Lucky to Have It

Once upon a time, kids, I highly valued a
CSAA membership because of its maps.

After reading about all the difficulties that California homeowners have had in obtaining insurance, I breathed a sigh of relief when I opened the renewal invoice from CSAA for July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. I was doubly relieved that the total premium was under $2,000, less than double what it was ten years ago. Other California homeowners covered by CSAA aren't as lucky as I am, but so far they're being renewed. [bold added]

Over a million California policyholders insured through AAA are seeing their home insurance rates rise — sometimes by substantial amounts.

CSAA, the Northern California insurance affiliate for AAA, was approved last Friday to raise its average home insurance rate by 6.9%. Some homeowners may see their rates go up as much as 23.3%, though a small number of others may see their rates decline as much as 11.3%, according to filings with the California Department of Insurance.

The approximately 448,000 customers affected by the rate change can expect to see their new price at their next renewal date on or after August 1, according to the company’s filings.

And in Southern California, 865,579 policyholders with the Interinsurance Exchange of the Automobile Club — another AAA-affiliated insurer, sometimes known as the Auto Club of Southern California — are seeing home insurance average rates rise by an average of 20% when they renew, in a rate rise that went into effect in March.

Part of the reason the premium didn't go up much for us was due to the calendar: the approved increase affected policy periods beginning in August. Also, the Northern California territory (average 6.9% increase) is perceived to be less risky by the insurer than the Southern California territory (average 20% hike).

Like a sleepy stock that suddenly becomes an investment darling, Foster City is now taking off as a high-benefit, low-risk place to be.

Another Sign that Global Warming Alarmism Has Peaked

If an extinction-level asteroid headed towards earth, politics would be set aside. If it meant that the U.S. and China had to share their most advanced technology to save the planet, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and job protecting concerns would vanish, or at least tabled for the future, if the human race were to have a future.

By their behavior we know that no government's leaders truly believe that global warming poses an existential threat to humanity. "Net-zero" emissions by 2050 cannot be fulfilled by anyone in power today, so it's a hollow promise meant to satisfy noisy activists, who call anyone who questions their data and conclusions as "deniers" who do not "follow the science." So let's look at the science. [bold added]

When politicians tell us we must “follow the science” toward extreme climate policies, they are really trying to shut down the discussion of enormous, unsustainable costs. We shouldn’t let them.

Climate change is a real problem but isn’t the imminent existential crisis of which the media and activist politicians breathlessly warn. They run headlines and give speeches about extreme weather events, though the United Nations’ panel of climate scientists hasn’t been able to document evidence of most of them worsening. The data show that climate-related deaths from droughts, storms, floods and fires have declined by more than 97% over the last century, from nearly 500,000 annually to fewer than 15,000 in the 2020s. That’s a real human cost but far from cataclysmic. More people die in traffic accidents in an average week...

The world still gets four-fifths of its energy from fossil fuels, because renewable sources rarely provide good alternatives. Half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas. If we rapidly ceased using fossil fuels, four billion people would suddenly be without food. Add the billions of people dependent on fossil-fuel heating in the winter, along with our dependence on fossil fuels for steel, cement, plastics and transportation, and it is no wonder that one recent estimate by economist Neil Record showed an abrupt end to fossil fuel use would cause six billion deaths in less than a year.

Few politicians advocate solutions this extreme, but many use activist paranoia about global extinction to justify proposals with only marginally more sensible timelines. Rather than knocking speed limits down to zero in one blow, they plan to force them to a crawl across several decades. It’s still a destructive idea. Politicians suppress discussion by grandstanding about the existential threat climate change poses. Weigh the actual costs of the proposals, and it becomes obvious that they’re preposterous.

(image from ptc.com)

The latest evidence that President Biden doesn't really believe in the threat posed by fossil fuels is his imposition of a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles earlier today. (For that matter, former President Trump said he would make the tariff 200%, but at least the latter never claimed that global warming was going to destroy the world.)

One of the biggest obstacles to Americans' acceptance of EVs is the sticker price, and Chinese EVs cost less that $15,000 in China. Despite generalized worries about low reliability and shoddy workmanship of Chinese-made products, a report from the Beijing Car Show indicates those fears are unwarranted. President Biden, in order to get re-elected, is pandering to the American Auto industry and its workers by eliminating competitors who could save the world--if he really believed the world was in danger.

