Daylight Saving
With how little Americans save, Daylight Saving seems almost unAmerican.
Care about Climate Change?
Maybe there’s a reason young people seem to care about climate change more than older people.
Democrats Deliver
Yesterday the House passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, sending it to President Biden’s desk, where he’s sure to sign it.
While it’s imperfect and, as with all legislation, contains several compromises, it’s a major legislative win for the Democrats. A party that, a few weeks ago, seemed in disarray. The Dems are not used to passing much impactful legislation, unfortunately, so this one will hit them hard.
The name of the bill is a bit misleading, I think, after all the changes. It’s core actions are less about inflation than they are about climate action, health care, and taxes.
Let’s be honest, this is the largest climate legislation passed in the US, with $370B dedicated to climate action and energy. Much needed steps to getting us closer to our carbon reduction goals.
It empowers Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, leveraging huge buying power to drive down drug prices. It also expands health insurance subsidies started under the Affordable Care Act.
All of this is to be funded by changes to minimum corporate tax on companies with book profits over $1B in recent years, funding for the IRS to chase tax dodgers (especially those making over $400k/ year), and a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks.
In all, it’s estimated to drive down the deficit by $120B (CBO rating) - $300B, depending on the estimate.
And what about inflation? Unclear. Penn Wharton Business School predicts it might not help with inflation until 2024, while others disagree. But it won’t have a big impact on inflation, though some say it will help the Fed by having policy aligned with the Fed’s goals.
Is your head swirling yet? I’m sure it is for the Dems trying to figure out what to do with these feeling of passing major, impactful legislation.
But I think it’s progress.
Activism
Sometimes it feels as if there are way too many important issues to deal with at once. It’s exhausting to try and keep up.
Trust the Science
We’ve seen how poor scientific literacy can negatively affect our ability to combat climate change and the pandemic. But let’s also recognize the other bunk science claims to which we fall prey.
Multivitamins and supplements are loosely regulated. Many don’t contain what the labels say. And few people really need that daily megadose. Targeted vitamins for targeted use can be good, but most of those megadose multivitamins are just coming out in your urine.
GMOs are targeted and well known what’s in them. There’s no significant body of evidence that they harm human health. But companies can put “No GMOs” on their label (again, mostly unregulated) and get people to pay more for the same food they’ve always gotten.
There is no such thing as a super food.
There’s more, of course. But in the end most of it is just fancy marketing.
If we say we Trust the Science, let’s look at the places where many of us are not doing that.
Fuel Economy
I get it, no one likes high prices at the pump. But the average US fuel economy for new cars in 2020 was around 25 mpg. That’s ridiculously low given the technology available at scale today. Oh, it also might help that whole climate change thing, too.
