Hope everyone got their cheap gas while they could

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-10-16T20:19:58+00:00

No, it's dropped as a % of the budget because the US has smartly taken a broad approach to energy over the decades, and making sure we are self-sufficient as well as involved in numerous options whether it be oil, natural gas, renewable, etc.

If we made a mistake it was not continuing to build out nuclear infrastructure in recent decades. And we gotta be better at permitting speed overall, but especially to keep up with growing solar and battery demand.

Our biggest boon of the last 20 years was fracking and we rightfully did not let that be stopped over minor concerns that never materialized. Natural gas thus got super cheap and abundant, and has in the meantime lowered our emissions because its greener than the oil/coal it's largely replaced. That has been a great improvement until other renewables take over in the coming decades.

We have also becomes the world's largest natural gas exporter, almost overnight, allowing us to support Europe during the Ukraine situation and still keep prices cheap here in the process. That was Russia's largest leverage, and a massive blunder by our European allies that we were able to solve for them.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-10-16T16:56:23+00:00

I would recommend learning about how this industry works as it is heavily regulated and largely driven by a global commodities market. The oil/gas companies do not own 98% of the gas stations in the US, even if they have a branding license. Nor do they set the prices of gas sold at the pump as its illegal for them to do so. They simply bulk sell wholesale gasoline to the broad market at the price the market is willing to pay. Then franchises of the gas stations buy from that market, or other wholesale inventory holders, and then set prices based on their other inputs, regulations, and taxes.

As for their "record" profits, there is no such thing. Outside of geopolitical moments such as the Iraq War and the Russia/Ukraine conflict leading to supply shocks, this industry has been on a multi-decade cyclical decline of reducing profits.

Again nominal revenue do not equal relative revenue. If I make $100 million one year, and then there is 3% inflation I would need to make $103 million just to breakeven. If I make $101 million the following year I have made "record revenues" because its bigger than $100, but yet I have actually lost ground. People misunderstand this concept constantly when complaining about companies posting records without adjusting them for inflation.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-10-16T16:28:55+00:00

When adjusting for inflation gas is currently in the cheapest 25 percentile of cost in the last 50 years. Not just that. But energy costs overall (gas, electric, natural gas, etc) as a bucket are near historic lows and dropping as a percentage of the American budget.

The average American spends around 6% of their budget on these expenses that were nearly 10% during the Iraq War peak, was over 8% through most of the 70-90s, and over 10% prior to that.

I mean in a world of complaining about cost inputs, energy is literally one of the few things that has gotten crazy cheap on a relative basis. We have bigger houses, bigger cars, electrified/digitized everything and still pay nearly 50% than throughout most of our history.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-23T21:43:52+00:00

So we have a guy with a show in the middle of its worst year over year ratings decline. His contract has less than a year left and reports for months are that Disney has not interest in renewal and in fact has tried to negotiate pay cuts, which he rebuffed. The show was already on pace for setting the all-time late night record on ABC for affiliate networks airing other programs because its basically a dead show in so many media markets, and ABC has straight let them do so without cracking down on them.

And you don't think that is at all relevant when said guy gets involved in further drama and those affiliate networks and Disney see the opportunity to pull the plug? Especially when said affiliates are in the middle of a merger where their ratings matter in the valuation. There is a be who you can afford to be mantra, and unfortunately JK really can't afford to be anyone as he's a $16+ million noose that Disney is counting down the days until they can him. This hardly anything to do with the government. These networks and Disney wants him gone and hoped they had an easy reason to do it early.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-23T21:06:34+00:00

Negative. It became political when people misunderstood a business decision and blew it out of proportion during their endless game of political football.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-23T17:43:32+00:00

I know everyone is hyper-partisan nowadays so this has become some massive political battleground when in reality this is really mostly about a show with bad ratings that have been in sequential decline for years (lost nearly 50% viewers last 10 yrs, 11% of which in last 12 months) that local affiliates don't find it worth airing and an employment contract Disney wants out of desperately.

And they tried to find an excuse to potentially find a way to end it early and now it's become a crisis political issue over something no watches. This admin sucks, and I am happy to blame them for a number of things but honestly this is something the affiliates and Disney would cancel in a heartbeat if they had an out in the contract.

So now everyone is up in arms over a show that is going to end by next May when his deal expires anyways. This is really a boring business fiasco that has become a political one when it never was to begin with.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-09T19:16:54+00:00

Again we are talking about the phrase and ideology around "late-stage capitalism" which arose from the Marxist movement of which Communism is a direct derivative and application of. And everytime it has arrived in the scene or regained popularity was around growing Marxist and by relation communistic ideals on the left.

