What Does a Gas Station Cost You?

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How much do you suppose it costs to build a typical gas station? Wait. That’s not quite the right way to phrase it. Let’s try again. How much do you suppose it costs you to build a typical gas station? 

The answer, of course, is  . . . nothing.

Well, nothing beyond what it costs you to fill up your car. And you’re getting something in return for your money there. Whoever built the gas station paid for the rest. The building, the pumps. The works. Using his money – or rather (probably) money he borrowed from a bank. The transaction, then, is between the builder/owner of the gas station and the financial institution which loaned the money to make it so. Which it did because it judges there is money to be made; enough for the builder/owner of the station to pay back the loan.

You – the person pulling in for a fill-up – pay for none of this. Or rather, you’re not forced to pay for any of it. The gas – and snacks – you buy pay for it. 

This is called the free market – and it works because it works to everyone’s benefit. It is not necessary to force gas stations to be built by forcing people to pay taxes to subsidize their being built. As is the case with the electric car charging stations that Joe Biden is going to force all of us to pay to get built.

How much will we be made to pay?

The number in play seems to be $5 billion, the sum to be divvidied up as payola to the various rent-seeking entities which will get paid to build them by the forces of the not-free market; i.e., by the government. 

This is called redistribution – and it doesn’t work, except to the extent that it benefits the rent-seekers at the expense of those forced to pay the “rent.”

The Biden regime wants you to pay for electric charging stations placed at intervals of one every 50 miles along every Interstate highway in the country and within 1 mile of the highway. No one asks the obvious question: If there is a market-driven need for electric charging stations every 50 miles, why is there a need for the government to subsidize them every 50 miles?

Of course, the answer is there isn’t. And so everyone must be taxed in order to subsidize a “need” which doesn’t exist – but which the government hopes will, after the fact. Its hypothesis being if they build it, they will come. The line taken from the Kevin Costner film, Field of Dreams. 

Which is appropos.

It is an inversion of the free market, which responds to demand with supply. Government planners – people such as Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg – presume they can predict what demand will be by creating the supply. This sort of thinking created vast empty apartment complexes in China and canals in the old Soviet Union that didn’t transport much besides water.  

When the free market is allowed to function, supply and demand work toward an evolving equilibrium; there is a built in corrective signal as well in the waning or absence of demand. New gas stations, for example, tend not to get built when lenders do not see sufficient reason for financing them. It is the same due diligence that precludes issuing a home loan to people incapable of making the payments. Well, it did – once. That was before Freddie and Fannie decided to loan money to people who couldn’t make the payments.

Electric charging stations will just get built – funded by obscene subsidies made necessary to make up for the subsidization of the electric car, itself. Which exists only because of the subsidies. Which has been freed of any constraints regarding cost or practicality by the subsidies. If these had never been offered up, the electric car would not require electric charging stations every 50 miles along the highway because electric cars wouldn’t be on the highway.

For which they are congenitally unsuited – because of the limitations of battery technology. They cannot travel long distances at high speeds without enormous (and enormously expensive) battery packs, which require enormous amounts of electricity – and places to get it every 50 miles along the highway.

Without the subsidies, electric cars would have had to be designed to deliver lower cost/greater convenience than combustion-engined cars. This they can do – if they don’t have to be made to be capable of traveling long distances at high speeds on the highway. The free market might have given us a sub-$10,000 electric car that would have made an ideal “city” or commuter car for millions of Americans. Instead, courtesy of the subsidies, Americans are being forced into $40,000 electric cars – and forced to pay at least $5 billion more, to keep them moving.

They’ll likely also be waiting .  .  .

Something planners such as Buttigieg haven’t planned for is the time which will be spent waiting for the car in front of you to “fast” charge, if you didn’t get there first.

To duplicate the refueling capacity of the existing gas station infrastructure will require tripling or quadrupling it – to make up for the longer wait-per-car at each “pump.” A gas-burning car is full and out of the way in about five minutes. That means one pump can fully fuel six cars in 30 minutes – the time it takes to partially “fast” charge one electric car.

