Fear The Chorizo

It is when factoring what type of house you get. A $300K mortgage at 3% would be roughly a monthly $1,250 loan payment for a 30 yr fixed. That's where that rate was about 1 year ago. Now with that rate much closer to 7%, the same $300K mortgage on a 30 yr fixed basis would cost someone about $2,000 a month. To get the same monthly mortgage payment with a 7% loan vs 3%, the same buyer needs to find a home $190K less in value to move into, which for most housing markets is an entirely different type of property in terms of location/size/etc. You can't really refinance until rates get back down to a level that makes sense to do so....and also when your home value gives you enough equity to justify a refi - assuming home values decline and it takes a significant amount of time for mortgage rates to actually drop, new mortgage holders may be stuck with a much pricier loan alot longer than what makes any sort of financial sense.

If you're looking to downsize, or move from a market with higher real estate values to one with lower, and if you've got a significant amount of equity in the place you already own, it's not a bad time to sell and make a move. Now is a terrible time for 1st time homebuyers and people looking to upsize their home in the same area due to a growing family and for people with minimal equity who would need a new mortgage.

We may just be looking at things a bit differently because there's value in renewables where appropriate, they're just not going to be able to replace fossil fuels on a macro/global scale unless the focus is on personal vehicles only. Get EV use of personal vehicles in the US up to 50% and it would still not be close to the total amount of energy required for overall transportation and construction energy needs for this country alone - planes, ships, freight (truck and rail), and all sorts of heavy equipment still need diesel/jet fuel/oil/etc. I saw Pepsi ordered a bunch of EV trucks that it will be able to use between its distribution centers equipped with charging stations that will be able to have make routine trips back and forth - those trucks are now a couple thousand pounds over highway limits when fully loaded because of the battery weight but they're allowed to do so because they're EVs. Scale that up to a majority of semi trucks and then road construction needs to be dramatically re-engineered. Concrete and asphalt pavement happen to require a ton of fossil fuels for building materials or energy to recycle/construct. Solar power in northern climates require alot more O&M than people realize, particularly for utility-scale developments - plus solar intensity is diminished 6 months of the year because of the sun being on the wrong side of the equator, requiring larger panel arrays to generate the same amount of energy than if it was constructed further to the south. Also, snow and ice cover can both prevent panels from generating energy and damage them. There needs to be a ton of regulatory pressure on how to manage solar panel waste so it's actually recycled instead of landfilled or incinerated if there's actually a significant environmental benefit. Mining and manufacturing of the panel aren't eco-friendly and generate their own toxic waste streams that need to be dealt with. Once panel arrays are constructed and generating electricity, they're pretty benign and very eco-friendly until they stop working. Solar panels don't last forever, and frankly haven't been used long enough on a utility scale for their waste streams to become a concern, but that's right around the corner. Right now just throwing the voltaic cells in a landfill or waste a ton of energy incinerating them after stripping the aluminum frame and electrical wiring off it is the preferred method because it's a ton cheaper than trying to separate and reuse those materials in new panel manufacturing. Not reusing that voltaic cell material means more of it is needed from mining when making new cells. https://cen.acs.org/environment/recycling/Solar-panels-face-recycling-challenge-photovoltaic-waste/100/i18#:~:text=PV panels contain toxic materials,these resources are mostly wasted.

First you have to make alternative energy to be the cheaper option and convenient. And those two reasons are why renewables/green energy will always play second fiddle. They key is finding and developing something that can replace fossil fuels on a global scale, not just be a niche market in fully developed and wealthy countries who've farmed out much of their heavy manufacturing and mining needs overseas. I can see an alternative to fossil fuels that will become both cheaper and more convenient with further innovation in nuclear energy in the next century if it is allowed to happen. Hydrogen, as a fuel source, is one of those holy grail options if its industrial production can happen without using fossil fuels. Currently, most industrialized hydrogen production uses natural gas as an electrolysis fuel source and it's not a very efficient process. However, hydrogen could readily be made using the heat generated within nuclear reactors and the use of various catalysts to break down methane into hydrogen gas and solid carbon (solid carbon being a much more desireable and environmentally friendly by-product than CO2 or CO).

