Ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss has taken it on the chin. Mocked by the U.K. tabloid, the Daily Star newspaper, as unable to outlast lettuce, she proved to be the U.K.’s shortest-serving P.M. The scorn crossed the pond to the New York Times featured columnist Maureen Dowd. She dumped on Truss because “She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.” This a strange observation from someone living in a nation with $31 trillion in debt. I’ve always found Dowd more snark than depth, and she continues to prove me right.

Nevertheless, Dowd is symbolic of the elite class here and abroad, claiming awareness of how debt and interest work but having no clue. I fear they’re going to find what their hubris has wrought.

While so many are having a great time over Liz’s political demise, we need to heed the message it delivers. While Truss’s fiscal plan is radical to some, it mostly follows the route taken by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Reducing stifling taxes and regulations to increase goods and services to offset too much money chasing not enough goods worked for those successful leaders. 

Truss opened the nation to fracking and new leases for offshore exploration to increase domestic oil and gas. She also reduced regulations. The most expensive part was that her proposed subsidies offset the U.K.’s sky-high energy costs. The E.U. will pay a similar fortune to subsidize energy to avoid a crisis. The plan also included some tax cuts. What government could survive its people freezing through the winter? In response, markets reacted harshly to the nation’s bonds and currency. The turmoil forced the Bank of England to intervene.

With only limited political support and an astonishing lack of grit and skill, Truss crumbled. 

1.5% wind and solar, 2.6% Hydro, and 1.7% nuclear are the amounts of the world’s energy consumption these sources provided in 2019. The other 94% came from fossil fuels. Yet, much of the advanced world is setting limits and goals for certain products and actions for the future. Japan plans to stop the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. This plan is similar to moves by California and several European nations. By the mid-2030s, if you want a new car, you’ll only be able to buy an electric one.

This program sounds like part of a government 15-year plan. A significant industry will have to revamp its products in a specific time frame or else. Wow, a time-specific government-directed industrial plan. Can we all sing a chorus of “Back in the USSR?” In my series “The Long Journey To More,” I expressed the feeling capitalistic countries would out-perform China or any other totalitarian state. Greater flexibility would fuel a growing efficiency-innovation gap. A totalitarian government would double down on planning until it ended up as a closed society such as North Korea or collapse like the Soviet Union.

This assertion assumed we would avoid top-down planning. The actions we are doing in climate change move us away from a supportive government allowing competing solutions. Ordering us to buy only electric new autos sets up a bias towards existing technologies. The objective is less carbon. Most people agree excess carbon in the atmosphere is contributing to global warming. All things being equal, people choose cleaner carbon-free energy sources. At present, Wind or Solar have it politically over carbon-emitting production. Unfortunately, the wind doesn’t always blow, and the sun doesn’t always shine. Nuclear is reliable but under cost and regulatory constraints. With the new administration, new fossil fuel use will be difficult and discouraged.

Now we are looking forward to millions upon millions of motor vehicles needing a plugin. The additional electricity will have to come from somewhere. Irrational fear raising costs blocks nuclear. Governments are increasingly are limiting or making it difficult to increase fossil fuel use.With realities after 2035, industries have no choice but to make significant capital spending plans utilizing Solar and wind.