Alternative transit is better than the car. Though cleaner than gas, electric car sales are slumping in USA.

Riding on the top floor of a double decker bus in the HOV lane south of Everett, WA.

The dream of US cars going electric has slowed down, according to some videos I found. Trump's removal of subsidies has a big effect and consumer demand is soft, especially without the incentives. Some car companies are pivoting back to gasoline.

I think batteries are the costliest part of transitioning to electric. China does things cheaper, but not in the US.

Portable batteries, that provide the huge amount of power needed to drive a car, must be a difficult technology, so far. Lithium ion batteries are affordable for small uses like phones.

The electric motor, itself, seems okay. Less moving parts than an internal combustion engine. It must be the battery that's difficult as well as having Trump in office.

I'm more a fan of alternative transit than automobiles anyway. Electrification doesn't reduce traffic congestion, pollution from tires, space needed for parking, sprawl and accidents. The self driving car might be able to help with these other things; except maybe tire pollution. Technology comes to the rescue.

Since the battery seems to be the hardest technical part in electrification, I still think about Seattle's electric trolly buses that run from the overhead wires. That bypasses the need for a battery.

Maybe that's one reason why hybrid car sales are still strong. The drive motors for the wheels are easy and the battery can be much smaller. Energy still comes from a gas motor, though it can be smaller than in earlier car technology.

I may not be a car expert, but I think about science and technical things a lot.

World population growth is slowing down, but there are still problems.

Population growth is slowing down so some worry that there aren't enough young workers for retires. Immigration can solve that problem for democracies where people want to move.

Population growth can also overwhelm housing and infrastructure leading to anti immigration sentiment rising in most of the world's democracies, however.

World population growth needs to slow down even more and another big change is the rising prosperity and expectations of prosperity around the world. That can use more energy and resources while contributing to resentment and instability, thus the world, as a whole, is spending more and more on military spending.

Forget the cost of bacon and eggs, housing is the main affordability worry for young people

Forget the cost of bacon and eggs, a recent poll shows 1/2 of young people, in USA, worry about the cost of housing more than all other items combined on the list according to this interesting podcast. Restrictive, single family zoning has been a huge problem.

There is a book called "Stuck: How privilege and property broke the engine of American opportunity." Yes, we've needed more housing. I would add that population growth is also a problem; that not mentioned in this interview. I think resentment toward immigration is partially rooted in lack of available housing.

The interview had a lot of information. First zoning was done in California in 1880s to keep Chinese laundries out of neighborhoods. By the 1940s single family zoning was adopted in, of all places Berkley, to protect against the less desirable renter class. The New Deal built more housing, but pushed more division by race. In the 1970s, Ralph Nader advocated strict permitting rules that allowed neighbor objections to kill almost all development.

Trump has some wacky ideas, such as the 50 year mortgage. He says he wants to make housing more affordable, but recently said he wishes to protect the wealth of existing homeowners. He wants their homes to still go up in price. His answer is low interest rates is to dump tons of money into the economy, I guess.

The national debt; a big source of angst going forward.

The growing federal debt could erupt as a big issue in the near future. Anti tax sentiment and Trump's kneecapping of the IRS could decrease revenue. Add to this a slowing economy and the spending on ICE deporting some working people out of the country. There's the growing costs of incarceration. Ongoing costs for Medicare, Medicaid, the military and veterans benefits are hard to constrain.

Money has to be printed just to keep the government solvent which fuels another round of inflation. Home and other asset values could start rising again, stocks are still riding high. Trump's encroachment on independence of the Federal Reserve Board has world bond markets jittery.

If another round of asset inflation happens, there will be pressure for wages to go up so folks could afford a place to live. This, in turn, usually leads to price increases in other "nickel and dime" goods and services in the economy, such as food as businesses pass on their increased costs to consumers.

To reduce anxiety, think of money as just poker chips. We could have to inflate our way out of debts. Tomorrow's inflation just makes yesterday's debt smaller by comparison. It does have consequences, but maybe not the end of the world in a future where medium home values rise if wages and other prices can rise by the same percentages as well.

Cash savings looses value, but savers loose in times of low interest rates anyway. This could hurt retirees, but there may have to be more spending to help everyone keep up. It's could be just a matter of moving decimal points over. Yes, I know it's not that simple, but I am trying not to loose too much sleep at night.