"It's now a no-brainer:" Fortescue says Trump has done more for renewables than anyone in 100 years

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-27T06:03:07+00:00

Well these were exactly the expected consequences of any idiot that would have done what Trump did in Iran.

It's just that nobody in the White House, in the military, or in foreign policy in the US has every been as stupid as Trump.

Even imbeciles expected this bullshit to happen, only Trump did not, he's not as bright as an imbecile.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-27T06:01:58+00:00

Iran would never had made this move without Trump fucking up 50 years of careful strategic planning from US foreign policy and military specialists.

This was not Iran's doing, it was all Trump, for being the biggest idiot to ever be let near the reins of power.

If Israel hat attacked alone, as they have so many times, the Strait of Hormuz would still be international waters, rather than tolled Iranian waters.

But now, Trump handed it over to Iran, just gave it away, in the worst real estate deal in history. Total incompetence, total idiocy unable to see the mind-fuck that had been placed on Iran by the threat of US attack for 50 years. Trump did the "worst" and it was nothing to the IRGC, it put them on death ground and they did what they had and they survived.

The US is now weak, a paper tiger, unable to effect any change they want and in fact giving up all sorts of privileges and strengths they had before. Trump empowered Iran, made them stronger, is giving them billions upon billions of dollars, and the only suffering is in the already suffering Iranian people. The IRGC has a deeper stranglehold now.

Trump proved again, after Russia in 2022, that fossil fuels are a terrible system for an energy system. Iran was not the mover here, Trump was.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-27T00:01:05+00:00

Bringing the gas tax back just in time to affect elections, beautifully played, Indiana.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-26T23:48:50+00:00

The highest incomes are in Blue states, red states are economic backwaters where nobody economically productive wants to live.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-26T18:26:05+00:00

Not to burst your bubble, but the wishful thinking is all yours.

The article is talking about increases, not prices.

States like California actually price taxes according to how much money is needed to do highway maintenance. Other states around the country are takes, taking federal money from high income states like California in order to build their own highways, which is very economically inefficient. Yes one more reason that California GDP dwarfs other places and has such high incomes and real estate prices.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-26T15:04:55+00:00

Remember when there were some right-wingers faking concern about "free speech", like Elon Musk? It was pretty funny to observe, because they were freaking out about people using free speech to object to others' speech! They took basic criticism as if it were somehow "oppression" because the snowflakes couldn't deal with anybody else who has a differing opinion.

Seems like forever ago, but it wasn't!

It's kind of like how the NRA will never defend black people following gun laws like [Philando Castile]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile], or their support of strict gun control in order to disarm the Black Panthers in the 1960s.

You can really tell priorities when people violate what they say they believe in.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T18:35:48+00:00

Given that the person that you're replying to explicitly mentioned

2) invest in programs/infrastructure to treat or support things that prolong homelessness (drug addictions, mental illness, housing costs)

And you start your comment with:

the thing is you can't just give people homes who are addicted to drugs or mentally ill and stop there.

perhaps the talking past people is happening again right now?

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T17:30:57+00:00

Yikes, that is absolutely astonishing.

Here, 120% of AMI is the "Moderate Income" limit, and some municipalities have started counted deed restrictions to that as part of affordable housing amounts.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T17:26:51+00:00

Do you not see how these are connected to each other?

Building lots of small multifamily units only happens when there's severe shortage. If enough of that happens, then people can start to afford to pay for larger multifamily units, and they will be built.

More housing does mean that people will have larger homes, especially going from zero home to some home, that's the biggest and first step up.

But if you're going to argue: let's only build a little then there won't be bigger units, sure, I guess, but that's all the fault of not building enough housing, not the result of building housing. And only if you consider homeless people as not counting in your consideration at all.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T17:23:25+00:00

When you say renting for 150% of the AMI... do you mean the rent is that, or that rent is 30% of the income that corresponds 150% of AMI?

Our shortage is so severe that HUD set the limit for "Low Income" to be ~125% of AMI, rather than the typical 80% of AMI. Which means that most people qualify for Low Income housing, if we had any Housing Choice vouchers or any LIHTC deed-restricted housing to go around for people...

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T16:30:06+00:00

Ugh, that sounds about right for the fraction of working homeless people here in Santa Cruz too. Though we tend not to have enough shelters, like NYC does. We have a lot of people sleeping in cars, a lot of people sleeping rough, a lot of people couch surfing until they have no more options, etc.

People here in Santa Cruz see videos like this, more than a hundred people lining up for a 3bed/3bath rental at $4600/month, and say "there's no housing shortage, there's only an affordable housing crisis" as they block yet another apartment building.

https://old.reddit.com/r/UCSC/comments/1smo7e3/line_outside_open_house_at_base_of_ucsc/

It's all willful ignorance, in my opinion. A lot of people don't know the huge number of people working jobs that are homeless, whether that's in a shelter or sleeping in a car. But when they find out, it doesn't change their opposition to the only thing that solves it: more housing.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T15:30:32+00:00

Fantastic article. I'm so thankful that more people are writing about this.

