1) Good News! We’ll Never Run Out of Oil

Policy matters. Biden’s first move as president was to kill the Keystone Pipeline and declare war on fossil fuels. Trump’s first move was “drill baby drill.”

We got $4 a gallon gas under Biden and we have $2.89 a gallon today, with prices expected to fall below $2.50.

Adjusted for inflation, gas prices are today near historic lows and given the massive offshore oil that has been discovered, plus astonishing breakthroughs in fracking, prices will surely continue to fall.  

Amazingly, real gas prices are about where they were 60 years ago when the neo-Malthusians started warning about the earth running out of oil. Over these past six decades we’ve used more oil than in all the prior centuries combined and yet supply keeps outpacing demand.

Raise your hand if you were taught in school that oil and gas were a finite resource and eventually we would run out. As Julian Simon taught us all, human innovation ALWAYS outpaces supply constraints.  

If we go further back in time, gas prices adjusted for wages are MUCH LOWER today than at any other time since we started using petroleum for energy.

2) Abnormal is the New Normal on College Campuses

The Financial Times and Harvard Crimson report that 38% of Stanford University students claim a disability. Wait, these are about the most privileged kids on the planet and nearly two of every five have a learning disability? That percentage is up an amazing tenfold since 2014.

As the chart below shows, many other elite Ivy League schools have at least two to three TIMES more "disabled" students than a decade ago.

Do we suddenly have an epidemic of mental and physical health problems afflicting our kids, or do we have another burgeoning scandal with colleges labeling as many students as disabled as possible to chase down more government money? Or is everybody just discovering medical reasons they need extra time on tests?

3) California's Wealth Tax Rate Could Reach 50%

Apologies to our readers: in yesterday's HOTLINE we understated just how nefarious the California 5% wealth confiscation tax ballot initiative would be.

It's undeniable that the union-backed measure has already chased wealthy entrepreneurs such as Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page out of the state. That's because if passed this November, it would retroactively apply to anyone resident in California as of this January 1.

But there's a double whammy against wealthy entrepreneurs in the fine print of the scheme that we weren't aware of. It turns out the tax can snatch away as much as 50% of a Californian's lifetime wealth and savings.

Garry Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator, explains:

Andy Fang, the co-founder of DoorDash, agrees:

4) Where Are Health Costs Highest

Speaking of California, it has the ignominious distinction of having the highest in the nation per capita hospital costs.  

Just another "first in the nation" honor for the Golden State. And notice blue states with more government control of medical care, generally have higher costs. Funny how that happens.

5) Mamdani's Scheme for Affordable Housing: A Government Take Over

The Mamdani administration is moving ahead with its plan to seize housing and apartment units and convert them into city/non-profit control and ownership.

Housing Czar Cea Weaver explained last year:

If you are the City of New York, and you're running the housing code department, and all of a sudden you start doing a very good job, the cost of supplying rental housing is going to go up for landlords. Because if fines are going to be enforced, they're going to have to make repairs. And then the landlords are going to say, "You are doing too much. We're going to leave the city." If you believe it's important to maintain a favorable environment for real estate investors, you can only go so far when it comes to rent control and code enforcement. We need the public sector to see that if the landlords aren't doing it, we can do it ourselves.

One of the Mamdani administration's first actions was to intervene in the Pinnacle bankruptcy case to block the sale of 90 rental buildings with 5,500 units. Their argument was that no buyer can run them profitably under the rent control law, so the sale should be blocked and the city should take over the properties instead. The judge wasn't convinced.

But Mamdani will continue pushing the privatization in reverse strategy that is sure to cause a massive housing shortage in NYC.

Can you imagine anyone wanting to build a new apartment building or affordable homes in New York under these rules?

6) Breaking Bad - The Sequel

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