BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2023-11-03 Fr
The XReal Air as spatial computing at 1/10 the cost of the Vision Pro; Matthew Klein fears the Fed is doing too little; Barry Ritholtz says PHEV's are the sweet spot for his family; Josh Barro on...
The XReal Air as spatial computing at 1/10 the cost of the Vision Pro; Matthew Klein fears the Fed is doing too little; Barry Ritholtz says PHEV's are the sweet spot for his family; Josh Barro on professors who stalk and need help; every single person who confuses correlation and causation ends up dying; making Apple Computer’s “Scary Fast” event; very briefly noted; & a 21st-century Grand Narrative, Chat-GPT as Clever Hans, & briefly noted for 2023-10-31 Tu…
SubStack NOTES:
Economics: Klein thinks that there have been big changes in the past few years in income distribution, private-sector balance sheets, and fiscal policy that have substantially and permanently raised the neutral interest rate r*. I see the case for private-sector balance sheets—but I see that as a temporary, plague-time income support factor that is now ebbing. How fast it is ebbing is a big question, and if it is ebbing slowly than Klein has a strong case. But otherwise? Fiscal policy and income distribution? I cannot make those work in terms of the magnitudes. If r* is permanently up, it is for other causes. The big question I face right now is: am I fighting the last war in my desire to take extra steps to reduce the chances that secular stagnation forces will land us back at the zero lower bound?:
Global Warming: But… but… but… the engineering of a PHEV is more complicated than that of an EV—you have to have and to switch back-and-forth to a gasoline engine, plus you need a transmission. So how in the Holy Name of the Storm God of the Semites can PHEV’s be a better value proposition for anyone who lives where the charging infrastructure is already there? I do not understand this:
Public Unreason: I think Josh Barro has it right with respect to this particular issue ongoing at Berkeley right now. I do not endorse all of his generalizations from this issue to the general shape of the Cosmic All, but I hesitate to disagree with him, because he is as smart and, in this set of issues, more perceptive than I am:
It seems to me that Professor del Valle ought to admit to a serious mental health problem and seek an accommodation under the ADA. But it looks like she is not sane enough to do that.
ONE IMAGE: Statistics!
ONE VIDEO: Behind the Scenes at Scary Fast:
Very Briefly Noted:
Economics: Alexandra Scaggs: Bond markets are doing the Fed’s work: ‘A decent amount of it too, it seems…. Exactly how much tightening comes from the rise in long-dated Treasury yields? Deutsche Bank provides an estimate today, arguing that the sell-off it has done the work of approximately “three 25-bp rate increases.”… So the Fed can rest a bit easier, at least unless (or until?) a comparably violent market move sends yields the other direction…
Tassia Sipahutar: Soaring Yields: ‘Janet Yellen said the surge in longer-term bond yields in recent months is a reflection of a strong US economy, not the jump in government borrowing…. The increase… is instead “largely a reflection of the resilience people are seeing in the economy,” she said at an event in Bloomberg’s Washington office Thursday. Meanwhile, some investors say it's safe to start buying bonds again with yields above 5%…
Justin Wolfers: ‘Riddle me this: How can people be most concerned about "the economy & inflation," and "a potential U.S. recession," but barely worried about "losing my job"…
Public Reason: Robert Shrimsley: The perils of an unquestioning ‘album culture’ in politics: ‘Labour’s row over the Israel-Hamas war… forcing an entire set of positions on supporters of both left and right…. In politics it is ever more difficult to choose a single, you are required to buy the whole album. While this is primarily an activist trait, it bleeds into the wider mainstream movement—influencing and shaping priorities…
War: Andreas Kluth: The Biden Doctrine: Show Strength, Whisper Restraint: ‘The US will support its allies, from Israel and Ukraine to the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea. It just doesn’t want to become their hostage…. If there’s an emerging Biden doctrine, it might be a twist on Teddy Roosevelt’s famous phrase: Carry a big stick, and whisper restraint to your allies…
The Editorial Board: The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza: ‘Israel must stop the bombing, and allow more aid into the besieged strip…
CryptoGrifts: Molly White: Sam Bankman-Fried doesn't recall: ‘With few promising defense strategies… Bankman-Fried seems to have chosen... amnesia…. Capable during his direct testimony of recalling fairly mundane events from… his intern days… his memory suddenly failed him when it came to far more recent, highly important, and (you would think) memorable moments…
Ed Zitron: A Billion-Dollar Fraud In Plain Sight: ‘Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are villains… [who] intentionally and willfully misled customers… chose to launch a program that their own risk management team believed was riskier than other partners…. The… so-called “self regulators” of crypto, built a reputation as the trustworthy party in a lawless industry, only to use it as a means to make a paltry $22 million in agent fees and $10 million in commission…