Otherwise, I don't know what to say. The political dilemma is that we need massive CO2 emissions reductions while not making people feel like the quality of life has been disrupted. So EVs it is. Until the two most populous countries feel like wanting to play the green energy game it frankly doesn't matter much. China currently has roughly 1,100 coal plants operating with more coming online, and India has 285 with many more in the works. US currently has about 240 plants and declining, at the moment. Huge populations and demand for energy are big factors for all that fossil fuel generating capacity, to be sure....but in the case of China so is the fact it's solidly the manufacturing capital of the world, and that includes most of the components used to actually generate green energy like solar panels, wind turbine components, batteries, etc. Transportation does indeed create CO2 emissions, and there are ways to at least keep that total amount constant across an increasing population by constantly improving ICE emissions and getting more EVs and other options on the road - but heavy manufacturing and construction industries lean on fossil fuel energy and will continue to do so longterm. I think a solid alternative may be to pursue increased nuclear generating capacity for manufacturing hubs.

2023 is 2 months away, so it'd be pretty nice having Keystone as an option to help with increased domestic demand right about now without leaning on OPEC, to be sure. And yes, oil companies cut production on their own when demand was intentionally squashed 2.5 years ago due to COVID, and many drilling operations actually went under because of it. In March of 2020 when domestic demand cratered, there was a proposal to buy and add almost 80 million barrels of oil to the strategic petroleum reserve to bring it to its storage capacity when oil was hovering around $35/barrel and the reserve had about 635 million barrels stored. That proposal was blocked by Congress stating it was a $3B bailout to oil and drilling companies. That amount of oil would cost about $7.5 billion to buy now and add to a reserve that's headed below 400 million barrels for the first time since 1984, if it hasn't already dropped below that point. Demand has been steadily growing since then, but domestic producers really haven't been able to react to it and frankly have zero incentive to do so. Oil and drilling companies have also been hamstrung in search of financing to conduct exploration or bring new wells online for the past 20 or so months.

Not that Venezuela did anything to deserve getting sanctions lifted, but maybe it shaves 25 cents a gallon off at the pump for a few more weeks...SMH Also, Venezuela and Russia are among the heaviest polluters when extracting oil due to both poor system controls (venezuela) and having oil that is dirtier/nastier to refine (russia). Its just sad things have gotten to where they are when there is a much better option domestically.

So is the million or so barrels a day being siphoned out of the strategic petroleum reserve that kept prices from going much higher earlier this year - that looks to continue at least until early November when the election ends and the reserve is down to a pretty precarious level and is no longer an option to keep drawing from. This has been going on for ~6 months already, and there hasn't been anything proactive done to improve supply and prevent another price jump when it has to stop and the reserve actually needs to be replenished (putting even more strain on worldwide demand). Having OPEC state they are reducing the cap on their production is a shock to the market, maybe not immediately spiking oil prices everywhere but inevitably it will. Yesterday's announcement of pulling another 10 million barrels of oil from the reserve into November would put us right at November 10th or 11th on the calendar - ironic to nobody I would hope. The biggest problem with OPECs production cap is it's too low to satisfy global demand when non-member countries are not producing close to the levels they're capable of. Combine that with the fact the US currently has sanctions on several prominent members, any sort of OPEC-wide production cap decrease stings. It's more complex, because limited refining capacity is also a huge factor in this (countries could pump like crazy and refineries wouldn't come close to matching an increased output of finished petro products even if they wanted to). I don't think oil prices will go insanely high, because the global recession is going to do a decent job of squashing demand - which is a really sucky way for gas prices to stagnate between $4-$5 a gallon indefinitely.

The Fed is definitely going to have to rethink its rate hike if oil goes north of $110 a barrel. The only way it won't is if the global economy craters despite all the artificial propping up that is already happening. I saw where some European countries are printing out money to reimburse businesses who can't make enough money to survive selling the goods/services that have had price controls implemented to try and curb inflation on the consumer end. If what you mean is the Fed should increase the monthly rate hikes as oil starts inevitably surging this fall (at a time of year when it typically drops, by the way), than I'd agree with you. At some point there needs to be an acute correction in either domestic energy policy and refining capacity to dramatically increase supply, or significant rate hikes that dramatically drive down demand to get things back to a sustainable and less volatile point. Most likely both need to happen but unfortunately neither probably will anytime soon, making the problem bigger and more painful to dig out of whenever these changes finally do get implemented. It isn't just for gas and diesel to fuel vehicles and transport goods, btw...it's all the other goods and materials that require oil as a raw material to produce.