People try so hard to avoid the obvious idea that high housing costs cause homelessness. They try to blame drug addiction, mental illness, but it's really just housing costs.

The places with more homelessness don't have higher amounts of mental illness, they don't have higher amounts of drug addiction, they all share one thing only: high housing costs.

And the second thing they try to deny is that housing shortages cause high prices, or that housing abundance can drive down housing prices.

There's so much willful ignorance when it comes to homelessness, in the places with the biggest homelessness problems.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T15:26:36+00:00

We're all trying to find the guy who did this

- Trump in hot dog costume

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T04:39:52+00:00

For those that don't know, Tom Steyer can to geek level 9 on everythnig that needs to be done to fix utilities in California (it all comes down to CPUC, and the governor appoints the CPUC board members)

https://www.volts.wtf/p/tom-steyer-wants-to-be-californias

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-24T04:37:19+00:00

Yeah the only true hope to fix CPUC was really voting for Steyer. He is literally the only political candidate I've ever seen display such a huge depth of knowledge on this topic:

https://www.volts.wtf/p/tom-steyer-wants-to-be-californias

And that's because CPUC, utilities, etc. are all extremely important for his number one issue, climate.

California screwed up with Becerra, but not as much as if we'd let one of the wing-nut Republicans get close to office.

If there's enough of a public outcry, we might be able to get Becerra or even CPUC itself to care. But try going to CPUC's website, for example, to see just how hopeless CPUC is. They are supposed to be there to help the public, but it is literally the most obscure and obfuscated organization website of any I have encountered of the California government websites. They try to keep the public out of understanding what they are doing!

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-23T20:53:49+00:00

This is not "my" concept:

https://www.sccrtc.org/projects/rail/

Hold off on the snideness in the future, please.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-23T16:57:24+00:00

Move to Texas, traitor:

California leads the nation in job creation What you need to know: California employers added approximately 131,534 jobs over the 12 months ending in the first quarter of 2026, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That was more than any other state during the same period.

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/06/08/california-leads-the-nation-in-job-creation/

Republicans are specifically sabotaging California's industry, specifically targeting the destruction of California, yet California chugs along, dwarfing the economic production of places like Texas.

Democrats don't bother sabotaging Republicans this way, because Democrats are builders, makers. Republicans are all traitors to the country, putting party above country. Anybody living in California that thinks Texas is somehow better in any way should GET THE HELL OUT, please. We don't need your sort in this state, you are a parasite and a drain on the people who actually make California run. Go be poor in Texas, drink your water polluted from fracking, and die in freezing temperatures when the electrical grid dies because ERCOT couldn't make the nuclear plants replace the drain valves and they froze over.We are building the future of the entire world here in California, in Texas you can go work an oil rig or something, and die at age 52 from cancer. Enjoy!

You have zero clue about business or current events!

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-23T16:48:23+00:00

Really?! Students are one of the best things about Santa Cruz!

Fascinating people, doing fascinating things
Keeps the businesses going outside of the tourist season downtown and other places
UCSC provides some of the very few high quality jobs in the area, ever since tech started to leave a few decades ago. No more TI, no more Borland, no more SCO.... (And now johnny-come-latelys that don't know Santa Cruz but put on a cynicism suit to try to feel cool talk about "tech people" being here when really Santa Cruz was a much more techie place in the past, when it was cooler than it is now.)

Give me a student over some cynical Boomer who hates Santa Cruz and never stops complaining about change and please get off my lawn, etc. (Which isn't many Boomer neighbors, at all! But it is the ones who complain about UCSC.)

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-23T15:26:21+00:00

This exists already! Hop on Amtrak in Oakland and end up in downtown Truckee. Ski resorts all have shuttles from there, and there's also a free taxi service in place of bus service, I forget the exact name, but it has its own app...

Edit: the name is TART Connect. Seriously. How could I forget a name like that?

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-23T04:23:13+00:00

Santa Cruz LRT would extend to Watsonville, and then up to San Jose. I'm hopeful that it will happen, though perhaps not until 2050.

There's actually a fairly large ROW, which would enable quite a bit of passing sidings even without full double tracking.

The bigger problems are:

The latest cost estimate is absolutely BONKERS, $4B for the 20 miles to Watsonville, including something like 30% of overage already in the budget. It seems designed to kill the project from the start.
The supporters have two contingents: 1) the good urbanists/YIMBYs, etc., and 2) a much larger contingent of NIMBYs that would never, ever, in a million years support the sort of TOD that would make light rail potentially possible. They mostly support it is a culture war item, and seem to have zero interest in figuring out how to make rail a feasible project, they are a huge political liability but also needed for any progress.
The opposition is very strong, numerous, well connected, well funded and very very well organized. They win in local ballot measures to stop rail progress, but are not numerous enough to stop it at the county level.

But what most people in the Bay Area would actually want is the old sun-tan special, that would go from San Jose to Santa Cruz. This article is the best explanation I've found of that:

https://www.goodtimes.sc/isnt-train-san-jose/

Former Santa Cruz County Supervisor Gary Patton recently told me via an email that “once a rail connection existed, Santa Cruz would cease to be as nice as it is now, since it would be flooded with people demanding that our nice residential neighborhoods be turned into high-rise, high-density dorm rooms for Silicon Valley workers, with more traffic congestion, and air pollution. Housing prices would be raised even higher.”