It is probably going to take another $5 billion – or ten – to match what all the gas stations in America currently offer . . . for free.

. . .

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57 COMMENTS

  1. This reminds of an article I saw not too long ago. The author compared an ICE vehicle with an EV re: refueling / re-charging. Bottom, he went to a fast charger that wasn’t “free”, it cost him $10 and change to add 34 miles of range to the EV. Which was much more expensive than adding a gallon or two to add 34 miles range to the ICE. I can see it coming already, if they get enough people into the disgusting EV’s, people are going to have a big surprise when they see what re-charging their EV will cost them.

  2. $5B to put chargers on the entire US Interstate system? bwahahahahahah.. more like 50-100B.
    Here’s an important factor here in the NE. Where they going to put all the cars charging?
    If you have ever traveled in the areas between say DC to Boston, most of the travel centers are state owned and are not on big lots. Currently, on an average day, there are cars waiting to get ‘gas’. We all know it takes 5 minutes roughly. Make it 50 minutes+, and you can see the problem. Easily going to need at least 10 times the real estate the current pumps take up. Not going to work in approx. half of these travel centers (guess).
    I’m also guessing that the smart people in the room already know this, but it won’t deter them from building them, and then when the lines goes out to the travel lanes, they will have to ‘ration’ who and when is allowed to ‘charge’. hahahahahah………….

  3. Daihatsu was big in Australia till a decade ago. The Asians here called them Daishitsus. I haven’t seen any around lately, as in the last 10 years.

    • Funny to5
      I’ve seen these vehicles all over the highways and byways of the Dominican Republic. They sure climb up the central mountain range switchback roads easily enough, fully burdened by loads that would clearly alert a US AGW’s attention….haven’t seen too many break downs either. Hey everyone has opinion.
      Maybe Oz got a bad batch…they seen to work “right fine” in this country.

    • to 5
      Are you in Australia? If so what the heck is going on over there?
      Are “Diggers” and the other ANZAC’s really rolling over to the …cold and flu season Zombies??

  4. Somebody still thinks gas stations have a future in my town. Just started construction of a huge 48 pump gas station. Never mind that most major automakers seem to be posed to stop making most ICE cars by 2030.

    • Hi Rich,

      It’s going to be interesting… Even if no new IC cars are made after 2030 the ones being made and in circulation will be around for 20-plus years to come (unless of course they are banned). I suspect that as long as there is an alternative to EVs, many – millions – will “cling” to it.

        • Hi Rich,

          In addition to a plethora of objective reasons for not wanting an electric car, I just don’t want one. I loathe them. Everything about them. I baffles me that anyone could be interested in one of these soul-less appliances. These things that will control you to such a degree that “driving” becomes a sad joke. I look upon electric cars as I look upon an inflatable sex doll. It accomplishes the same end result as a flesh and blood woman. But who would freely chose it over a woman?

          • “But who would freely chose it over a woman?”

            Twitch TV video game streamers who play ‘Battle Royale’ games all day. Basically, I’d reckon at least 40% of those under the age of 25 right now would drop a few grand for a ‘realistic’ sex doll.

            A vast chunk of our youth are vapid, soulless, losers who haven’t been outside in years.

      • It’ll be like what happened in “Cub-er” (Cuba), as Cuban motorists, having to contend with Fidel Castro, when he wasn’t busing knocking up the Candadian PM’s wayward young wifey, did to keep their old Detroit iron running. Sure, there was an AMERICAN embargo on Cuba, but Mexico, which had domestic production of its own for a great deal of USA makes, and certainly, with all the “Maquiladoras”, was in a position to supply aftermarket parts.

        Likely the LEGAL aftermarket will thrive, and if “Butt-a-Fook” (Buttagieg) and his cohort of woke ninnies get their panties in a wad about it, just like that one-time status of the “wacky weed” they must have been smoking when they dreamed up most of that shit, there will be traffic in “illegal parts”.

        • I used to think the USA would at the very worst go Cuban in that respect of keeping old cars on the road. My opinion has changed. It changed before the covidian cult arose, but that cult only reinforced the new view.

