Special Report: Mayor Peter’s Senate Hearing
In this special report, Pete Buttigieg faces the Senate to discuss his role as presumptive Transportation Sec. Get ready for Biden Buys American! And Smartypants is in the Faculty Lounge again.
Everyone loves Mayor Pete.
Unless you have oil and gas constituents like Ted Cruz. Then you’re taking your anger of the Keystone Pipeline project’s closure out on him.
Honestly, though. This is no exaggeration. I sat through nearly three hours of his testimony today in the Senate. Senator Roger Wicker, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation couldn’t stop smiling. And he’s a Republican. My immediate impression was that the post-Trump era has cleared the air of hostilities.
I’m sure it won’t last.
Two takeaways here, beyond Mayor Pete being the consummate professional (John Tester said he gave a ‘clinic’ on how to do a Senate hearing for a Cabinet position): he likes the Buy American policy to be in the infrastructure bill.
Only one person brought it up: Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin. Her point was that it is not enough to blabber on about Build Back Better and infrastructure creating jobs. We are not stupid. We know that the new bridge and the new tunnel isn’t going to be built by Chinese construction workers.
So the question is where will the steel come from?
You know when the Bay Bridge in San Francisco was rebuilt they used Chinese steel because…cheaper.
Actually, existing Buy American laws let you buy things from China (or anywhere) if you can get them cheaper. In that case, let’s just rename it the Buy Asian law.
“When we are using tax dollars, we should be supporting American workers and American products,” Baldwin said. “The DOT plays an enormous role in furthering those opportunities. We are eager to build a modern, sustainable infrastructure that supports US workers. But will you commit to Buy American in any Biden infrastructure funding? Will you close existing gaps and loopholes in the law that allow taxpayer funds to purchase products not made in America?”
Buttigieg responded by saying, “I strongly support Buy American. I know there are a lot of questions about these exceptions and I will look into that right away.”
Prediction: Biden will announce some Made in the USA plan ASAP. It will be vanilla, Washington DC old school White House Executive Orders. But maybe there will be some teeth to it, especially for green tech and infrastructure. The point is, he will highlight it and some domestic industries will be very happy.
It won’t be easy, though.
Like Baldwin pointed out today, subway lines in LA, Philly and Boston are largely Chinese cars. Yes, they are made in the US. But how is a US subway car company going to compete with China’s state-controlled CRCC. Do you think CRCC doesn’t get free money and cheap parts from China? Of course it does!
We don’t have companies here that even make train cars? How ridiculous is that?
It gets worse. We don’t have companies that make ships for transoceanic cargo. You know, those big container ships that leave the ports of the biggest import nation on the planet – ours. We don’t make them. Not one of the top 10 merchant marine vessel manufacturers is American.
Davos Man rather own the ship in the US but import it from China or South Korea, where most of them are made.
Buttigieg said he supported the Jones Act, which requires ships with US flags to be owned by locals at least. “It is important to have a maritime, shipbuilding industry that creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. It’s important to have that industry in the US,” Mayor Pete said.
So in these three hours (and for you in these last 60 seconds), I reconfirmed to myself that we don’t have a serious shipbuilding industry, we don’t have American owned companies that can make metro cars, and learned that we apparently get a lot of our road signs from overseas.
“The goal is to make sure as much as possible of this is made in America and if confirmed I do commit to looking at what we can do to adjust or change or perhaps rescind those provisions,” Buttigieg said.
Judging by all the happy talk, Mayor Pete is the next Transportation Secretary. I mean, seriously, Amy Klobuchar was so happy to see him she basically invited him and his husband to cocktails at her place after the hearing. I hope they wear masks between their cosmo sips…
EV cars were a big topic of discussion. Biden wants to install millions of electric power stations nationwide. Buttigieg said “it’s ambitious. But I think it can be done.”
Not sure he believes it fully, but that’s fine. I used to own Blink Electric Charging Station (BLNK). I sold it when it was up over 250%. I think if you see it falling 15% in a day it could be worth a try. It moves like a Direxion ETF sometimes. Or Bitcoin. Some short-selling firm I cannot think of at the moment said it’s a joke stock.
Come on, man. Today…what’s not a joke stock?
Plug ‘em in, baby.
The Wall Street Watercooler:
What He Said
A guy from UBS agrees on the green tech stuff.
“The backdrop of low interest rates and new stimulus make equity valuations look more reasonable, and we see attractive opportunities among more cyclical companies, sectors, and markets. Also, with governments and businesses placing an increased emphasis on climate issues, we think sustainable strategies will benefit in a post-pandemic world.”
Check out Proterra when it goes public under the ticker PTRA. Right now it trades as ArcLight Clean Transition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, under the ticker ACTC.
I own Fisker Automotive (FSR).
I put in for the Ocean SUV. It goes zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds. Tesla’s Model S is 4.2 seconds. Ford’s Made in Mexico Mustang Mach-E: as fast as 4.8 seconds. Slowpokes.
I learned the company is owned by China’s Wanxiang Group. I don’t have a problem with that. I like the car. I like the look of it. I like its lease program.
Hey, I never said I was a hater.
On The ‘Animal Farm’ Intro That Wasn’t, by Smartypants.
“Orwell has an essay called Literary Censorship in England, which was supposed to be an introduction to Animal Farm, but it never appeared in the novel. He says in that essay that he is writing a novel about a totalitarian society, but that free England is not all that different because unpopular ideas can be silenced without any force at all. First, because the press is owned by wealthy men who have no interest in chaos unless that chaos serves their political interests. And second, the whole education system gets people to understand that there are certain things you just can’t say. This is not self-censoring. It’s a filtering system that starts in school and it’s pretty effective.”
Closing Credits:
I Can’t Drive 55!
Go on and write me up for 125/ Post my face, wanted dead or alive/ Take my license, all that jive/ I can't drive…fifty-five!
Short-n -sweet, amigos. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. See what I did there? If ya know, ya know.