Gimme Some of Those Induction Cooked Ribs

2021: Oakland food hall (Chron/Getty)

One of the underpinnings of the urban lifestyle is at war with urban culture's aspirations.

Headline: the surprising force stalling climate progress: California restaurants [bold added]

When Berkeley became the first city in the country to ban the extension of gas pipes into new buildings, it targeted a contentious source of climate pollution...Berkeley was the first to try to stop this climate problem from becoming bigger. Since it enacted its ordinance in 2019, more than 100 cities, counties and states across the country have followed.

Today, these efforts are reeling. The California Restaurant Association took the city to court in November 2019, arguing that its 20,000-plus members preferred cooking with a gas flame and that, even though the rule wouldn’t require changes to existing buildings, such an ordinance would limit their options when opening new locations. Moreover, they argued, federal energy laws preempt these aggressive local ordinances.

After a see-sawing legal battle, the restaurants prevailed...

Now, Bloomberg Green has learned, a coalition of gas companies and their supporters are planning to wield the restaurants’ legal victory to beat back similar rules across the western US. This puts restaurants directly at odds with a hospitable planet, as there’s no feasible pathway to avert catastrophic warming if places like California don’t sharply reduce gas combustion in buildings, according to climate experts.

“It’s rather irritating to have restaurant owners put their heads in the sand,” says Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University. “We have to move away from natural gas. The planet demands it.”

Comments:

1) Travel and dining-out shows heap effusive praise on fancy restaurants, street-food vendors, and everything in between around the world. These places all cook over an open flame. I've never seen an induction heater (the warmists' cooktop of choice) on any of these shows.

2) Restaurants are going out of business across the country, a post-COVID phenomenon that's not related to the ban on natural gas. One just has to be patient for dining-out economics to take hold, and carbon emissions will go down on their own accord without the need for government intervention.

3) Banning gasoline-powered cars and natural gas stoves in the U.S. pales before China building two new coal-fired power plants per week, but that's just me.

4) Old-time believers claimed to speak to God. New time religionists speak to Gaia ("the planet demands it.")

The Long March Claims the Methodists

Chaplain at UMC convention on May 1st. Crucifixes not
required, just your obeisance to the rainbow. (WSJ photo)

The Methodists are among the last Protestant denominations to bend to the cultural winds: [bold added]

The United Methodist Church at its General Conference last week voted by large margins to lift its ban on practicing homosexual clergy and to eliminate from its “Social Principles” the statement that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. The decision is significant for what has long been one of the nation’s biggest religious groups, with more than five million members.

As with every other mainline Protestant denomination in America, there has been a long struggle over the church’s traditional teaching that homosexuality is wrong and that marriage is between a man and a woman. The UMC stood its ground for longer than many other denominations, even reaffirming its position and strengthening the penalties for breaking the rules in 2019. That, however, was also the year the UMC adopted a policy that allowed congregations to leave the denomination with their property. Traditionalists did so in droves, with more than 7,000 American churches departing in the past five years, preparing the way for the progressives’ triumph.

The recent changes weren’t surprising. Liberal Protestantism has always been a religious reflection of the broader culture. In the 1950s that meant supporting the Cold War, with John Foster Dulles being perhaps the most prominent liberal Protestant in public life. The 1960s, the Vietnam War and the civil-rights movement changed that. Liberal Protestants continued to do what they have always done, adding a pious blessing and an air of divine sanction to the cultural politics of the day, but the politics moved left. As the notion of civil rights fused with the sexual revolution, supporting abortion, homosexuality and then transgenderism became the imperative of divine love.

We saw this phenomenon occur in my Episcopal Church decades ago. When non-chaste homosexuality became approved--not just in congregations but in priests and bishops--the Progressive takeover began, and millions left the Episcopal Church.

Today Progressives' triumph is complete (my retiring Bishop admiringly quotes Marx), with clergy openly lobbying not only for LGBTQ+ causes but for giving illegal immigrants the rights of citizens, free medical care for all, and the forced conversion of fossil-fuel power to wind and solar.

Someday I'd like them to explain why they repudiated nearly everything the Church told us 50 years ago, and why today's principles are the Way, the Truth, and the Light. But I'm not holding my breath. As Marx--the one whose followers didn't kill tens of millions--said, "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

Happy Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day, but today we were moved by this father's love for his child and how it turned out 16 years later.