          American control freaks will not be as kind as Castro’s communist party. They will seek to ban and destroy every vehicle that does not conform to their belief system. There was an attempt in the late 80s and early 90s to ban cars made before 1980. That’s american control freakism. It was put down and defeated but I see upwelling again here and there. The covidian cult of coercion of the jabs tells me that if they get the automotive upper hand they will seek out and destroy everything they don’t approve of.

          The deep pockets of the automotive hobby can only help us for so long. They will eventually pass away and then finding new benefactors to take things up in court is going to be tougher. The collective money is going to become harder to raise. Why? Because the enemy controls the schools and the media. Even Car & Driver has more or less fallen. Instead of articles against the anti-destination league I see woke nonsense that has no place in a car enthusiast publication.

    • Same here. There’s a Bucees (sp?) going in between Huntsville & Athens, AL. Tore up a beautiful farm for it but there’ll be a 100 gas pumps & other Bucees stuff for yankees going to/from Flarder

      • There is supposed to be a building a Bucees in the city north of mine. So that will probably be one hundred new pumps in about 4 miles (both on the same highway).

    • Someone I knew growing up is in the gas station building industry. Not exactly sure at what level. He posts a newly opened station every few months to a year. The interval is roughly what one would expect for a single person moving from one project to the next or being moved to an incomplete project once one was finished. In other words he’s obviously constantly at work in the construction of them.

      On my way to work a new gas station was constructed. One of those big ones. It’s across the street from an existing station and maybe a block or two from an older small station that sells the same brand. Then down the road a mile or so is another giant station. Three major brands, four stations. And that second big one, it was expanded to its present size some years back. Within the battery EV push era.

  5. Also going to cost big bucks to add substations and upgrade transmission lines to handle all that extra load. Get ready for your electric bill to get even more outrageous.

    • and that does even include all the extra generation they will need to build too. Especially if they think they are getting out of using coal.

      • Morning, Rich!

        No one pushing EVs ever answers this question – about where the generating capacity will come from and how it will be paid for. It speaks volumes. The people pushing EVs know there isn’t sufficient generating capacity for the existing load – with 3-4 percent of the cars being electric. With 30-40 percent? Forget it!

        • I seriously doubt they intend for 30-40% to still be driving.
          The grid can’t currently handle air conditioning right now. In your home, not your car.

          • That’s a bingo, John. ‘They’ don’t want 330+M people in the US, let alone billions across the globe.

            You either won’t drive and live like a peasant, or you’ll be dead. Or you’ll play along and be a slave with an EV.

            Of course ‘they’ don’t have to be right, but with an impending currency crisis ahead (the dollar collapse, which will then probably trigger a generational, debt-based, fiat ponzi scheme collapse), people WILL perish without their fragile supply chain bringing in food and water.

            Hell, some people will die without internet for a month. Good riddance to them.

        • And, a great deal of the problem isn’t just raw generating power at the nation’s generation plants, or in the “Grid”. It’s at the point of residential delivery. Charging is much more efficient, and, counter-intuitive to what the technically-challenged would think, at higher voltages, SAFER (lower current, as heat dissipated is proportional to the SQUARE of the current). Most residences don’t have much in the way of spare capacity in their “220 side”, which is typically set up for electric dryers, hot water heaters (not all), electric stoves, and, of course, the A/C and air handler. It’d take a significant re-wire job to accomadate a 220 V charge station in one’s garage.

    • Efficiency! By replacing cheap and reliable resistive load heating (stoves, baseboard and hot water) for induction and heat pumps the grid won’t need an upgrade at all. You see! If YOU just pay 3X more for your appliances and heating systems (and you better make sure you have an HVAC contractor on a service plan because figuring out why your heat pump is blowing cold air in January isn’t for the amateur), with no hope of ever breaking even on the “savings,” the idle rich can cruise around in their electric fun cars. You’ll need a bus pass, of course, because you’ll still be making payments on your induction cooker.

      • BTW, that’s sarcasm.

