1) Green Energy, Not AI, Is Driving Up Power Costs

Our friend Steve DelBianco at NetChoice pointed out this amazing revelation from, of all places, the Washington Post:

In certain states, the study found, policies aimed at boosting clean energy did raise customers' electricity bills. While the researchers didn't find a connection between overall wind and solar on the grid and higher prices, they did find that states with renewable-portfolio standards -- which require a certain amount of clean energy on the grid -- tended to have higher prices. In Maine, New Jersey and Maryland, those standards raised prices by around 1 cent per kilowatt-hour between 2019 and 2024.

That's a point we've only made about a dozen times on these pages, so it's nice to be validated by the Post. The Post also included this chart, which shows that demand growth tends to correlate with lower prices.

The report, conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, investigated electricity price data over the past five years. Notice how much higher prices are in the blue states.

2) The Great Campus Grade Inflation Charade

A new Chronicle of Higher Education study finds grade inflation at large public universities has reached a new all-time peak, even as the students know less than ever before.

The charts tell the story: grades are up; test scores are down!

Their conclusion?

"Grade inflation is a difficult problem decades in the making. But by failing to act, universities risk eroding one of their most important assets: the credibility of their own credentials."

3) Break Up the Realtor Racket

Want to lower home prices? Break up the realtor cartel.

We've been arguing for open markets for real estate agents for years, which cut the cost of agency fees for buying a house by two to four percent. On a $500,000 home, that's $10,000 to $20,000 savings.

The Supreme Court, last week, rejected the case REX v. National Association of Realtors, which challenged the "non-commingling rule" that banned sites using MLS listings from showing non-MLS listings in their results. But the pressure from the case caused the NAR to rescind the rule anyway.

We're optimistic that this and previous litigation that was settled earlier this year may finally end the real estate agent legal monopoly that often precluded lowering prices. This absurd realtor "tax" of up to 6% on the cost of a new home costs buyers and sellers up to $100 billion a year. The fees could be cut in half with a competitive market.

Here's our 2021 take on this issue:

4) Even CNN Cheers Bill Gates's Climate Retreat  

The news that philanthropist Bill Gates is pivoting away from climate change alarmism to focus on technological improvements and improving health outcomes for the poor, tracks with consistent trends in public opinion.

CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten says "a lot of people will agree with Bill Gates" because the number of people who are worried about climate change "has not really moved over the last 36 years."

He reported:

"You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that these numbers are not particularly high. Top issue facing United States, climate change. It was 3% in 2021, 2% in  an average of polls in 2023. And this year the average of polls: two.  One, two. It is very, very low on the list of priorities. I was trying to count it out in the Gallup poll and basically, it was so low down, you know, I was counting all the different issues I almost lost track. It was like 15th or 20th."

Amazingly, that's after a third of a century of relentless doomsday media propaganda warning about climate change - much of it financed by left-wing pressure groups like the Bloomberg Foundation. Americans are smarter than the left thinks.

For one-tenth the cost of climate change initiatives, we could have provided every family throughout the world with safe drinking water and reliable electric power.  Hopefully, Bill Gates will direct his $75 billion foundation to help do just that.

5) What’s Eating Jerome Powell?

Why does Jerome Powell keep underselling the U.S. Economy?

Yesterday he said we are experiencing “moderate growth," and he wrongly declared  that the United States is limping along at a 1.6% GDP growth rate, and that he expects a sub 2% growth rate next year.

Talk about the tyranny of low expectations.

In reality, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta calculates we’ve been growing at almost 4% growth for the past six months.

Powell remains hyper-critical of Trump’s trade policies, and said he expects “some significant inflation… from tariffs” that will show up “pretty soon.”

He’s only half-right at best.

Tariffs are taxes that reduce growth, and in isolation will spill into higher consumer prices (just look at what has happened to coffee prices due to tariffs of up to 50% on Brazilian and Colombian coffee beans).  

But Powell rarely, if ever, tells the world that Trump’s tax cuts, his cost-cutting deregulations, his “drill, baby, drill” energy strategies that have produced record low oil and gas, and his many productive trade deals have been economic boons.  

These pro-growth policies are all disinflationary.

The biggest problem at the Fed is that, as Steve Forbes has correctly pointed out, Powell and his cadre of 300 PhD economists still believe that growth causes inflation.

Larry Kudlow is right: it is time for Powell to go.

6) Derangement

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