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(By Jon Miltimore, FEE) Ford Motor recently announced it is slashing prices on its F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle the company rolled out in 2021. The Lightning now carries a suggested retail price of $49,995, about $10,000 lower than its previous recommended price tag ($59,974), a reduction the company says is possible because of lower “battery raw material costs and continued work on scaling production and cost.” It’s certainly possible that reduced overhead from battery minerals and production costs played a role in Ford’s decision to trim its price tag by nearly 20%, but that may be only half the...

The number of unsold electric vehicles at dealers in the second quarter tripled compared to the past year, signaling a weakened demand for the segment, said a recent report by leading auto-dealer data company Cox Automotive.In second quarter 2023, the average inventory for electric vehicles (EVs) topped more than 92,000 units on the ground at dealer lots, according to the 2023 Cox Automotive Mid-Year Review presentation. This is up 342 percent compared to second quarter 2022. During this period, the new “EV days’ supply,” which refers to the average number of days a warehouse holds inventory before selling it, rose...

Gun sales topped 1 million in June, marking the 47th straight month of record gun sales. The National Shooting Sports Foundation said that 1,110,696 background checks were for gun purchases of the 2,152,187 conducted in June, according to the Washington Examiner. The rest were for the right to carry in public places and other security permits. "Americans have another million reasons to celebrate this Independence Day. More than 1.1 million times in June, Americans exercised their Second Amendment rights to lawfully purchase a firearm," NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva said. "That extends the streak to 47 continuous months that background checks...

By now you have heard of the Dutch farmers’ controversy.The government of The Netherlands is buying out thousands of farms to meet idiotic climate change goals–under the theory that growing food is an unacceptable pollutant–and forcing the most productive farmers in the world to quit feeding people.Understandably the farmers are upset and have been flexing their political muscle, but it all came to naught when talks between the government and the farmers collapsed. Plans to forcibly close the farms are moving forward. 3000 farms will go “poof” and somehow the climate will be saved.🇳🇱 Now that the totalitarian Dutch government...

If Bud Light sales continue to lag, the brand risks losing shelf space at major retailers to competitors and 'locking in' lower market share, a former Anheuser-Busch executive has claimed. In recent weeks, Bud Light sales have been down roughly a quarter from a year ago, as the brand faces conservative backlash over an April marketing deal with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Anson Frericks, the former US president of sales and distribution for St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, said that retailers such as Walmart and Kroger typically 'reset' their shelf space allocations in the spring and fall, based on sales data. For...

On March 24, 2023, Governor Roy Cooper (D) of North Carolina vetoed SB 41, which would remove the Jim Crow era requirement to obtain permission from the Sheriff to purchase or transfer a pistol in the state. Federal background checks would still be required. Governor Cooper vetoed a similar measure in 2021. Critics of the law have claimed it was used as a means of discrimination to keep black people disarmed.The bill, SB 41, passed with veto-proof majorities in the House and in the Senate.The Senate has 50 members. 30 of them are Republicans.In the House, there are 120 members....

On March 29, 2023, the North Carolina legislature voted to override the veto of Democrat North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. In the Senate, as expected, the vote was 30 to 19, with 30 Republicans voting to override the veto of the Jim Crow era pistol permit law, 19 Democrats voting against the bill, and one Democrat not voting with an excused absence.In the House, there are 71 Republicans and 49 Democrats. 3/5 of the vote is required to override a veto. If all members voted, 72 votes would be required. In this case, three Democrats were excused from voting, so...

Electrifying the car market may be getting more difficult, with the share of Americans who say they’re “very unlikely” to consider an EV for their next vehicle purchase growing in each of the first three months of the year, according to a new report. In March, 21% of new-vehicle shoppers said they were “very unlikely” to consider an EV, up from 18.9% in February and 17.8% in January, consumer analytics firm JD Power said in a monthly EV report. In contrast, the percentage of car shoppers who say they are “very likely” to consider an EV was 26.9% in March,...

Americans are drinking less beer after Bud Light, among others, raised their prices. In AB InBev's (BUD) latest quarterly results, the total volume of beer sold decreased by 0.9%. At the same time, total revenue grew 10.2% to $14.67 billion, with price increases a key driver of that. After price increases and "really complicated" weather in the month of December, CEO Michel Doukeris called the Q4 results in the U.S. a "one-off, complicated quarter" in a call with investors. Last quarter, the average price of a 24-pack of 12 oz. beer went up nearly 8%, per NielsenIQ data that was...