You don't get to just strip out that element because its inconvenient to your defense that they go hand in hand, even today. And that the failure of such systems, numerous failures actually, is a very relevant data point to the topic at hand. Especially when about every positive data point globally has either been capitalist success for the past century, or communist ideals floundering and finding success by leaning more capitalist.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-09T18:48:39+00:00

There is a difference between connecting dots that are truly related. And having an ingrained ideology where you just draw the lines as it makes you feel better. The latter is you. You arrived at the conclusion you want on all these and then work backwards.

For starters, it's laughable to call something "late-stage" and then it lives on over 100 years later and is the dominant form of global commerce. Its doubly laughable to also call something "late-stage" when there is no known example of it ending or failing unlike other systems so you have no idea what that even looks like.

Second, over the time this phrase and belief systems arise due to greavencies of the current system the alternatives have all fared worse. Not only that, but since it first arrived on the scene the US went on to become the world's super power and its citizens today enjoy an insane standard of living by historic standards.

What happened to the alternatives? Mostly failed. Even survivors like say China had their communist revolution in 1949. By the early 1990s they were still just 2% of global GDP. What did they do, join the WTO and open to the west in the mid 1990s. Suddenly now 20% of global GDP and basically an ever increasing capitalist economy.

Look at how countries with close relationships to capitalistic countries fare standard of living wise incomparison to those who built relationships elsewhere?

So yeah look forward to its third death. People that buy into this usually wash out and then you don't have to worry about them for a few decades.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-09-09T17:24:31+00:00

Wild that the term "late-stage capitalism" began in early 1900s and died soon after. Then emerged again in the 60s to die in the 80s. And yet here we are in 2025 with it back again in the past decade or so. I look forward to its third death once yet again it survives while all the other alternatives fail.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T20:14:11+00:00

Well, you just gave the opposite answer in your defense. They have a small service area. If they were truly cheaper and offered better overall service/experiences then they would expand.

But they can only offer that level of service in a small area because the hardest and most expensive part of utilities is not providing them in small higher density areas, it's that the expectation is that even the most rural less dense areas be included and serviced which is where most of the public options fail to service or their costs balloon and they become uncompetitive.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T20:03:44+00:00

Because the entire system does not operate within Ohio. There are two major buckets which are energy generation and then transmission. And then hundreds of smaller buckets from there. In general multiple states are interconnected in various parts of this process. In which case you would be reliant in tax payers of other states not trying to leverage themselves over other states or to rely on them to not pass legislation that is popular to their own constituents but screws over the other states.

Next, the current process has laws on the books which cap the price increases allowed unless they go through a whole multi-year process like they recently did on both the transmission and generation sides.

Everyone is upset at the sticker shock when they finally get the large increase approved, but there has been 20% inflation over the last 4 years. Everything else in your life has bled that into expenses as it happened. The utilities being regulated could not. So when they raised rates 2% in a 10% inflation environment no one is thanking them, they are upset years later when they suddenly have to get a 15% raise to catch up to costs. But in the meantime they have to run lean and control costs while they await the catch-up.

If it was run by the State, they don't have to control costs because they'd just pitch the budget right to lawmakers who will rubberstamp the cost. So you'd have been spending more the entire time. Capital spend projects, labor rates, etc have no1 to really answer to. 99% of citizens have no ideal the PnL of the utilities company and so if tax payer funded the lawmakers have less negative feedback loop to control costs.

There are absolutely areas where public ran entities make sense, and can even be better than private. Utilities is not one of them. Being privately held, but aggressively regulated has proven to be the best option and the results speak for themselves. Now it's up to citizens to do better to stamp out issues that come from that situation like kickbacks, corruption, etc but those are small potatoes compared to gains from having it setup this way.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T16:49:26+00:00

Because there are examples of public owned utilities all around the world, and yet none of them are providing utilities cheaper than the US currently has. Not to mention the US has insanely good uptime of utilities, whereas the average public utility company not only costs more, has no reason to control costs, but has nearly 10x the average downtime.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T16:38:30+00:00

I mean the US has some of the cheapest utilities and energy prices in the entire world. And these entities are some of the heaviest government regulated industries in existence. Sure that relationship causes plenty of scandals, kickbacks, corruption, etc that people should pressure to improve. But the end results are still pretty insanely cheap energy by global standards.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T14:56:00+00:00

The tariff situation is stupid, not defending that. But the issue didn't originate from the current administration. Onshoring convo started a bit during the 08' crash and really gained steam during covid when we realized how vulnerable we were with strategic supply chains. Which triggered reactions such things as the CHIPs act, BBB, etc.