        But I went through the exercise over the last few years. The gas boiler, gas water heater and swamp cooler were all basically end of life so I’ve been replacing them. As I got quotes I always asked about the “efficient” options. Every one of them were so far out of whack and depended on completely abandoning the existing infrastructure. The worst was replacing the swamp cooler with a heat pump. Not only would it completely screw up the house, the payback would be in 30 years! The high end cooler I put in was 1/10th the price, works much better than the old one did and costs almost nothing to operate.

        The water heater was a nice quick swap out, still saves me money over the old one and is basically maintenance free. Same with the new gas boiler, which has some energry-saving features but nothing like the “HE” models that cost 2-3X more just in equipment cost and would have required side discharge and other modifications, driving up installation cost.

  6. Man, I’m so glad I started on my Plan B, 2 years ago!

    Just read an EP article that popped up on the right ( aug 2020 covid con?) while reading this one. Hey folks, we already figured out this “Great Reset Crap” over 18 months ago…. what the hell are you doing about it? Well I’m about to plant my ass in a “developing nation ” Libertarian wannabe.

    Everybody bitches about “Freedom and the man is stepping on my neck”…J.H. Christ….just a suggestion, Pilgrims….get the hell out of Dodge!

    What I need from Mr EP is a righteous evaluation of the following IC vehicles readily available in eastern Hispaniola …

    Daihatsu hijet 3 cylinder 4 wheel drive (kind of tiny)…aircon an option..
    Daihatsu/Toyota..etc etc Delta version..(longer bed but I don’t need dual back tires) … and lastly, my local business IC

    Loncin motorcycle 3 wheel short bed pickup…

    Just want to go native.. and I forgot to mention… THE EVIL AGW encounters…

    CESFRONT…Border Police,
    ZONA MILITAR….The Army,
    CESTUR…..Tourist Police,
    National Police ..countrywide

    Pulled up to a Binational frontier checkpoint outside the city of Dajabon sipping my Presidente Grande 650ml “mas fria cerveca” …(I’m drinking, my GF is driving)..roll down the window to identify ourselves and while waving us through the AGW suggests the coldest beer in town is at the Colmado (store) on the right about 200 meters down the road (the guy kept his beer in the icebag freezer…)
    “2 Hectares or Bust”!….Quit Bitchin, Start Bailing.

    • You aren’t escaping anything by running and hiding. First they came for us, then they came for them, then there was no one to help when they came for you.

      “Hiding may be a tactic, but it is never a strategy.” – Fred the Rifleman

      You are only buying time.

      What are you going to do without fuel? If you need Eric to review vehicles for you, you are shit out of luck already.

      • WOW, JRK….I don’t need EP to review my in-depth recon of anything…PERIOD! Just trying to wake up the frogs in the kettle.
        I’ve backpacked all over the Globe and ..given the Coviodiot nonsense I’ve witnessed, the USA is being deliberately sabotaged to effect “The Great Reset”..Period.
        I am fully aware of All the characteristics of the vehicles I mentioned….quite frankly ,I just mentioned it for conversation…been there done that…
        After one week in the Maskhole USA…Geebus Bud ..
        It’s time for literally “Greener Climes”…The Dominican Republic…..
        I reckon you guys are right proximate to Mizzou Columbia….used to go to the Kansas Border Wars game and party in the parking lot…almost bought some acreage in Calhoun county, IL until I saw all the Monsanto X-perimental…yellow signs…Nien Danke Bud.
        Semper Fi

        • Sorry, didn’t mean to offend your wealth of knowledge.

          I know that once the USA falls to the “Great Reset”, it is only a matter of time before the cancer spreads everywhere else. Hopefully, as someone else stated that maybe the WEF isn’t going to get the reset it wants.

      • Also JumpR,
        Missouri is ok but ……hey 200 acres…great shut-ins , clear springs and Ozark Scrub Oak….doesn’t cut it.
        Take it from me…blew off with a one way ticket to New Zealand from Lambert St. Louis…9 months later returning a Hertz rent a car reposition from downtown Boston to Lambert St. Louis.
        Been there Done that…ATW in 270 days…forget 80 days….you need shit and piss stops….