The Biden administration is reportedly planning to propose some of the most stringent automobile pollution rules in the world, which are meant to drive up sales of electric vehicles to ten times their current level so that up to 67 percent of new cars sold in the U.S. are electric vehicles by 2032. The proposed limits on tailpipe emissions will be brought by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with EPA administrator Michael Regan making the announcement on Wednesday in Detroit, Michigan, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke to the New York Times.

Former President Donald Trump reached number one on Billboard’s digital song sales chart with his debut single, “Justice For All,” featuring the J6 Prison Choir. Released this month, “Justice For All” is a tribute to the January 6 prisoners that features the “J6 Prison Choir,” an ensemble of prisoners who can be heard singing the national anthem while Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance. These prisoners reportedly sing the anthem each night before going to bed. Their audio was recorded over the phone and then mixed with Trump’s vocals by an audio engineer. The song was “produced by a major...

Publishers have reported that audiobook sales are up for the 10th straight year. Details of the increase come from the Audio Publishers Association’s (APA) Sales Survey conducted by InterQ. The survey shows how audiobook revenue in 2021 was $1.6 billion, marking a 25% increase and the tenth straight year of double digit growth. There were around 74,000 audiobooks sold in 2021, which is 6% more than in 2020.

US pending home sales rose 8.1% in January. At the same time, pending home sales declined -22.4% on a year-over-year (YoY) basis. So, YoY pending home sales growth has been negative for 19 of the last 20 months.

Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp continues to be the world's top-selling automaker, defending its title for a third straight year. The company recently said it sold 10.5 million vehicles in 2022. At the number 2 position is the Volkswagen Group that reported its lowest ever sales in over a decade earlier this month. The auto maker sold 8.3 million vehciles in 2022. The Ukraine war and Covid-19 lockdowns in China impacted the supply chains. Coming back to Toyota, its global sales - including truck unit Hino Motors and small-car maker Daihatsu, inched down 0.1% as record overseas sales of 8.6 million...

This is a very unique and extreme combination of exceptions that the US government made for Pfizer, that they didn’t make for Moderna or any other COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ manufacturer or subcontractor ... The NIH and Moderna own dozens of COVID-19 mRNA nanotechnology patents and were expecting BIG payouts from global COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ sales, especially from Pfizer. Per Pfizer’s December 12, 2022, mRNA Portfolio presentation by Navin Katyal, Pfizer has captured 63% of the global mRNA vaccine market. ... If one company received the royalty payouts on the global sales of Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA ‘vaccine’ alone, that company would likely be...

It's no secret that the conditions were ripe for a steep drop in PC demand this holiday, but now it's clear just how bad that plunge really was. Gartner and IDC estimate PC shipments fell by more than 28 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2022. That's the steepest quarterly decline Gartner has ever recorded — no mean feat when it began tracking the computer market in the 1990s. Both analyst groups also saw yearly shipments fall by more than 16 percent in 2022 compared to the year earlier. Some manufacturers suffered more of a blow than others. The...

The number of homes under contract fell again last month as high mortgage rates and home prices weakened buyer demand. Pending home sales, a forward-looking market indicator, declined for the fifth consecutive month in October, falling by 4.6 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index. The number of pending transactions decreased year-over-year by 37 percent. “October was a difficult month for home buyers as they faced 20-year-high mortgage rates,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “The West region, in particular, suffered from the combination of high interest rates and expensive home...

The Biden administration on Monday notified Congress it has approved a possible $323 million arms sale to Finland as the country seeks to join NATO. The administration approved the potential sale of 40 tactical missiles and 48 Joint Standoff Weapons, made by Raytheon, in addition to accompanying equipment, training and support, the State Department said in a release. Finland, which shares a border with Russia, is in the process of joining NATO along with Sweden. Both countries sought to enter the alliance earlier this year. This State Department said the proposed sale “will support the foreign policy and national security...

New home sales jumped last month despite consistently high mortgage rates that experts say have hampered affordability and pushed potential buyers out of the market. Sales of new single-family homes rose by 7.5 percent in October at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 632,000, according to Census Bureau data released on Wednesday. But the new sales fell behind the October 2021 estimate by 5.8 percent. The median sales price of new single-family homes sold in October was $493,000, while the average sales price was $544,000. New sales numbers follow separate data released last week that shows existing home sales declining...

An October surge in retail sales is raising doubts about how close the U.S. economy actually is to a recession. Americans spent far more money on consumer goods and services in October than economists had expected, according to Census Bureau data released Wednesday. While high interest rates and stubborn inflation have taken a chunk out of retailers’ profits, it’s done little to keep down sales as a whole. U.S. retailers made $694.5 billion in sales last month, according to the Census Bureau, an increase of 1.3 percent from September. Sales beat expectations of a smaller 1 percent increase, according to...