOT of gas before I'd even considering buying new. We are nearing $4.50 a gallon here with no sign of it letting up.