    • Hi Lick!

      I’ve had some brief experiences with Daihatsu products – and they were of a piece with early (’80s/early ’90s) Hyundais. Not terrible but definitely a cut below par in terms of quality and reliability. But – to be fair – current/recent Hyundai vehicles are excellent and current Daihatsu products may be as well. I can’t say because they’re not on the rubber chicken circuit here! Toyota stuff is a safe bet. Not the most exciting but usually very solid in the bones and a good value.

      • My apologies for going off on a tangent.
        If the proles do not prevail….we are screwed!
        Damn, the Kanuck Truckers Rock!

        I’m bailing to the DR because the country is an incredible microcosm of planet earth’s geographic diversity…and I will only put up with Diaper Crap for so long.
        The Cibao valley ,eastern end is as close to mañana nirvana as you could possibly imagine.
        If you can judge a country by it’s cattle……these Bessies are the most Content animals I have ever seen..just munching away and lumbering along the roadside….if not blocking the entire roadway, at their leisure.
        This place hits the highest on my 10 category KOOL list…
        AND it is Very Libertarian oriented!
        For example….”hola señor agente” ..aka an AGW…..
        Where’s the coldest beer around here?
        I report… you decide .

        I honestly believe the vast majority of people are brainwashed……I have to parry Vaxhole (experimental gene therapy) questions all the time with my GF’s family members.
        BTW the Ukraine nonsense is ALL USA PURE BULLSHIT…..Dual citizen USA/Latvia…reading history for 50 years.

        • Hi Lick,

          I’ve been engaged in a Twitter debate (if you can call anything on Twitter a “debate”) with a Vaxhole. It’s fascinating – psychologically – to interact with one of these people. Militant defense of the trustworthiness of proven-to-be-untrustworthy pharmaceutical companies; a mentality pathologically unwilling to even discuss the financial incentives/conflicts of interest. Serial acceptance/denial of the “misinformation” peddled by “authoritative sources.” Would never buy a new car without a warranty, built by a company with a record for building defective vehicles that you could not hold liable in the event their defective car harms or kills … but practically sexually fervid to take as many Jabs as offered by the pharmas…

          • I’ve been doing the NHTSA safety defect report angle for must be a year now. Not one covidian has stepped up and said they’d buy the car with all the serious safety issues reported to the government. One tried to argue ignorantly that the safety defect reports were superior the to VAERS because the general public can submit reports to VAERS. VAERS is way tighter. the safety defect reports are made by the public and I believe it amounts to writing a letter.

            So the most push back I’ve gotten across a few different places is one based on the covidian’s ignorance. The covidian dropped the subject after I pointed out safety defect reports can be submitted by anyone.

            I’ve done much the same using everything from Takata airbags to GM ignition switches. People who say they got the jab they are fine… I respond the Takata airbags that were in my car never hurt me. People argue but the jabs save more lives than they take. I respond so did Takata airbags.

            Silence. I’ve done these things dozens of times across the interwebs. The covidians have no response given to them by the TVeee. The last instance on a lefty biased automotive forum I got a lot of name calling but nobody said sure, buy the Canyonero with the unexplained fires.

          • Kudos EP,
            That was a Grand Slam…needed to keep sane while all those about me pull the exorcist ..i.e. You state an acknowledged fact..early treatment works for this weaponized cold and flu season….eyes glaze over..head spins….and two seconds later they are vomiting out Covidiot pea soup!!

            Coming Cultural Revolution..USA version inbound if our fellow tellurians..
            Don’t start waking up…
            I’m just going to devolve to an undisclosed Libertarian location where over the last 2 years I have witnessed the systematic destruction of The Middle Class in one country, while watching actual infrastructure enhancements (road building) in the other.

            Good Luck!

      • What’s funny is that I believe, way back in the day, that Daihatsus were carried by many GM dealers, but GMAC would NOT finance them, as likewise most credit unions wouldn’t. Their reputation was that bad as you could get a car loan for a YUGO.