Today in 2008, Li Yang dug with bare hands for over 10 hours, rescued his buried daughter Li Jiaqin, from the rubble of Wenchuan earthquake汶川地震.

16 years later, daughter has made a transition from a student to a doctor.

A father's love is strong like a mountain父爱如山 pic.twitter.com/Vj3RK1JMjt

— China in Pictures (@tongbingxue) May 12, 2024

Neither a Lender or Borrower Be (to Relatives)

(Image from Etsy)

In many families the Bank of Mom and Dad (or Grandma and Grandpa) start as the lenders of last resort.

As the borrowers find out that their monied relatives can often be sweet-talked into loan extensions or even loan forgiveness the BOMAD becomes the lender of first resort.

(Disclosure: your humble blogger luckily does not have this problem in his immediate family but has first-hand knowledge of adult children and grandchildren who never fulfilled promises to repay "loans" for purchases of cars and houses.)

Now technology has stepped into the breach by formalizing and tracking these loans, making it less likely that relationships will be permanently strained. [bold added]

relationship-based loans come with inherent risks, and financial advisers generally recommend avoiding them. Roughly a third of Americans have had a falling-out over money, and the most common reason was because a loan was never paid back, according to a November survey from price-comparison platform Finder.

“Lending money puts your relationship as collateral for the loan, which is risky and can lead to resentment,” said Chris Hostetler, a financial adviser at Hilltop Wealth Advisors in Durham, N.C.

It should also be noted that the presence of "responsible" siblings complicates the situation. Resentments, especially if unequal treatment has been perceived since childhood, often come to a head when the failure to repay the loan is discovered and can poison relationships even after the parents die. Here's how software can reduce the risks of estrangement:

Platforms and apps like Namma, Pigeon and Zirtue have facilitated more than $100 million in loans between friends and family since 2020, offering practical tools and assisting with some tax record-keeping. These three services have reported low default rates, a trend financial advisers attribute to the accountability fostered by close relationships.

These loan apps and services can turn verbal agreements between friends and family into official, written contracts. They also keep track of payments and terms, and assist in adhering to other IRS guidelines, such as establishing a fixed repayment schedule.

There's anecdotal evidence that using these apps increases the likelihood of repayment. Borrowers agree to use them because a) they're in no position to argue and b) the terms are customizable and are almost always better than any bank. However, an app is not a panacea:

Even with the growth of these apps, financial advisers say those lending money should probably consider the money as a gift—if you can afford to go without it.

“If it’s a gift, then getting any money back from them is a treat,” said Tommy Lucas, a financial adviser at Moisand Fitzgerald in Orlando, Fla. “If they can’t get it elsewhere, there’s a good amount of risk that it may not be paid back.”

The old advice holds true: never lend money to a relative or friend unless you're willing to have it never paid back.

God Giveth, and California Regulators Take It Away

"Lake" Oroville on July 22, 2021 (Chronicle photo)

In 2017 the Oroville dam was in danger of breaching, and downstream communities had to be evacuated. In 2021 the Oroville hydroelectric plant was shut down due to lack of water (picture, right).

Today the Oroville reservoir is at capacity. [bold added]

Lake Oroville contains 28% more water than it historically has on this date. While the lake also filled to the brim last year, three years ago water levels sank to their lowest point ever, a testament to California’s increasingly variable climate.

Oroville today (Chron photo)

This year, snowpack in the northern Sierra measured 123% at its peak, according to state data, helping boost flows in the Feather River, which feeds Lake Oroville.

Federally managed Shasta Lake, which is California’s largest reservoir, was 97% full on Monday, or about 115% of average.

At the beginning of this rainy season water managers were worried about too much rain.

Heading into the winter, many water managers were concerned that if huge atmospheric river storms pounded the state in November and December, that could have caused major flooding because there was less space left in the big reservoirs than in most years to catch runoff

Whether by luck or divine intervention California had a Goldilocks winter--above average rainfall but not too much to cause flooding. With plentiful water for everyone there would seem to be no need for austerity---unless regulators make Californians cut back because they know what's best for everyone.

Even with Lake Oroville at capacity, and other reservoirs above average, state water officials have said they expect to provide only 40% of the water requested by communities and irrigation districts in the coming year...