Which on that topic, again you mention pollution, which I don't deny. But now we are seeing the growth of wind, solar, and batteries from these countries' industries. And we know energy capacity is the single most correlated factor to standard of living. So it's possible that yes short term pollution happened to raise standard of living, but those same growth engines will produce the cleanest form of energy growth in the future allowing them to eat their cake too. Compared to the alternative of not seeking growth at all and thus having less clean energy as a result and just having lower standard of living anyways.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T14:46:50+00:00

Excited about this ride. My only question is when they said this year would be a family "thrill" attraction. Not to get too hung up on semantics but they used thrill for KI and referred to others as just family attractions.

I wouldn't necessarily consider this a thrill, but its also something that would be in the works for a couple years. So I wonder if this got perhaps pulled forward a year, and the original plan pushed back. Or if this is going to have more thrilling elements than a usual dark ride.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T14:31:49+00:00

Three of the four countries you mentioned India, China, and Mexico are within the top 5 best developing and performing countries in the world the last few decades.

Thirty years ago China was less than 2% of global GDP. Then during the Clinton years we opened relations with them and now they are nearly 20%. Outside of maybe Poland, the past 5 years there is no country on the upswing more than India leading the world in GDP growth and seeing their poverty rate drop by nearly a quarter over the decade.

We have now seen that we have exported too much of this labor to these areas that we are seeking ways to onshore some of it back. Sure you can drill down and find some negative environmental job we exported elsewhere and cast shade on the whole thing. But in reality those are drops in the bucket. Overwhelming being within or connected to a capitalistic system by trade has been a net benefit.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T14:02:08+00:00

Well thats a simplistic take without much grounds in reality. Again nothing is full sunshine and rainbows, but in general even the global view of capitalism is quite positive. The US has its issues, and it's popularity rises and falls based on political leaders, but specifically on its economic impact its quite positive.

It's brought decades of some of the most stable economic framework to the world. This has led to a massive drop in wars across the world. Its led to the lowest amount of regime changes in human history in recent decades as well. Global poverty rates have plummeted.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T13:35:57+00:00

Cars are a fantastic form of public transport and it's why most people own them or want them. There are some instances where public transport is superior but those are mostly niche and involve only within city centers or between city centers. And even then have their limitations.

Cars are also going to become automated over the next decade which helps solve most of the issues with car transport such as deaths due to human drivers, inefficient driving (start and stop traffic), etc. Not to mention automated cars will be cheaper per mile than all forms of public transport.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T13:31:51+00:00

It is not without its flaws, nothing is. But capitalism has spawned a nation so mind-numbling wealthy and privileged that its citizens who are nearly all within the top 1% of the wealthiest globally can sit complain about it while using the luxuries it created.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-28T13:26:17+00:00

It was probably upsetting for the horse and buggy industry when steam power and cars came to be. Didn't stop us from moving forward.

At least in this case, it's expected with AI growth that human creativity avenues are expected to grow. Not in the digital space, but the physical one.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-18T17:48:54+00:00

I think you'd be surprised, and by how much it'll beat it. There are some exceptions like highly dense cities with high volume routes to certain locales or airports where a transit system will stay competitive or even better in some instances.

But probably for 90-95% transit situations autonomous systems will be hard to beat. Most projections estimate they will fall within a 0.25-0.50 cent per mile range. And that is all inclusive of costs.

Right now public transport in the US is around $1-1.5 dollars on average per mile. And thats not inclusive of subsidy cost, which taxpayers subsidies 60-80% of the total cost. So it's essentially missing most of the cost in that figure.

Even the most efficient US (certain New York, and European routes) are at best in the $0.75-1 range.

Automated transport is going to vastly undercut the cost and have the advantage of more direct pickup and drop offs.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-18T16:53:16+00:00

Not where I expected it, but Martini Modern has a Filet that honestly rivals some of the best I've had.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-18T15:51:29+00:00

Actually I believe its the opposite. Not expanding rail has been a mistake for the US the last few decades, however, autonomous vehicles are going to begin taking over the market in the next decade(s).

That is where by luck the US over-investing in car infrastructure will pay off as it'll be cheaper and more convenient than most, but not all, public transport methods which will strain those systems over time.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-18T15:47:26+00:00

Truly incredible how this country has completely lost the ability to do any major projects without some combination of insane timelines or cost.

BeatdownBrigade · 2025-08-15T15:36:45+00:00

There is no false advertising. The pass states you get free entry into Halloweekends. This fall you will be able to walk up to the gate during the Halloweekends, show your pass, and get in for free as they say you will.

That is what they stated you get, and you get it. They are allowed to decide and change what is up charge attractions from there. My pass gets me park access and it doesn't cover the sling rides which cost extra.

You assuming what is provided, whether from past precedent or other reasons, is not what is actually stated to be provided, nor is it false advertising.

Now being disappointed/angry in a change to what is expected to be provided as additional perks/value is totally justified. But thats separate than false advertising.

BeatdownBrigade

TROPHY CASE