Let’s start this week with some energy news. This morning the Energy Information Administration announced that in 2020, for the first time ever, electricity production from nuclear power was greater than electricity from coal. What the first chart here shows is that nuclear output has been steady for the last 15 years, while coal-fired electricity has dwindled, largely because of cheap natural gas (thank you fracking), and the heavy subsidies and purchasing preferences for wind and solar power. Of course, nuclear runs 24/7, unlike wind and solar (hello Texas!), and yet we’re slowly closing up many of our nuclear plants even though most of them have decades of useful life left.
Meanwhile, we’re supposedly starting into another commodity “supercycle,” but the data isn’t cooperating—not even oil:
Except plastic (made from oil):
Here’s why oil prices aren’t likely to soar any time soon:
Now let’s do some COVID stuff:*
(* Epstein actually retracted his initial low projection very shortly after he made it, so this is misleading.)
But is inflation coming?
Let’s do media:
About that disappearing middle class. . .
“The problem is patriarchy. . .”
And finally. . .
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