One of the reasons for the limited deliveries, state officials say, is an ongoing issue with the pumps that move the water. The State Water Project pumping facility in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta often draws in fish and kills them, including delta smelt, chinook salmon and steelhead trout. In response, the state reduces how much water is pumped.

Who built the faulty pumps? Who decided that fish were more important than the needs of millions of Californians? Those questions are never answered in the one-party State, whose decrees must be obeyed.

Apple's Ad Misfire: Grist for Social Media But That's All

In the age of social influencing, quick first takes, and harvesting of clicks, the crowds swarm over topics important and trivial, then move on to the next thing.

One of Apple's ads for the new iPad has attracted negative attention:[bold added]

An Apple advertisement that depicts a patchwork of creative tools being crushed and revealing a new iPad in their place is facing broad criticism on social media.

The ad, which Chief Executive Tim Cook posted on X after Apple unveiled new iPads Tuesday, depicts a studio filled with musical instruments, a record player, cans of paint with vibrant colors and other items being physically crushed by what appears to be a giant compressor.

When the compressor lifts, an ultrathin iPad is all that remains in place of the tools.

“Apple’s new iPad Pro ad is a rare fail from a normally flawless advertiser,” Peter Intermaggio, a former marketing and advertising executive for companies including Comcast, wrote on LinkedIn. For a brand that “elevates creators, this is an ad that celebrates destruction. It is heavy handed and nihilistic.”

While the ad, named “Crush!” emphasizes the thinness of the iPad, a point Apple executives highlighted when they unveiled the device, some critics saw it as an ominous symbol of the company’s power, the rise of artificial intelligence and its potential to replace human creativity.

Your humble blogger felt a little uncomfortable watching the artifacts of his era being "crushed" and amalgamated into a new iPad.

Not liking this ad should have no bearing on customers' decision to purchase an iPad. Dear reader, if that was the determining factor in not buying a thousand-dollar item, your decision-making process likely needs some work (in my humble opinion).

Below is the ad in question.



Update - 5/9: Apple Apologizes for iPad Ad Depicting Crushed Creative Tools

Threat to Democracy in California

California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero

One never knows until the ruling is issued, but so far the California Supreme Court appears reluctant to pull the tax initiative (discussed yesterday) from the November ballot: [bold added]

The state Supreme Court seemed reluctant Wednesday to grant Democrats’ request to remove from the November ballot a business-supported initiative that would require voter approval for any increase in state and local taxes or fees. But the justices appeared willing to put the tax-cut provisions on hold if the measure passes and then decide their legality.

As the hearing began, Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero asked a lawyer for Gov. Gavin Newsom and Legislative Democrats why the court should take the rare step of blocking the ballot measure “instead of allowing the voters to consider it.”

Justice Joshua Groban asked a similar question, and Justice Martin Jenkins said less-drastic actions were available, like a freeze on provisions that would slash government revenue. Justice Leondra Kruger noted that the court usually considers a ballot measure’s challenged sections individually rather than taking up the entire measure, and asked, “Why shouldn’t we do so here?”

Governor Newsom and the Democrats argued that the legislature's power to control taxation is in the California Constitution, and the people's ability to supersede the legislature through an initiative is therefore un-Constitutional.

Your humble blogger is not a lawyer or historian, but because California initiatives have been around since 1911, the constitutional arguments would seem to have been settled.

To be frank (and a little childish), I like seeing the single-party State squirm a little and, after denouncing Republicans as a threat to democracy, argue that the people should not have the ability to decide.

To Make Our Displeasure Known

Last year the EDD lost $20-$33 billion because of fraud.

On specific categories (income, property, sales, gas) California may not be the highest-taxed state, but there's no question that in the state rankings of the overall tax burden California is #1 or #2.

The pain would be lessened if the monies were employed somewhat effectively, but California continues to spend $billions on homelessness, high-speed trains to nowhere, and public education, with no signs of progress. And we've not even mentioned the $billions lost to fraud.

We've lamented the situation for years, but the voters keep re-electing the same people, and the one-party state rolls on, more dominant than ever in its taxing and spending and wastefulness.

However, once in a blue moon the political process still has the capacity to surprise (pleasantly).

Headline: These California taxes could be overturned by ballot measure before state Supreme Court [bold added]

The initiative, a proposed state constitutional amendment, would require any increase in state or local taxes or fees to be approved by the voters — and by two-thirds of the voters if the funds are for a specific purpose, like housing or zoo maintenance, rather than general government revenue.

