Why California Fuel Costs Are the Highest in America

By Vance Ginn, The Each day Economic system, Might 23, 2025.

Excerpt:

Based on the US Vitality Data Administration (EIA), gasoline costs are usually formed by 5 parts: crude oil costs, refining prices, distribution and advertising and marketing, taxes, and laws. In California, taxes and regulatory prices alone account for greater than $1.30 per gallon — almost double the nationwide common.

California has the very best gasoline tax within the nation, at $0.678 per gallon, not together with extra charges and environmental surcharges. Add within the Cap-and-Commerce program, the Low Carbon Gasoline Customary (LCFS), and boutique gas blends which can be required solely in California, and it turns into clear why Californians pay extra.

And issues are deteriorating additional. The Mische research warns that with refinery closures because of hostile allowing processes and low anticipated returns underneath California’s local weather mandates, gas provide within the state may drop by 20 p.c by 2026, at the same time as demand stays comparatively steady. Fewer refineries and inflexible gas requirements will imply tighter provide and better costs.

 

Don’t Put a Tariff on Barbie: World Commerce Will increase the Selection and Lowers the Value of Dolls and Virtually All Else We Purchase

by Jeremy Horpedahl, Cato at Liberty, Might 23, 2025.

Excerpts:

President Trump, for his half, appears okay with this, and in two current interviews he has acknowledged that it’s fantastic if little women solely have 3 dolls, fairly than 30. This would possibly ring true to folks of younger youngsters that may’t stroll round the home with out stepping on yet one more little one’s toy, however total, it is a horrible message of degrowth. One of many most important advantages of financial development is the rising selection and affordability of products and companies.

Sooner or later, youngsters would possibly get uninterested in the three hundredth doll, however this isn’t one thing for the federal government to dictate. And that is the principle level: customers are selecting to purchase 30 dolls, or no matter else, as a result of they wish to and it brings them pleasure. Shoppers can all the time select to purchase much less on their very own, however they’re greatest located to find out what number of dolls and different toys their youngsters can have (regardless that, as a guardian, it is a fixed wrestle!).

And:

When the Barbie film got here out in 2023, I wrote a light-hearted however nonetheless severe submit about the advantages of financial development for ladies and younger women. In comparison with when the Barbie doll was first launched in 1959, a lady in 2023 may have 3–4 instances as many dolls with the identical variety of hours of labor. Or as Chelsea Follett put it, the variety of hours wanted to work to purchase a Barbie fell “from nicely over an hour to simply over 12 minutes.” We must always solely hope that we might see this progress for items and companies extra extensively. And certainly, for some classes of products, we do see this progress.

 

Reagan’s Commerce Doctrine

by David Hebert and Marcus Witcher, Civitas Institute, Might 26, 2025.

Excerpts:

Reagan’s dedication to free commerce can’t be overstated. Nevertheless, we should additionally perceive the context wherein he made these selections. The US financial system, notably the auto business, was in a really tough spot when he took workplace in 1981. After a long time of low gasoline costs, which made driving huge, heavy, much less fuel-efficient automobiles of the kind made in Detroit inexpensive, an oil disaster starting in 1973 and amplifying in late 1978 hit American automotive drivers particularly arduous. The oil disaster was so extreme that it kicked off a sequence of mini recessions in 1980 and once more in 1981.

On the identical time, Japan had begun exporting automobiles to the US, and in 1980, Japanese-made automobiles comprised over 20% of the US market. Their automobiles had three benefits over domestically produced automobiles: they have been extra gas environment friendly because of their smaller dimension and weight-conscious building, they have been cheaper than American automobiles on the highway, they usually required considerably fewer repairs than their American counterparts. In some ways, they have been superior automobiles. Consequently, they have been shortly supplanting US automobiles. Detroit’s Massive Three automakers: Ford, Basic Motors, and Chrysler (now Stellantis) have been languishing and have been pressured to put off hundreds of staff.

And:

The home car business throughout the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties illustrates this. Free of the pressures of overseas competitors, the home auto business’s strategies and practices calcified round the concept Individuals would buy mid-size and large-car fashions. In spite of everything, whereas Japanese automobiles have been nonetheless accessible, they have been turning into more durable and more durable to return by. In contrast, Japanese automakers continued to put money into enhancing high quality. By 1990, the standard holebetween domestically made automobiles and Japanese automobiles (as measured by how steadily repairs have been wanted) had grown even bigger.

Throughout the 90s, the Massive Three have been pressured to shut 42 of the 63 automotive meeting crops, leading to tens of hundreds of job losses within the business the VER was supposed to guard. The rationale for that is easy and straightforward to grasp: Japanese automobiles have been already higher and extra inexpensive than their home counterparts in 1981. As a result of the home automotive business squandered the chance to make essential changes to their fleets, Individuals began shopping for extra imported automobiles. Moderately than short-term pains begetting long-term positive factors, the short-term pains of upper automotive costs led to higher long-term pains of lowered employment.

 

The Ongoing Collapse of the Local weather Litigation Recreation

by Benjamin Zycher, The Nationwide Curiosity, Might 29, 2025.

Excerpts:

The local weather litigation sport is easy: attribute any and all harm even remotely believable to “local weather change” after which sue the fossil power producers for purportedly inflicting that harm whereas deceptive the general public about these asserted impacts regardless of understanding about them for many years.

The claims appear simple, and the potential makes use of for the numerous, many billions of {dollars} to be extracted are countless. Alas, the sport is in a slow-motion collapse, the newest manifestation of which is the determination by Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Courtroom of Widespread Pleas Choose Stephen Corr to dismiss the county local weather lawsuit in opposition to a number of power producers. Choose Corr wrote, “… Bucks County fails to state a declare upon which aid may be granted as a result of Pennsylvania can’t apply its personal legal guidelines to claims coping with air in its ambient or interstate facets, and, due to this fact, we’re compelled to dismiss this lawsuit for lack of subject material jurisdiction.” (emphasis added) And he added, “We be a part of many different state and federal courts to find that claims raised by Bucks County are solely throughout the province of federal regulation.”

And the 2 “cash” paragraphs:

The response of lots of the local weather litigants is that the fossil power producers have recognized all alongside that they have been making a local weather disaster however hid that info from us. Severely? Allow us to summarize what the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change in its 1990 First Evaluation Report (web page 202) made clear: It couldn’t clarify why temperatures have been greater 5,000-6,000 years in the past regardless of no proof of a rise in greenhouse gasoline (GHG) concentrations.

Quick ahead to the latest Sixth Evaluation Report (2021-2022). The IPCC nonetheless can’t slim down the “seemingly” vary (p. 46) of local weather results of elevated GHG concentrations and is ready to predict (Desk 12.12) numerous hostile future results solely with low confidence and solely underneath an excessive emissions state of affairs. Did the fossil power business “know” issues a long time in the past that weren’t recognized then and will not be recognized right now? Clearly not.

 

Notice: I simply observed the misspelling on my pic. I’m nonetheless studying ChatGPT.