Neofascism: Steve M.: Notice Which Right-Wing Hot-Button Issues the New Speaker Isn't Raising as He Holds Israel Aid Hostage: ‘Mike Johnson… aid to Israel… will come at a cost… as if the MAGA era hadn't happened and the most dangerous gatherings in America were still Koch network retreats and not Trump rallies…. We're going to be surprised at how pre-Trump the party will seem once Trump is gone—nd not in a good way…. Republican officeholders and candidates, and they'd be very happy to take us right back… with Trumpism overlaid because it increases the number of potential rage-inducers that inspire the GOP base to turn out…
Moore’s Law Continues: Marco Arment: ‘First plausible M3 tests are hitting Geekbench, presumably from press-review units: https://browser.geekbench.com/search?q=M3: Single/multi-core: M3: ~3000/~11,700 (if these are real). M2: ~2600/~9700. M1: ~2300/~8300. Looks great! A 30–40% improvement over three years is remarkable, especially for such a low-power and low-cost chip. (No Pro or Max scores yet)…
Brad - a PHEV does not need a transmission. The ICE can simply be used to charge the battery. It is actually better that way as the ICE can be set to maximum fuel efficiency as well as minimum emissions by running only in the tuned ON or OFF mode - just as my old Prius hybrid used to turn off the engine when stopped. It gets even better. ICE engines like this are cheap - think of gasoline powered electric generators - as much of the cost of controlling the engine and coupling it to an expensive transmission are gone. Also, the battery can be smaller, therefore reducing one of the currently highest cost parts of an electric vehicle.
Down the tracks, the engines can easily be converted to lower carbon fuels such as CH4 and H2 (preferably green or white). The far higher energy density of fuels removes the range anxiety and will be easier to establish an infrastructure. The oil majors already are fighting tooth and nail to maintain oil production, so why not exploit the infrastructure as the fuel mix changes - pure gasoline, gasoline/ethanol (I dislike ethanol for other reasons), methane, H2, even NH3 (but toxic if leaks). Fuel delivery is certainly going to be cheaper to existing gas stations than adding powerlines to charging stations. Remote charging stations would probably need onsite generators, so why go through the extra step of having a local generator to slowly charge a car battery rather than a quick fill up at the station for the car? [While Tesla demonstrated rapid battery changes, where are these stations and who, if anybody uses them?]
Maintaining ICE is a good idea as it maintains flexibility (what do you do if PG&E has a 24 hour outage?) and allows PHEVs to be used anywhere, not just in the west, thus ensuring better economies of scale than EVs and reducing CO2 emissions from cars and trucks globally.
Have I made a convincing case to change your mind?
In re PHEVs: the different between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice...
First is use cases for trips. If one is only commuting up to 30 miles each way per day, then buy a used Nissan Leaf for pennies on the dollar and good to go. However, if one has a typical Midwest family diaspora then one is likely to be doing 92% local commuting and 8% long trips ranging from planned (Thanksgiving) to immediate (unexpected funeral of a high school classmate). The charging infrastructure just isn't there for any vehicle except a Tesla and only the Tesla, Lucid, and Porsche support charge rates that would make an immediate trip Chicago-Kansas City tolerable.
Second, the ICE engine that one is "lugging" around weighs less than the leather back seat assembly on a Ford 250 SUPER DUTY, which a large number of Americans are apparently quite willing to lug in every day commuting, and brings with it possibly the best continuously variable transmissions ever designed. Smooth, quiet, and enables perfectly transparent coasting / regeneration / braking.
Third one must consider the weather. You've lived in DC and KC so you know what happens in the snow and ice belt. EV range is absolutely wrecked by running the defroster to get 1/4" of ice off the windows and then keeping the windows from fogging while driving. Since the pandemic I have probably used my Volt's ICE engine more to ensure adequate heat in icing conditions than to drive to KC. This is something the coastal California EV companies just don't seem to understand - I have asked Lucid about ice storm/defrost testing at open forums three times and when not ignored been pointed to videos of their testing at Mammoth Lake. Yeah, I'm not asking about crisp dry cold which only costs EVs a bit of seat heater juice; I'm talking about 3 inches of slush freezing to ice and bone chilling temps of 28 deg.F with 90% relative humidity.
I'm a big supporter of EVs in general, and I do agree PHEVs are only an interim step, but they make a lot of sense for people not in coastal Cali or similar environments. The again GM cancelled the Volt so what do I know.