  7. $5 billion. As all govt programs go, that will balloon to multiples of that, but the key is to get it started. Since it will impact every congressional district, congress will continue to fund it (ala F-35)

    Where will they go? Eminent domain will be used extensively.

    Will the gas station lobby wrestle for some of that money. You bet.

    How long will it take? Given the pace of govt construction, decades.

    Who will maintain them? Like all public property, no one. At least no one will do it well.
    And not at a reasonable price.

    This will be just another boondoggle in the making, like govt funded railroad construction.

    • Indeed, Dan –

      Once the IV starts flowing… it’s the means by which the Feds suborn the cooperation of the states. Politicians there being just as greedy and just as corrupt as those in DC; the only difference between them being the same difference between AAA baseball and the big leagues…

  8. ONLY $5 billion? I seriously doubt they can build a charging station every fifty miles for that. $5 billion is a rounding error in the Federal budget, which is about $4 TRILLION annually. The deficit alone has been exceeding $1 trillion in recent years.

    I have no idea how much it could cost to build a charging stattion every fifty miles on every interstate highway, but it has got to be significantly more than $5 billion.

    And let’s not forget that government contracting has a lot of ridiculous expenses associated with it, like sexual harassment training and affirmative action set-asides for disabled minority pansexual transgendered lesbians.

    That alone will eat up more than $5 billion right there.

  9. What does a gas station cost me? Used to be nothing. Now I have to deal with the media propaganda with GSTV. Cheddar news, their stupid word of the day, etc. I don’t need a TV in the gas pump. If you wanna advertise to me, just tell me I can get a hot dog, chips, and soda inside for whatever price they are offering.

    Besides, even if you didn’t want to pay any attention to it, it still distracts your mind and its train of thought. When pulling into the gas station, one might think, “I need to clean my windshield” or “I need to empty the trash from the car”. But as soon as that mindless drivel starts, I forget that I wanted to service my vehicle more than just fill up when I start cursing GSTV. I get to driving down the road afterwards and realize I didn’t clean the windshield with the smelly window wash and squeegee that is falling apart.

    At this rate, electric charging stations should come with Netflix, Hulu, and whatever else one might need to be entertained for the duration of their stay. At least with gasoline, its a short and brief moron-media moment.

    • I refuse to patronize any station locally which attempts to assault its customers with this drivel.

      On the highway, with no alternative? One more reason to carry a roll of gray tape. A short piece over the speaker should do the trick. Embellishment of tape with “STFU” in black magic marker is optional.

    • ‘I don’t need a TV in the gas pump.’ — JumpRKabel

      A couple of days ago I was taken by surprise while pumping gas. Suddenly someone was barking at me from behind, and he sounded aggressive.

      I very nearly whirled round with a clenched fist to throw a punch, until realizing it was the gas pump’s LCD screen haranguing me.

      After leaving, I wished I HAD punched that screen to shreds … for the good of humanity.

  10. So will it be a handout to well connected convenience store operators? Will it be run like the post offices? How soon after the network is up will Maxine Waters start demanding a WIC style program for poor people who can’t afford to recharge? Will the government operate the charging stations at a loss and/or require the congress to pass a bill to increase rates?

    Most people don’t mind the postal service. In fact I’m sure it ranks fairly positive when it comes to government programs. The screwy way they calculate pensions and operating costs notwithstanding. I’m sure someone at DOT believes that something like this could be the next postal service. Just ignore the people who are put out of business by this ill thought plan.

  11. The math gets interesting here in Texas when you stop to think about the charging stations which will be required to replicate a Buc-ee’s, with anywhere from 80-200 gas pumps, most occupied continuously during daylight hours on a holiday weekend.

  12. But but but, the free market is anarchy (and not as easily rigged)! We can’t just have people doing whoever the hell they want.

