Free Republic

Is our honeymoon with the electric vehicle finally over? A study found that one in five early adopters of EV cars and trucks are returning to gas-powered vehicles. As a result, used EV prices are freefalling. The Journal Nature published a study revealing that of the folks who were early adopters of EVs in California (between 2012 and 2018), 20% of PHEV drivers have returned to fully gas-powered vehicles and 18% of full EV drivers returned to gas-powered–with their subsequent vehicle purchase.

A Biden administration rule is set to take effect that will force good-credit home buyers to pay more for their mortgages to subsidize loans to higher-risk borrowers.Experts believe that borrowers with a credit score of about 680 would pay around $40 more per month on a $400,000 mortgage under rules from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that go into effect May 1, costs that will help subsidize people with lower credit ratings also looking for a mortgage, according to a Washington Times report Tuesday."The changes do not make sense. Penalizing borrowers with larger down payments and credit scores will not...

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden ramps up his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections, he’s focused on a selling point that, so far, voters aren’t: his plan to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Standing in an industrial building near the Port of New Hampshire last month, flanked by construction and boating equipment, Biden talked dredging, bridges and lead pipes.

A gallon of gas is now costing buyers $5 on average in San Diego as the national average recently climbed to $3.72. Fox 5 reported on Friday:

Hunter Biden will meet with prospective art buyers at two art shows in Los Angeles and New York City later this year, giving the novice painter an opportunity to meet with potential “anonymous” buyers of artwork priced up to $500,000. Georges Berges Gallery spokeswoman Robin Davis confirmed to CBS News that Hunter Biden will attend both events.

It’s double or nothing for Nikki Acton. While many New Yorker couples struggled with an excess of intimacy with their partners during the pandemic lockdown, Acton — a 36-year-old who works in finance just like her husband, Andrew Kobierski, 37 — told The Post that her spacious duplex apartment preserved her relationship. “The two of us were together 24/7 but could still get space from each other because of the floor plan,” Acton said of her two-level apartment on Cornelia Street in the West Village. “Otherwise, I am convinced that we would both have felt suffocated.”

Private equity firms hold an estimated $328 billion in dry powder for real estate deployment.The world’s biggest real estate investors are sitting on piles of cash, preparing for once-in-a-lifetime opportunities created by the pandemic. With economies around the world sputtering, commercial real estate prices are expected to come down. How much they’ll fall is the key question. Sellers are currently willing to concede discounts of around 5%, while bidders are hoping for about 20% off pre-pandemic prices, said Charles Hewlett, managing director at Rclco Real Estate Advisors. That estimated gap, which is likely wider in specific cases, has put a...

Everyone went into class Monday morning. They were all very excited. Their weekend assignment was to sell something, then give a talk on salesmanship. Little Sally led off. "I sold Girl Scout cookies and I made $30" she said proudly. "My sales approach was to appeal to the customer's civic spirit and I credit that approach for my obvious success." "Very good", said the teacher. Little Debbie was next. "I sold magazines," she said. "I made $45 and I explained to everyone that magazines would keep them up on current events." "Very good, Debbie", said the teacher. Eventually, it was...

It’s not just luxury-home listings that are piling up in New York City. Even units for less than $1 million — within reach of far more people than a Billionaires’ Row penthouse — are hurting for buyers. In Manhattan, the inventory of sub-$1 million apartments surged 27 percent in June from a year earlier to 3,087, the most for the month since 2013, according to StreetEasy. Such listings jumped 17 percent to 2,738 in Brooklyn, and climbed 6 percent to 2,314 in Queens, a borough usually sought out for its relative affordability. Buyers at all price points are taking their...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – BP may be looking to sovereign wealth funds in the oil-rich Middle East to fend off takeover bids amid mounting costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil leak disaster, according to reports published Sunday. The National, an Emirati newspaper, cited unnamed "informed sources" in the region saying that Mideast financial institutions have submitted proposals to BP advisers and are waiting for a response. Among the options being considered are the acquisition of key assets or a direct cash injection to help strengthen the oil giant's balance sheet, according to the English-language paper.

It was late at night and I wasn't sure I'd seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw. It's beginning to sweep along the Internet, accompanied by various claims that it's a Photoshop fake. But it's not. It's real. There's no billboard ownership plate on this particular billboard, making tracing the person who had the cash to post it difficult to find. It's time to crowdsource this puppy.

John Mckinnon at the WSJ reports: Home-Buyer Credit Is Focus of Inquiry The Internal Revenue Service is examining more than 100,000 suspicious claims for the first-time home-buyer tax break ... The tax credit is completely refundable, even if the homebuyer has no tax liability - and this makes it a target for fraud. From the IRS: "[The tax credit is] fully refundable, meaning the credit will be paid out to eligible taxpayers, even if they owe no tax or the credit is more than the tax owed." Also, the credit is separate from the closing, and the WSJ article suggests...

NEW YORK – Car and truck owners looking to junk their gas guzzlers are flocking to dealerships to take advantage of the government's "cash for clunkers" program and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, boosting sales in showrooms across the country. "It's water to thirsty people," said Dave Kelleher, owner of two Chrysler dealerships outside Philadelphia. He said the number of shoppers has more than doubled at one of his dealerships and is climbing at the other. "The last two days have been ripping," he said. The program — officially called the Cash Allowance Rebate System, or CARS — took effect over...

Beijing, Aug 8 (DPA) Four Chinese airlines have placed an order with US air plane manufacturer Boeing for 42 new generation 787 Dreamliners in a deal worth $5.04 billion. The contract was signed here Monday, Boeing said in a statement. In January, Boeing signed an initial agreement to sell 60 of the aircraft worth $7.2 billion to Chinese airlines and is still working on the sale of the remaining 18 planes. "We remain confident a deal will be completed in the near future," the company said. Boeing's new model is in competition with Europe's Airbus in the rapidly growing Chinese...

GENEVA (AP) - Companies that bought Iraqi oil from traders who allegedly spent billions of dollars to bribe Saddam Hussein for contracts under the U.N. oil-for-food program now could be implicated in the vast web of corruption uncovered in the investigation by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, a Swiss criminal lawyer told The Associated Press on Sunday. The alleged payoffs to win Iraqi contracts amounted to as much as $2.5 billion, Mark Pieth said in an AP interview. "We are trying to find out who paid the surcharges eventually," said Pieth, one of three commission members leading a probe...

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A teenage con artist using Internet auction sites tricked people into sending him money to buy cellular phones and instead mailed them bricks, police said. The 18-year-old boy was arrested this week in the central city of Ciudad Real after allegedly duping people all over Spain, including residents of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The suspect had his victims mail postal money orders to a house in Ciudad Real that he knew was vacant, police said. He collected them at the mailbox there, and was arrested Tuesday at a post office while trying to cash some of...

"A new state law requiring what amounts to a 'literacy test' for handgun buyers is a slap in the face to firearms civil rights to the same degree that such tests required of black voters in the South were an attack on their voting rights, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) said today. 'On the day our nation celebrates the life of one of the leading civil rights activists of the 20th Century, Dr. Martin Luther King, it is an outrage that California law now treats gun buyers in much the same way that African Americans were treated...