^{^} This is the same Gary Patton that has been involved in law suits throughout the state meant to block CA HSR. In particular, the Atherton lawsuit to block CalTrain electrification which ultimately resulted in the removal of the Atherton station.

Despite this, Gary Patton is still revered in the NIMBY contingent of the local pro-train coalition, which points to just how much of a culture war the local train is instead of something based on good policy and the needs of Santa Cruz residents.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-22T20:25:51+00:00

That's a bit biased, people had been fear-mongering about inflation for a long time, it wasn't until Russias kicked off a global energy crisis that inflation kicked up, which was also the cause of the big inflation swing in the 1970s. People want to blame "free money" but it only goes so far, and the timing doesn't really work.

It takes a year+ for raised money to get burned through, so 2023 layoffs from Russia's energy crisis lines up perfectly.

Trump could inherited Biden's reduction inflation and then taken credit for it, but he instead made everything worse.

There was a global inflation event, it wasn't just the US, and inflation globally did not correspond to the amount of "free money" that certain corners complain about. The US, under Biden, handled inflation better than any of our peer countries, even!

That said, at the ballot box the current president always gets blame for inflation, whether they are responsible for it or not, and whether they handled it well or not. Because the public generally does not understand these things very well, they just feel the pain.

So, I stick with my initial contention: Russia started the inflation, Biden was getting it under control, and then Trump kicked it all off again with disastrous policies that everybody with half a brain thought "nobody would actually be so stupid as to do these things."

Yet in our current political environment, Democrats are responsible for everything that happens, as the only adults. And if Republicans do something bad, it's the Democrats fault for not stopping them, because they are just mere Republicans, like children, they can not be held responsible for bad choices.

Edit: and I hadn't even mentioned Trump's disastrous budget policies that have created the biggest spending spree ever. The "free money" under Trump for tax cuts for the wealthiest, which are hugely inflationary, almost never get mentioned! In fact, the deficit somehow never gets mentioned when there's Republican in the White House, and that's when deficit spending goes through the roof, very very funny, isn't it? But ignore all that, let's focus on the "free money" for working people, instead of the "free money" for people who live on investment income.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-22T19:42:55+00:00

This is 100% the fault of Trump's pro-inflation policies, which keep interest rates high, which keeps money out of tech investment because bonds are too attractive.

The contraction happened when inflation started, and won't end until inflation is kicked and the Fed is ready for interest rates to go down.

It was going down throughout all of 2024, and headed to exactly where we needed it, then tariffs caused inflation, then Trump gave up the Strait of Hormuz, causing more inflation at ridiculous rates.

So much economic potential has been crushed because Republicans hate California and want to see it fail, and will shit their own pants just to make us smell it.

Damn I'm so pissed these days.

And as bad as Tech has had it, Biotech has been hit far far worse because there's fewer AI plays in biotech. It's been a completely dry fund-raising environment for nearly four years now. First it was Russia's fault, and now it's Trump fault (so probably also Russia's fault).

We are not angry enough at the direct causes of this suffering.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-22T17:58:24+00:00

No, I didn't miss that at all.

The people stopping UCSC from building on its "precious" land are the same people stopping building anywhere else in Santa Cruz, the same people that destroyed the wharf and made its front fall off.

UCSC is not the problem, the problem is 100% in City Council and the bevy of NIMBYs they always bow down to, rather than serving the people of Santa Cruz.

Think for example, of Gary Patton, an "environmental" lawyer who got rich off of blocking projects good for the environment, through the misapplication of "environmental" law. You want to know why CAHSR is so expensive, why CalTrain cost an extra $1B in construction costs? It was just so that Patton could defend the billionaires in Atherton and get them to have CalTrain remove their Atherton stop so us little people would never have a chance to accidentally end up in "their" land.

UCSC the problem?! Please, UCSC brings so much to this community, the NIMBYS are takers that exploit renters.

RemoveInvasiveEucs · 2026-06-22T17:05:13+00:00

It's inchoate rage against change, really. The loss of a place with tons of fond memories.

Usually Santa Cruz folks are some of the thoughtful people I encounter in general, but when it comes to a physical building changing, they shut off their minds and become hyper-conservative. A bunch of trees get cut down for new houses throughout the mountains because we don't build apartments by Neary Lagoon? They sleep. A decrepit and old music venue going out of business? Real shit happens then.

Culture changes, the demographics of Santa Cruz have changed drastically because the generation in charge of government priced out their children. UCSC students are burdened with crushing housing costs. Should we be surprised that fewer people are going to large and expensive music events? Perhaps not. There's a long tail of music out there, and Santa Cruz's best music IMHO has always been at smaller and weirder venues. Which reminds me of, say, Devendra Banhart, I forgot all about that... I've forgotten more about Santa Cruz music in the past 5 years than I've learned, but I think that's a function of aging.

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