Perhaps the most far-reaching feature of the measure is that it would apply retroactively to taxes and fees passed since the start of 2022. They would be rescinded unless voters gave approval by the required majority no later than a year after the initiative took effect.

Overall, state officials say the retroactivity standard would affect 15 bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that could affect statewide fees or taxes, and at least 131 such measures passed by local governments since the start of 2022.

This initiative received enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, but, not unexpectedly, Governor Newsom and Democratic legislators have filed "emergency" lawsuits with the State Supreme Court to have it removed.

The initiative threatens to halt the endless cycle of tax and spend, and strikes at the heart of the one-party State. Your humble blogger doesn't give the initiative much of a chance of surmounting the obstacles in front of it, but at least those of us who are fed up with the way things are finally have a chance to make our displeasure known.

Buffett to Apple: It's Not You, It's Me

The Berkshire Hathaway shareholders' meeting in Omaha last Saturday.

Apple stock has been Berkshire Hathaway's largest and most successful investment in Warren Buffett's storied history. [bold added]

Apple is Warren Buffett’s greatest investment. It has also become one of his riskiest.

In 2016, Buffett made perhaps the most surprising bet of his career. That year, Berkshire Hathaway, the company he runs, began buying up shares of Apple—the exact kind of stock Buffett and his longtime partner, Charlie Munger, had long avoided...

Yet working with protégés, Buffett soon transformed into an Apple bull in a remarkable about-face. After an initial purchase of nearly 10 million shares worth about $1 billion in 2016, Berkshire added to its holdings later that year and then stepped up its buying in 2017 and 2018, spending about $36 billion on the stock over those years. Berkshire later trimmed some of those holdings.

By the end of the third quarter of 2018, Berkshire’s Apple stake represented about a quarter of its entire investment portfolio. In dollar terms, it was twice as large an investment as Buffett had previously made.

The move has paid off, in a very big way. Today, Berkshire’s 5.9% stake in Apple is worth about $157 billion, even though Apple has fallen lately. Berkshire is sitting on about $120 billion in paper gains, likely the most money ever made by an investor or a firm from a single stock. Nothing in Buffett’s long career comes close. Apple stock represented nearly 50% of Berkshire’s stock portfolio at year-end.

Warren Buffett has never followed hard-and-fast rules for portfolio diversification. Many portfolio managers would sell an individual stock if its value exceeded, say, 10% of their portfolio, but Warren Buffett rode a seven-year wave until Apple equalled nearly half of Berkshire's $370 billion stock holdings.

At that point no one would criticize Warren Buffett for trimming his position, which he did in the first quarter. He announced his action in last Saturday's Berkshire shareholders meeting, all the while continuing to praise Apple:

Warren Buffett is still a big fan of Apple.

The legendary investor praised the iPhone maker on Saturday from the stage of his annual meeting, even after revealing that Berkshire Hathaway had slashed its stake in the first quarter. He hinted that tax considerations may have played into the decision.

Buffett told an arena of Berkshire shareholders that Apple is “an even better business” than American Express and Coca-Cola, two other big positions in his company’s massive stock portfolio.

Berkshire sold about 13% of its mammoth stake in Apple in the first months of 2024, leaving it with $135.4 billion of the iPhone maker’s shares at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing released Saturday morning.

He really didn't have to justify the sale, but what was the reference to "tax considerations"? Was there some esoteric tax rule that applied to unbalanced insurance company investments?

No, Mr. Buffett was simply referring to the likelihood that the Federal government, facing unprecedented deficits and unwilling to cut spending, will soon raise the long-term capital gains rate from 21%. (He elaborates on YouTube.)

We don’t mind paying taxes at Berkshire , and we are paying a 21% federal rate on the gains we’re taking in Apple. That rate was 35% not that long ago and has been 52% in the past when I’ve been operating. The Federal government owns a part of the earnings of the business we make. They don’t own the assets but they own a percentage of the earnings. They can change that percentage in a year and the percentage is currently 21%, and I would say that with the present fiscal policies I think that something has to give and I think that higher taxes are quite likely, and if the government wants to take a greater share of your income or mine or Berkshire’s, they can do it.