Interesting....something like that would be a possibility if there were a significant generation source nearby that would be worth building a large battery storage facility. Might still be some limitations on access for equipment and how a battery storage facility would be constructed. Most of the current BESS units are built into shipping container-type enclosures for portability, but they weigh a ton and need some serious hoisting equipment during installation. Doesn't mean a BESS unit couldn't be built at the actual facility in a different configuration that fits the space though. Despite being naturally ventilated, I'd imagine it would still take a ton of engineering controls to make an underground mine space a practical site for battery storage due to the hazards they create when things go wrong or break down. Lithium battery fires are no joke, and a big issue with large scale battery facilities is having adequate fire protection measures and spacing for the battery units so that when a fire might start in one cell it wouldn't just wipe out the entire facility. That is much easier to do on a former farm field adjacent to a solar array and/or electrical substation, which is why we're seeing those facilities being constructed at those locations first. It takes tons of water to essentially block a lithium fire from spreading until the area currently burning runs out of fuel - all the while that fire is emitting some really nasty and toxic gases that can also turn into an explosion and/or inhalation hazard in enclosed spaces.

Yes, there's actually a lot. several factors related to fire codes, ventilation, ease of access for ongoing maintenance activities, and spacing needed for connection line runs would make trying to bury battery storage systems below the frost line in effort to set them in an environment that has a steadier state temperature very costly and frankly unsafe unless $$ was no object. Also, anytime you put something electrical in the subsurface there needs to be additional measures for storm water management and at times shallow groundwater so you don't create an electrical catastrophe. Running conduit and electrical wiring subgrade is much different than what it would take to safely install massive lithium battery units underground and provide necessary access for ongoing maintenance.

So much for just plugging those EVs in at home at night being ideal - although I think the premise is that a much larger fleet of EVs charging at night means most of the energy they receive comes from fossil fuel generation with how the grid is currently configured: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/339858-stanford-study-warns-against-ev-charging-at-night There will need to be a ton more improvements to the existing grid well beyond anything currently planned, and that includes increased generating capacity from reliable energy sources that don't require massive battery storage, to support a larger fleet of EVs - just building a ton of charging stations isn't the answer (at least it is a start), particularly in geographical areas like Wisconsin that are not ideal for renewables due to inconsistent wind and extended periods of cold weather/snow.... FWIW, I work with a handful of BESS developers who are trying to add grid-scale battery storage infrastructure across midwest states to support existing and planned renewable projects, mostly solar but also some wind in very rural areas where grid loss kills the actual amount of energy delivered by remote wind power to population centers - lithium batteries perform quite a bit better than older lead-acid battery materials in the cold, but midwest winters are still a very big hurdle to clear for diminished reliance on coal/gas/nuclear in the region.

Unless people are relocating geographically to an area with significantly lower home/property values than their current location, or are newfound empty nesters looking to sell their now oversized home and downsize to something smaller that also costs less, now is definitely a risky/uneven time to sell and you really have to know what your local market conditions are - particularly if selling and then buying something new results in you having to grab a mortgage at interest rates not seen since the early 2000s. If you own your home outright or have enough equity to wind up in a new place/property without a mortgage that fits you better, full steam ahead on listing right now. Home values should stagnate a bit due to those escalating mortgage rates....but they likely won't start uniformly dropping across the board until the job market feels the effects of the recession that's been slowly building steam throughout 2022 and foreclosures start adding to the market - hopefully not to the extent of what happened during the housing crash of 2008-2011 since the lending market isn't the cause of this recession, but there will be an impact.

A few years Germany and much of the EU actually incentivized burning wood pellets by claiming it as "renewable" since trees grow back...with that line of thinking, fossil fuels are also renewable because biomass in the earth eventually turns into coal/oil/natural gas - problem is that burning wood for energy is worse than fossil fuels in terms of GHG emissions and it has led to a deforestation problem that should have been all to easy to predict: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/world/europe/europe-wood-energy-deforestatation.html Energy policy needs to be focused on it being incredibly reliable, resilient, secure and cost-effective above all else. Once those factors are addressed satisfactorily, then industry can work around the fringes to improve overall environmental impact (not just from energy emissions at a power plant level, but from all aspects of energy production) and continue to improve via technological advancement. If energy policy is driven too much by secondary factors or becomes too reliant on inconsistent energy sources for new generating capacity to provide a growing population, you wind up with scenarios like the above where developed continents are reverting to medieval energy production by burning wood on an industrial scale because it gets countries a few percentage points away from reliance on fossil fuel/nuclear sources.

Mortgage rates haven't plateaued at all - they're just waiting for the next Fed rate hike announcement to continue proceeding higher. They are basically at 6% on average, which hasn't been seen since 2008. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/08/homes/mortgage-rates-september-8/index.html

That's actually a really big deal with how today's pitching has changed the game. The roster expansion has basically allowed all teams to carry a ton of pitchers and have a deep bullpen, which enables starters to go all-out in effort to get through their 5+ IP and all relievers can go max effort as well - having a pitch clock that doesn't allow for a pitcher to fully recover before delivering another max effort pitch is going to help offense. Some will argue that this change will lead to an increase in pitcher injuries without allowing them to recover - I'd argue the pitchers need to adjust how they pitch in effort to still get alot of outs without having to strike everyone out with max-effort and injury-risking stuff to begin with. You know, "pitch to contact"?? Doing so would inevitably lead to faster games and more entertaining baseball to watch, also.

