Bitchin' Dave's newsletter - July 25

  

July 25, 2023 Insights, news, ramblings, and other serious nonsense from Dave

Dave’s Musings

There is much chatter about “Bud Light stock tanking” due to the controversy about the beer company sending some special cans to a trans person. This has come up again recently; the governor of Florida has threatened to sue Bud Light over the controversy because … reasons!

The problems I have with the whole notion are (1) what childish behavior to even regurgitate such nonsense, (2) there is a bunch of misunderstanding of stock and the ownership of Bud Light (Anheuser Busch was bought by INBEV some years ago and they also own many other brands), and (3) there’s something weird going on. 

The beer was given to the personality on April 1st. The stock did in fact go down by almost 20% - but not until May 31st (two months later!), and has since recovered to just a bit over 10% down. 

Is this due to the public outrage? Or is this another case of GameStop and the Robin Hood effect?

Or is the shift in stock price not even related?

That gap in time does make me wonder what is going on….

  

A few months ago, SpaceX attempted a suborbital flight with "Starship" - one of the largest rockets we have ever conceived - using 33 engines. It was spectacular, but ultimately a failure as it pitched out of control, and it also destroyed the launch site. Undeterred, the company upgraded the launch pad, and fixed a few issues with the rockets themselves. And now they are getting ready for another test. Except that they still need FAA approval - which is going to be a process. But stay tuned. It will happen eventually.

Researchers have developed a way to cool the air using no electricity! The concept is to use "radiative cooling, thermal insulation, and evaporative cooling" - essentially using solar rays to cause evaporation in what you might think of as an igloo cooler. Its a very smart, and fundamentally simple design that could provide a low cost alternative in places where the power grid isn't designed to be rapidly expanded in a warming world. Zero electricity cooling

The Disney brand is struggling, and their stock is not where analysts think it should be. The problem started during the the pandemic; Disney needed to borrow heavily to keep themselves solvent.  Now they have to repay that, while they struggle to grow and while they are reporting losses in most business units, for a lot of reasons. (Though not “because of woke” whatever that means)   Their problems were compounded by Bob Iger not really thinking about succession planning, and leaving Bob Chapek to take over. Chapek made decisions that probably weren't in the best-long term interests of the company. Now Iger is back to clean up the mess he made.  The Motely Fool notes a quote from Warren Buffet: "When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, the reputation of the business remains intact."  Which suggests that maybe Iger is not the answer. But the Disney board thinks he is, because they did extend Iger's contract, and have high hopes that all of the properties that they own will pay dividends in the long run.

It may seem obvious, but simply painting things white can have a cooling effect. In Los Angeles, the Cool Community Project added reflective coatings to surfaces, and tested the results. And they showed that this did reduce the ambient temperature! You can read more here: Cool Community Project (Forbes) And meanwhile Purdue University has created an ultra white color that they say can get the cooling effect of 10KW when painted on 1,000 square feet. That would go a long way to reducing the need for AC. You can read more here: Purdue press release Its relatively simple advances like these that will change the world.

One Little Spark …  … for your imagination

Florida is a leader in the (absurd) anti-immigration space, in spite of the non-citizens making up only about 8% of the population, and only a small portion are what might be considered “illegal” (the majority have green cards, or temporary protection status)… and also in spite of Florida being the place where Cuban refugees settled (remember the wet foot/dry foot policy?). 

Yet, among the laundry list of laws that Florida passed was one that requires various establishments verify citizenship status in order to provide services. 

I recently had an appointment at the hospital, and a new question they asked was whether you are a citizen - because if you are not, they can only provide services under very specific circumstances. How very un-American. 

The state also considers drivers licenses issued in states that offer them to non citizens to be invalid in the state of Florida. Meaning if you have a license from about a dozen states, you are not legally allowed to drive in Florida because you don’t have a valid license. That’s not okay. 

There is also a law that people from certain countries (China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela among them) are NOT ALLOWED to purchase property in Florida unless they can prove citizenship. 

And of course the legislature authorized more “migrant flights” to increase the political theater. Gee. Maybe that money could be used to upgrade school facilities. Or to, I don’t know, go to services that benefit the citizenry? 

This state gets dumber by the minute and it singles out people who are immigrants to our great nation. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” not so much. 

Dave’s latest video

I took a road trip up to Disney World in my Model Y, which has a longer range than my Model 3.... I talk about the trip, and how it was kind of the same as taking the shorter range vehicle. https://youtu.be/5LZv9Bx9lR4

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