They may decide that someday they don’t want the fiscal deficit to be this large because that has some important consequences and they may not want to decrease spending a lot and they may decide they’ll take a larger percentage of what we earn, and we’ll pay it. We always hope at Berkshire to pay substantial Federal income taxes. We think it’s appropriate that a country that has been as generous to our owners—Berkshire was lucky that it was here—and if we sent in a check like we did last year, we sent in over $5 billion to the US Federal government—and if 800 other companies had done the same thing no other person in the United States would’ve had to pay a dime of Federal taxes [applause], whether income taxes, no Social Security taxes, no estate taxes, all down the line. I hope things develop well enough with Berkshire—we say we’re in the 800 club [companies with a market capitalization of at least $800 billion]-- and maybe even move up a few notches. It doesn’t bother me in the least to write that check, and I would really hope with all that America has done for all of you, it shouldn’t bother you that we do it, and if I’m doing it at 21 percent this year and we’re doing it at a lot higher percentage later on, I don’t think you’ll actually mind the fact that we sold a little Apple this year.

Far be it for me to argue with Warren Buffett, but his statement that no one would pay any taxes if 800 companies paid $5 billion to the Treasury is technically true, but fantastical. Excluding banks, who need multi-$billions to conduct operations, there are fewer than 50 companies that have at least $10 billion on hand. (It's like saying that if everyone had an EV there would be no climate crisis.)

However, the Oracle of Omaha is very likely to be correct in his prediction that the government is unwilling to cut spending and will raise taxes in the near future. At 93, Warren Buffett talks about the way things are, not the way he wishes they could be.

I Will Lay Me Down

Today the lady minister read from John 15:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

She spoke about how the passage reminded her of the refrain in Paul Simon's Bridge Over Troubled Water:

Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Good music, like humor, is subjective. I watched the troubled '60's on TV but mostly read about it in newspapers from insular (literally!) Hawaii. Bridge Over Troubled Water, issued in 1970, marked a hopeful end to that decade with its lyrics of friendship and self-sacrifice.

(Note: the song would not have resonated through the years without Art Garfunkel's soaring tenor, which increases in intensity toward the climactic third verse.)

Where are the Simon and Garfunkel who will inspire us today? None appear on the horizon, but have faith, dear friends, have faith.

AAPL Bounces

Despite its recent difficulties, AAPL has outperformed
MSFT over the past five years. (WSJ)

Unlike its other mega-cap peers, Apple stock had barely moved in the past twelve months. It had not outlined an artificial-intelligence strategy, its iPhone sales had fallen in China, and the Justice Department had launched a broad antitrust action against Apple. Expectations had been set very low for Apple's quarter ended March 31, 2024.

Apple's report on May 2nd provided a pleasant surprise:

Apple stock rallied in afternoon trading, after results narrowly beat estimates and the company touted a new $110 billion buyback program.

Apple also signaled sales are likely to grow this quarter, when it reported earnings late Thursday.

Shares in Apple stood more than 6% higher in recent trading, mirroring a late-Thursday rally. The stock hasn't risen more than 5% in a single session since late 2022, FactSet data shows.

Here is how the results stacked up against analysts' consensus expectations from FactSet:

Revenue of $90.8 billion vs. expected $90.4 billion

Net income of $23.6 billion vs. expected $23.3 billion

GAAP earnings of $1.53 per share vs. expected $1.51 per share

Apple approved an additional $110 billion in share repurchases, and raised its quarterly dividend by a penny to 25 cents.

Apple may have already hit its bottom this year. I'm holding on.

Menialness is a State of Mind

In 20th century America this story was all too common: hard-working immigrant father brings his family to America but can't find work in his chosen profession (e.g., doctor, professor) because his credentials aren't accepted. So he takes a job as a janitor, gardener, short-order cook, etc., because the over-riding goal was to make a better life for his children.

Any personal ambitions were shelved; the father did whatever it took to give his family a chance in the New World.

Too many American children don't have anyone to sacrifice for. Nor are they instilled with a sense of urgency to achieve financial independence by doing what they're good at and setting aside, at least for a while, what they think will bring them a fulfilling life.

Bonnie Hammer paying her dues in 1976 (WSJ)

NBCUniversal vice chair Bonnie Hammer gives some advice to the follow-your-dreamers: [bold added]

“Follow your dreams” is the exhortation of many college commencement speeches, but it is nightmare job advice. Americans are already raised on a diet high in dreams, from fairy tales to superheroes. My own TV networks have been highly successful in selling dreams—but ask any lawyer logging billable hours on a time sheet how much their work life resembles the legal drama “Suits.”