I really hope he's right - both our vehicles are in that queasy spot in terms of mileage/age that it feels like anytime a significant repair comes up we question whether it's worth it compared to just buying a new vehicle (we consistently purchase used cars traded in after their initial lease is up). Had to replace a differential on my ride this summer, which would've typically led to me changing vehicles if car prices weren't so insane. If they get the chip shortage sorted out that relieves the delays getting new vehicles purchased and on the road faster, that should drive used car prices down even faster. Those prices almost have to crater because people are just not looking to buy anything substantial unless they absolutely need to right now - the mechanic I go to said his business has never been better aside from all sorts of part shortages, because if people have a car that isn't totaled they're holding onto it for dear life. Guessing home prices are going to hit a wall and fall as well, although that might be due more to rising interest rates shocking that market than a lack of demand. People have funds for housing, but the combo of skyrocketing mortgage rates and home prices are a double whammy that forces many 1st time homebuyers to stick with paying their rising rents and keeps current homeowners in their own home.

Gazprom, unfortunately - might be tricky to find a way to get money invested with all the sanctions, but that hasn't stopped Russia from getting its oil and gas sold. Much of western Europe is in a really bad spot in terms of being incredibly dependent on receiving energy from outside its borders. I hope they get some things figured out quickly - otherwise they are in for a world of hurt this winter.

So what? To me, Hiura has proven enough to start every game down the stretch against RHP and if he needs a day off, it would come against a lefty starter due to those reverse splits. FWIW if he doesn't need a day off, I don't think there are enough better options on this roster against LHP to just auto bench Hiura. either. What's instead been happening is Hiura is in the lineup on most days when a lefty is starting despite his reverse splits and sitting way too much against RH starters. The Brewers are caught between a rock and a hard place when a lefty is on the mound no matter what they do with Hiura when the rest of their RH hitters aren't performing up to snuff. It's been an organizational wart for several years that needs to be resolved this offseason.

You start Hiura as well more often than not and have McCutcheon in the lineup. My point is at this stage in the season, there's no reason to sit Hiura against a right-handed starter.

I get that Hiura strikes out a ton - but he's got to be the DH in the lineup pretty much every day, with the exception being against a LH starter if there are issues also getting McCutcheon in the lineup as an OF. A guy leading the roster in OPS shouldn't be a square peg to get in the lineup almost everyday no matter how many strikeouts he racks up.

And McCutcheon is 3 for his last 22 with 8 Ks and no extra base hits.... Urias is 3 for his last 35....

Agreed - however a righthanded starter didn't stop Hiura from starting the game last night on the bench.

I think the current roster logjam has alot to do with Stearns' organizational philosophy of positional flexibility/interchangeable parts going a bit too far - and the fact there isn't a true batting order anchor to build the lineup around since Yelich has turned into an OBP-dependent leadoff hitter. The Brewers are full of slightly above replacement level bats for their primary positions - but that leads to alot of questioning when it comes to getting guys regular ABs when the guys plugged in the lineup don't produce and the guys on the bench don't have a glaring reason to avoid playing. And at this point in the season, I think there is value in a team committing to "dance with the guys that got you there"....in the Brewers' case, they can't really state what that "everyday" lineup actually is because of how much shuffling around they do with 5-6 spots in the lineup on a day to day basis. I think anytime the Brewers face a lefthanded starter, both McCutcheon and Hiura need to be in the lineup - Keston has done enough recently to justify that opportunity primarily because the Brewers as a whole don't have many quality options against RHP. Against a righty starter, Hiura needs to be the DH even if that means McCutcheon starts the game on the bench.

There isn't another hitter on the Brewers' roster anywhere close to Hiura's 0.856 OPS right now - he needs to get the lions' share of ABs as a DH, and if that means benching one of the veteran OFs making alot more $$, so be it. Hiura had inflated BABIP stats back in 2019 as well - primarily because when he makes contact into fair territory with his handspeed through the zone he tends to hit a rocket somewhere. The K rate is alarming, but if a typical 4 AB game for him includes 1-2 strikeouts and 2 batted balls that have a high likelihood of impacting the score of a game, you have to ride that type of production right now when there aren't better answers in the MLB dugout.