    Excellent article, especially your point that it takes 6 times as long to PARTIALLY “fill up” an electric. I’ve had an empty tank at a busy interstate gas station where the cars are 2 or 3 deep to tank up. It’s frustrating waiting 10-15 minutes. 2 or 3 deep to charge would be an absurdity along the interstate. Not to mention if the weather is cold/hot and your battery is so dead you can’t keep the heat/air conditioner on while you wait.

    There is a great youtube video about electric car range under various factor. The car is a Skoda Enyaq (in the US a VW id4). I think you’ll find it both objective and enlightening (except for the short segment with the masked morons): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmQJUW-VyRY

  13. The only way to stop a free market is natural disaster, and/or government interference. Otherwise it always delivers product where its most needed, with at least acceptable quality. And barring natural disaster or government interference, at the lowest price. It was created by God. There is no flaw in it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Psychopaths In Charge who are convinced they ARE Gods, and can improve on it. Or have a desire to get rich off its demise. At our expense, whether we can afford it or not.

  14. Eric,

    There is so much “involuntary assistance” to those we’d rather not help. It isn’t different from being mugged on the street, and possibly being lauded for your humanitarian efforts for “aiding” your ne’er-do-well assailant.

    I also found this to be an interesting article, regarding the “right-to-repair” with neither of the two factions in this fight being the “right side”, in my opinion:

    https://www.wired.com/story/fight-right-repair-cars-turns-ugly/

    The proper course of action is to not buy ANY of these cars, until the flood of data collection is discontinued, and hopefully “unconnected”, simplified and easily repaired vehicles are offered.

  15. Just one more in a million reasons to STOP filing income tax.
    Let’s get some balls Americans, or are we waiting for the Canadians to lead the way in that too.

    • ‘The Ambassador Bridge that connects Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit was first blockaded by trucks in both directions late on Monday, with the final access being shut off on Wednesday night.

      ‘As a crucial commercial link between the US and Canada it has quickly hit supply chains with car manufacturers including Toyota and Ford already announcing issues. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has demanded action calling the situation “unacceptable”.

      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canada-truckers-convoy-latest-trudeau-biden-b2011853.html

      Whereas I call it ‘a good start.’

      Shut the sucker down, burn the economy, till the vaccinazis fold and flee.

      FJT.

      • As of today, the Canuck truckers more or less told Fidel’s kid to go to hell, and are STILL occupying said bridge. Even though a Canadian federal judge issued a “cease and desist” order, their law enforcement is refusing to make the truckers disperese.

        Whoda thunkit, EH?

    • Withholding.

      You can file, and pay a small amount or (more likely) get a little refund.

      Or, you can not file, get jack, and risk fines/jail.

      • 6 on w9 = little to no witholding
        Don’t take a risk, do as your told, you could be fined or even jailed. Our forefathers put their lives and fortunes on the line and today 99.9% are to afraid to not file a form.
        America- land of the fearful home of the sheep.

  16. ‘This is called the free market’ — eric

    One of the skills needed to succeed as a slimy socialist politician is the art of speaking in market-friendly terms, even as one destroys price discovery.

    It happened today, as Resident Biden reacted to the worst CPI inflation in forty years: 7.5 percent. And if the ridiculous category of ‘owners equivalent rent’ is adjusted to reflect actual rises in house prices, CPI is over 10 percent.

    Since double-digit inflation is the level where folks get riled up against the money printers, ‘Biden’ had to say something:

    ‘We will continue to promote more competition to make our markets more competitive and give consumers more choices.’

    Where’s the competition or choice in government-built charging stations?

    Never mind. It’s just empty rhetoric, like calling a fellow senator that one can’t stand ‘my distinguished colleague.’

    Hopefully these government charging stations will include arm and leg clamps for restraining politicians, prior to inducting them into ‘Club 600,’ as subway workers call it (referring to the third rail voltage).

    Light ’em up! 🙂

    • Brandon also said that “forecasts” indicate lower inflation in the future. LOL. Someone needs to tell him that Jerome retired the term transitory a while back.

      • But there WILL be lower inflation in the future. Either the Psychopaths In Charge get a handle on their spending and reign in the Fed, or the dollar goes to zero and we use something else.

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