The larger truth is that professional dreams can be incredibly limiting, particularly at the start of our work lives. When we enter the workplace convinced that we already know what we want to do in a specific field and are committed to it at all costs, we’re saying, in essence, that there is very little left for us to learn, discover or be curious about...

So here’s a new truth: Rather than follow your dreams, follow the opportunities. Early in my own career in television, I said yes to two roles in which I had zero interest: managing the budget for a documentary series and learning the “new” technology of CDs. The first one taught me about the economics of getting a show on the air, the second about the quick changes technology visits on entertainment.

By developing my knowledge and appreciation for all aspects of getting quality productions on the air, I came to value each department responsible for a show’s success—not just the more glamorous ones. When I moved up in management, eventually running multiple cable TV networks, I was better prepared than some of my peers, who had a more limited portfolio of experiences. Yes, we all benefit from goals and dreams, but the key is knowing the difference between possessing dreams versus allowing dreams to possess us. Following opportunities is more likely to lead us to new skills, connections and people. Even when the opportunity doesn’t pan out exactly as we intended, we learn from it. And along the way, opportunities allow us to develop new and better ideas of what our more mature professional dreams might look like. After all, how many of our early dreams are really ours, as opposed to other peoples’ dreams grafted onto us? This truth about “follow your dreams” highlights a companion lie and truth: We may be told “know your worth,” but the truth is you need to “work on your worth.” The mantra of many life coaches, “know your worth,” says you should never settle for anything less than you deserve. But while we deserve good friends, partners and even unclogged shower drains in our first apartments, as young people early on in our careers, most of us are somewhat worthless, and we should expect to be treated that way...

But here’s the truth: While we are all born with personal worth, we have to earn our professional worth. No matter your academic record, the summer internships you’ve held or even your last job, when we step into a new workplace, we start fresh. And when our careers are beginning, that often means doing the menial labor, the unsexy assignments and the mindless tasks we might feel are beneath us. But someone has to do them. Why wouldn’t it be us? On the job, people will only know our worth once they know our work. That takes time, effort and consistency. It’s not based on potential or promise but on results...

If I wanted to be a valuable asset to my colleagues and bosses, I knew I needed to add concrete value to their days by showing up, staying late and doing whatever needed to be done. So maybe we need to set aside the current myth that remaking the workplace will somehow unleash a wave of professional success. Instead, it might be time for a healthy dose of truth. For young employees who want to feel “engaged” at work, the truth is, you need to engage with your work first. On the job, our worth is determined not by how we feel but by what we do.

We are led astray by the one-in-a-million people who followed their dreams in music or sports, for example, and struck it big. Bonnie Hammer's advice applies to us normals, as it does to your humble blogger.

The only advice I have is to follow your dreams on your personal time, if possible--you can keep writing, painting, film-making, working on recipes--to find out if an activity was really your dream.

Also, keep yourself as healthy as possible in readiness for that day when you don't have to defer your dreams any longer. It will do little good to have the money and time--but not the ability--to do what you've always wanted.

California's Self-Inflicted Energy Wounds

Headline: California electricity prices now second-highest in U.S.: ‘Everyone is getting squeezed’ [bold added]

Propelled in large part by PG&E, which hiked residential electricity rates by 20% for about 16 million Californians in January, the state’s high electricity prices are second only to Hawaii, which is always an expensive outlier because of the costs of shipping oil to the far-flung archipelago...

East Coast residents are paying higher prices during cold winter months with Californians paying higher electricity prices for a brief period nearly every summer since 2014, likely when people must cool their homes during heat waves.

It is unusual for Californians to pay higher prices than the East Coast in the depth of winter.

It's a safe bet that the "unusual"-ness of California paying more than East Coasters during winter will become the usual story. As is there wont, pro-regulation activists blame lax Public Utilities Commission oversight--there may be some truth to that--but as we stated in 2019, it's impossible to place all these conflicting demands on an energy provider:

Deliver electricity and natural gas reliably to 16 million Californians;

Charge customers as low a rate as possible;

Earn a profit for investors, including a regular dividend;

Clear trees and brush to reduce the risk of wildfires;

Provide generous salary, medical and pension benefits in accordance with union contracts;

Repair and replace its aging infrastructure with less efficient and more costly carbon-minimizing energy sources (principally windmills and solar, but not nuclear);

Decommission Diablo Canyon, its last nuclear power plant, for an estimated $4.8 billion beginning in 2024;

Meet Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards;

Pay $billions in damages for its culpability in the 2017-2019 wildfires.

Transfer hundreds of thousands of acres to tribes and public agencies per agreements dating back to 2001.

After PG&E declared bankruptcy in 2019, Governor Newsom threatened to take over the troubled utility. It was in the end a hollow threat, because he knew that politicians would take the blame for the hard decisions that had to be made (for example, backing off from green energy goals to keep fossil-fuel plants operating). If PG&E had become "Government Gas & Electric", who knows how much larger California's projected $73-billion budget deficit might have become?

May Day = Lei Day

Even less well known these days than the May 1st celebration of International Workers Day is the tradition of Lei Day in Hawaii.

The 95th Lei Court attended today's official ceremonies in Honolulu.

Here's a partial reprise of my original 2010 post about Lei Day:

May Day is lei day in Hawaii
Flowers and garlands everywhere…

Leis can be simple or elaborate, multi- or mono-colored, expensive or free as the flowers from one’s own back yard. They are given at birthdays, airports, weddings, graduations, banquets, holidays, or sometimes just because. They are given freely without expectation of reciprocation, often to people that one has never met before. There’s supposed to be no lasting commitment—the flowers fade quickly even in a fridge; the receipt of a lei therefore usually “means” little. But sometimes we remember the occasions forever.

A lei is granted with a kiss. Many young boys, grimacing, receive their first kiss from a non-family member when receiving a lei. Later, for the cost of a few flowers it’s a good pretext for a young adolescent male to peck the cheek of a girl he’s long admired (if your mother made the lei, don’t tell the girls, they feel funny when you say that).

When I was growing up, every woman in Hawaii knew how to string a lei. It’s far from a lost art, but fewer people take the trouble now, much like baking bread or writing a letter by hand. But I’m not lamenting days that are gone, rather I’m happy that the tradition of Lei Day is continuing and appears to be getting stronger. Frankly, if I may say so, I prefer Hawaii’s version of May Day to the other ones.

Flowers and Garlands to Foster City

Replit CEO Amjad Masad at Qatar tech conference.

Another tech company flees San Francisco not for Austin, Tennessee, or Florida, but to Foster City(!): [bold added]

Amjad Masad, the founder and CEO of Replit, an artificial intelligence company in the Bay Area valued at over $1 billion, announced this week that the company has relocated its headquarters from San Francisco to Foster City.

The move was motivated by a desire for a more “livable” city and to establish a new home base for the AI coding startup, akin to how Google is associated with Mountain View and Apple with Cupertino.

“The ‘why’ we’re leaving is boring, sad, and predictable (crime, dysfunction, etc), so instead let me tell you why we chose Foster City,” Madad wrote in a thread on Twitter explaining his decision to move the company. “Foster City embodies the American postwar optimism and the long-lost California pro-growth mentality"...

Masad, who has previously criticized the living conditions in San Francisco, lauded Foster City for its innovative civic engineering and its origins as a master-planned community. He highlighted its lagoon system, designed to combat sea level rise.

He also noted that the tech-infused community of over 30,000 residents is “relatively affordable” compared to the rest of the Bay Area and a “fun place to live or hang out.”

“The city is super livable,” Masad said. “When Haya and I moved to California, we first took residence there and, in fact, incorporated Replit here. Our first bank was Wells Fargo, a few steps from our new office.”

In response to a follower’s comment about Foster City being quieter than the bustling city, Masad saw this as a benefit.

“Quiet is good,” he replied. “That’s why Silicon Valley worked — the most fun thing to do is build computers and software.”

My personal observation is that homes in Foster City are roughly as expensive as San Francisco, and buildable land is almost non-existent. If Replit workers couldn't afford to live in SF, they probably couldn't afford Foster City either.

Rush hour traffic will be worse as Replit workers commute to their homes, but the working environment will be better with no homeless encampments and worries about smashed-in cars. The variety of restaurants is much better than even 10 years ago if one counts nearby San Mateo, and if one likes working in a racially diverse community, Foster City is 30% Asian.

The CEO of Replit couldn't have done a better job if he worked for Foster City's PR department.