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Meanwhile the US is clinging to coal by government order.

From Algeria on the Mediterranean coast to landlocked Zambia in the south, countries across Africa have been importing significantly more solar panels from China this year than in the past, which analysts say could be the start of a massive effort to help meet the continent’s power demands with renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.

In May 2025, African countries imported a combined 1.57 Gigawatts of solar panels from China, an all time high. (Think of it as adding three-fourths of the capacity of the Hoover Dam in one month.) Dave Jones, chief analyst at the global energy think tank Ember, notes that the spike didn’t come from relatively affluent African countries like South Africa, but rather from nearly two dozen smaller nations.



Jones tracks the value of Chinese solar panels exported to different countries using Chinese customs data. In the first five months of 2025, he found at least 22 African countries imported more solar panels than they did during the same period last year, with most of them doubling the amount. One of the most striking examples is Algeria, which imported 0.76 GW of solar panels in the first half of 2025, a 6,300 percent increase from the year before.


Less developed countries, such as Chad, have imported enough solar panels to replace their country’s entire current power generation capacity. “The magnitude of these numbers is just huge in context of what the current electricity grid demand is,” Jones tells WIRED.

China has dominated global solar panel manufacturing over the past decade. More than 80 percent of the world’s panels are made in China, according to the International Energy Agency, thanks to government subsidies, economies of scale, and technological improvements implemented by local companies. But until recently, the bulk of these panels flowed to Europe, North America, and other Asian countries.

While overall sales to African countries are still small compared to these traditional export markets, the Global South appears to be at a turning point in how it thinks about energy. For decades, energy-starved countries largely had one default option when they wanted to add new power supply: import coal and gas. Now, for the first time, solar energy is emerging as the cheaper and greener way forward, so there’s no need to sacrifice the environment for development.
 

Trump has bought $100 million in bonds since taking office. His portfolio is poised to get a boost if the Fed cuts rates.​

grifter gonna grift

"If you want to get rich, start a religion,"
_ L. Ron Hubbard

" If you want to get really really rich, get elected as an immune corrupt president of the United States"
-Donald J. Trump
 
For the record, I think Trump will lose this one. Of course, I've said that before when he didn't. But in this case, I'm not relying on the Supreme Court's integrity. I'm relying on their venality.

SCOTUS is in the process of eliminating all independent agencies because originalism and executive power and all that. It is letting Trump run amok, and it will probably overturn the leading case about independent agencies just because. BUT in one of the recent opinions, they said, more or less, none of this applies to the Fed, because the Fed has constitutional underpinnings in the first and second national banks, blah blah blah. There's no bank in the constitution. There is no constitutional underpinnings in a bank that didn't purport to (and couldn't technically) control monetary policy. There wasn't even anything called monetary policy.

So why did they specifically exempt the federal reserve? Because they have stock portfolios. Because they don't have skin in the game if the authoritarian is deporting migrants to Uganda, but they are affected by a spike in inflation. And exempting the fed from the previous order was basically saying, "OK Trump, you can have the whole government; what you cannot have is this court and the stuff that's really important to us. Like our portfolios. And monetary policy." Of course he pushed the limit, as he was intending all along.

Maybe they bend over, but maybe they grow a spine on this one. I think I'm being pretty cynical here.
 
In the meantime, what does Powell do? Does he count her vote on interest rate decisions? Does he act like she is not fired?
 
In the meantime, what does Powell do? Does he count her vote on interest rate decisions? Does he act like she is not fired?
I don't know much about Trump's appointees, but if they have any integrity, they will vote with Powell as a sign of solidarity. I just do not see big business and Wall St. supporting fucking with monetary policy. Like, those big Wall St. fortunes like Mercer -- their ideal is a powerful autocratic government with low tax rates for them, and an independent monetary authority providing cheap capital.
 
I don't know much about them but from what I've seen, he's the nadir of humanity and shit flows downhill. I'd not be counting on a lot of integrity in action.
 
So the Fed says it will abide by the ruling of the court regarding the outcome of Cook's case.

Let's just hope this case doesn't reach SCOTUS for a decision.
 
As I said before, there is reason to think that SCOTUS will treat this situation differently than it did the NLRB.
As I said before, there is reason to think that SCOTUS will treat this situation differently than it did the NLRB.
So if this bullshit reaches SCOTUS we don't have to worry about them finding firing a Fed governor an executive act ?
 
So if this bullshit reaches SCOTUS we don't have to worry about them finding firing a Fed governor an executive act ?
I'm with Calheel: I'm never going to be super confident with this SCOTUS.

But I continue to believe, with fair justification, that the Justices do what they care about. They aren't anti-vax so they have zero tolerance for anti-vaxxers and mostly they rejected the COVID vaccine bullshit. But they are either anti-union or they don't care, so they are happy to eviscerate federal worker protections. They don't care about USAID, so it's gone.

They do care about independent monetary policy, I would imagine. They all understand the significance of an independent fed. They don't want an economic collapse or 20% inflation.

In this case, I'd be counting on their lack of principles. That's why I think they will do the right thing, for the wrong reason. As Calheel and I noted, they have already signaled on this issue.
 
That said, the Court has already created a separate Fed exception.
Sort of. They said that the Fed stood on different ground than the FTC. Most people interpret that as saying, "why would they bother to distinguish if they didn't think it was a distinction," and I agree. But it was not quite the "we definitely created a separate Fed exception" that you suggest here.
 
Sort of. They said that the Fed stood on different ground than the FTC. Most people interpret that as saying, "why would they bother to distinguish if they didn't think it was a distinction," and I agree. But it was not quite the "we definitely created a separate Fed exception" that you suggest here.
Yes, I simplified/overstated it.

For the laymen, the Court claimed that the "The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States."

In other words, we want our retirement portfolios to stay high so we need to come up with an arbitrary rule that keeps Trump in check when it comes to the Fed.
 
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