September 29, 2026

FACT: The math at the pump: Before you blame Trump, follow the damn barrel.

What I reject is the lazy explanation that says, “There’s a war in Iran, therefore gas is expensive.” That is like explaining a hamburger’s price by showing me the cost of a cow while ignoring the slaughterhouse, trucking company, restaurant, taxes, labor, and the gentleman behind the counter who apparently believes adding bacon now requires financing.

Crude is the raw material, not the finished product. EIA breaks gasoline prices into crude-oil costs, refining costs and profits, taxes, and distribution and marketing. Showing only a crude-oil chart is showing one chapter of the book and pretending you’ve read the ending.

Refining is especially important because EIA reported in September that elevated crude prices and elevated crack spreads are contributing to higher pump prices. Crack spreads measure the difference between the value of refined products and the crude used to produce them. When those spreads become unusually large, refining becomes a much bigger part of what motorists pay.

You can’t fill’er up with gas nobody was able to refine.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

GOOD TIMES:

Anyone else having flashbacks to when the media helped sell the 1992 economy as the worst since the Great Depression?

Posted at 10:23 am by Stephen Green

VICTORIA TAFT: Want to Kill Christianity in America? Try This One Simple Trick the State of Maine Pulled. “While mom was adjudicated to be a good mother, dad was working behind the scenes to establish that taking their daughter to church was harmful. He hired a cult expert out of California, and the expert began watching Calvary Chapel of Greater Portland’s Sunday sermons as they build a case against Ava attending church.”

Posted at 10:08 am by Stephen Green

I VOTED FOR THIS: Once Recession-Proof, D.C. Feels the Pain From Federal Workforce Reductions. “Downsizing of the federal workforce concentrated in the DMV area—the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia—has hit many residents hard, and some are considering leaving or have already done so. While it’s not nice to wish troubles on anybody, there’s nothing wrong with introducing government employees to the same risks and uncertainty that participants in the private sector face every day.”

To say the very least.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

GOOD NEWS:

Posted at 9:37 am by Glenn Reynolds

ANACONDA STRATEGY UPDATE:

Posted at 9:19 am by Glenn Reynolds

HENCE THE BLACK-PILL MOBYING ONLINE TO SUPPRESS THE VOTE:

Posted at 9:06 am by Glenn Reynolds

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: AOC May Have Greatly Overestimated Her Political Shelf Life. “Ocasio-Cortez has to be struggling with the knowledge that she might not be the prettiest mean girl in the Dem commie clown car. She’s pretty much just been able to giggle her way through everything since she got to Congress. Now she wants to be a grown-up and there are candidates out there who need more from her than the ability to make unserious Instagram content.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

OUR AWFUL LEADERSHIP CLASS:

Posted at 8:35 am by Glenn Reynolds

CHINA IS ASSHOE: Beijing’s Trojan Yacht.

Ferretti Group, the Italian builder of luxury yachts, is also a defense contractor. Since 2016 it has supplied patrol and fast-attack craft to the Italian Navy, Coast Guard and Carabinieri, and Rome designates it a strategic asset. Its “dual-use” technology can be used for both military and non-military purposes. The hull that lets a Pershing sports yacht exceed 45 knots, the composites that trim radar signatures, the propulsion that quiets the acoustic profile and the integration of sensors and weapons stations are engineered the same for both civilian customers and maritime security services. For example, Ferretti’s FSD195 naval interceptor craft, which is employed by a variety of countries, is derived from a Pershing hull.

Ferretti’s controlling shareholder is Weichai, a Chinese state-owned conglomerate founded after World War II to manufacture arms for Mao’s People’s Liberation Army. Today, Weichai builds diesel engines that power everything from trucks to mobile rocket launchers for the Chinese military. One customer, Norinco, answers to the Chinese Communist Party’s state-asset system. Weichai’s joint-venture partners are spread across countries adversarial to U.S. interests, including Russia, Belarus, and others.

Weichai owns 39.5 percent of Ferretti but was able to capture eight of nine board seats at the company’s May board meeting.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Punch back twice as hard.

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR IS INVITING VIGILANTISM.

I can guarantee you, though, that they will crack down on vigilantes harder than on the criminals who spark vigilantism. The next stage in that process is vigilantes targeting police and prosecutors. It’s much better to prevent such a downward spiral by making the justice system do its job.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

EXPERTS: AI was supposed to hit new grads hard. So far, unemployment data says otherwise.

In “The Early Impacts of AI on Employment Among Recent College Graduates,” researchers Robert Fairlie and Jane Wu said they decided to focus on recent graduates “because changes in labor demand may first appear through reductions in hiring.” As AI gets good enough to at least perform the “relatively standardized tasks” in many entry-level office jobs, they argue, firms could reduce new hiring for simpler roles rather than laying off more experienced long-term employees.

There’s some reason to believe 2026’s graduating job seekers might be more at risk of AI displacement than those graduating just a year or two prior. The CESifo researchers point to a recent sharp increase in the number of firms “replacing a large number of employee tasks with AI” in a Census survey, as well as broad increases in AI spending per employee and ChatGPT Enterprise token use in the last 12 months.

Anecdotally, some major names also think that this is the year AI is finally capable enough to start replacing the jobs of some recent graduates. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said earlier this year that “AI literally until December [2025] was not actually good enough to do any of the jobs that they’re actually cutting.” And BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in March that “the speed at which AI is changing” led him to worry that “when this year’s college graduates enter the workforce, we could see the highest unemployment rate among them in years—even without a recession.”

Innovation typically destroys existing jobs, but is a net job creator in new fields. Maybe AI really is different and will drive millions out of work permanently.

I’m not sure anybody really knows.

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

TOO MANY OF THESE STORIES HAVE BEEN OUTRIGHT FABRICATIONS. AND A GALVANIZE-WOMEN STORY THAT COMES OUT A MONTH BEFORE THE ELECTION IS DOUBLY SUSPICIOUS.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds