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Earlier this week, Donald Trump staged what historians believe to be a presidential first: a stilted, fumbling White House press conference convened to boost the fortunes of a valuable donors floundering car company. Wow, thats beautiful! Trump said to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as they climbed into a red Model S parked on the South Lawn. Everythings computer! Holding a scripted sales pitch touting the brands safety features, self-driving technology, and low monthly payments, Trump assured reporters that Tesla is a great product, as good as it gets, and complimented Musk as a great patriot. He promised to buy a car himself, and pay with a personal check. In what I am sure is an unrelated story, Musk, who has spent most of his time of late laying waste to the federal government at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is reportedly preparing to donate $100 million to Trumps political operation. Trump did not stage this glorified infomercial because of his passion for hawking overpriced consumer products. Across the country, people have taken to registering their displeasure with Musks presidential cosplay by using the one tool available to them: protest. Demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms have become weekly events. Many Tesla owners, embarrassed to be associated with Musk, are trading in their cars, often at a loss. Tesla cars, dealerships, and charging stations have been targeted by vandals wielding everything from Molotov cocktails to dog poop. As it turns out, when the act of driving to the grocery store incurs a real risk that angry strangers will flip you off, cars manufactured by companies that arent helmed by too-online reactionaries become much more appealing. The backlash has made a bad year worse for Tesla shareholders, who have watched the stock plummet from an all-time high of around $480 in December to $220 as of Monday. Tuesdays little dog-and-pony show helped the price to recover a bit, but by Friday afternoon, shares were trading at about $250roughly half of their value just four months earlier. Musk, Teslas largest shareholder, has paid dearly for this collapse: His net worth, which Bloomberg estimated at nearly $500 billion in mid-December, now sits at around $315 billion. The companys sales numbers, which are down by double digits in key international markets, do not suggest that a robust performance-based surge is on the horizon anytime soon. Pledging to buy a Tesla is not the only way Trump has used his bully pulpit for Musks benefit. Also on Tuesday, the president vowed to treat Tesla vandalism as domestic terrorism and to put perpetrators through hell, dispensing with typical politician rhetoric about bringing people to justice. In a March 10 post on Truth Social, Trump excoriated Radical Left Lunatics for trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, which raises the possibility that the president believes people have a legal duty to buy cars to ensure that the worlds richest person stays that way. Teslas struggles, which yielded the enduring image of Trump grimly answering press questions in front of a hulking Cybertruck, expose the toll of Musks unpopularity in ways that the fates of his other companies cannot. X, the social media platform he bought in 2022, is a right-wing echo chamber where Musk can speak directly to an audience of acolytes willing to lap up any excuses for his failures like dogs on a warm afternoon. Earlier this week, Musk shrugged off a temporary X outage by blaming a massive cyberattack originating from Ukrainean explanation that experts dismissed as wholly unconvincing and pretty much garbage. SpaceX, which has also sustained setbacks of the explosive variety of late, is a privately held company that relies heavily on government contracts worth billions of dollars. Even if this particular administration werent in Musks pocket, much of SpaceXs business would be relatively safe, as there are only so many companies that manufacture rockets that deliver cargo to the International Space Station. Tesla is different. As a publicly traded company that manufactures consumer products, its performance is a pretty good barometer of the approval rating of the man who leads it; the numbers, as they say, do not lie. Trump is trying to bail out the company because it would be embarrassing for him, the Business Genius President, to preside over the spectacular implosion of the source of a valuable political allys wealth. Musk is glad to accept the help, of course, because the reality hed otherwise have to confront is that normal people do not like it when an unelected, unaccountable tech executive attempts to take their jobs, splinter their communities, and ruin their lives. Protestors might not be able to stop Musk from hollowing out another agency, but if they can persuade fewer people to buy his ugly cars, they can at least make sure he pays for it. Shareholders have watched Musks extracurricular activities create and destroy value before: In late 2022, for example, Teslas stock price plunged to a two-year low after Musk took over at Twitter, as investors wondered if a man suddenly preoccupied with doing cringe memes was simply out of EV-related ideas. If youd bought the dip and sold today, youd still be doubling your money. But the furious national response to DOGEs lawlessness is manifesting in the real world in ways that fleeting concerns aboutTwitters disintegration did not. Teslas brand is becoming more poisonous with each passing week. Tesla owners who arent yet ready to sell their cars are searching desperately for interim half-measures, slapping I GOT THIS BEFORE ELON WENT CRAZY stickers on bumpers. A few owners have even tried adorning their cars with other logos in an effort to go incognitoa gambit I cannot help but admire, given that ptting Rivian iconography on a Cybertruck, one of the most distinctive-looking vehicles on the road today, is roughly the equivalent of affixing novelty cat ears to a Tyrannosaurus rex. Maybe the most ominous sign for Teslas future is that this time around, the investment community appears skeptical that Musks packed schedule of playing video games at the office will give him time to course-correct. A recent Morgan Stanley survey found that 85% of respondents believe Musks venture into politics has had a negative or extremely negative impact on the fundamentals of the business, and a bit more than half expect Tesla shares to continue to sink in 2025, or, at best, to remain flat. Because Musk has often obtained capital by borrowing against the value of his Tesla holdings, the companys continued struggles could force him to sell off his shares, which would only cause the price to fall further. To a certain extent, Teslas value has always been inflated by Musks carefully curated image as a once-in-a-generation business talent, which he managed to parlay into the sort of household-name celebrity status that most CEOs only dream of achieving. Part of the reason Trump brought Musk into his inner circle in 2024besides that sweet, sweet Silicon Valley cashis that Trump built his political career on the idea that strong, respected businessmen possess the wisdom to govern in ways that career politicians cannot. Musks failures reveal just how wrong this premise has always been, which is why Trump was out on the South Lawn, demanding that people buy Teslas and pretending to marvel at a touchscreen panel: plutocracy is harder to maintain when the plutocrats look this feckless.
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AI image editing may be all the rage, but good old-fashioned image editors are still essential. Theres a problem, though: Windows PCs, Chromebooks, and Macs dont include exceptional image editors that go beyond the most basic editing needs. Sure, you can pay for Photoshop or hunt down another image editorbut what if you just want to do something quick? Well, then youre left searching the weband maybe you come across a reasonably decent online image editor, but perhaps it forces you to sign into an account or pay for a subscription. Or maybe it just doesn’t do what it promises to do in any especially impressive way. Lets skip all that. Todays tool is an easy, free, and completely browser-based image editor that doesnt need any accounts or payments. You can access it from any type of device, too, and start editing images almost instantly. Psst: If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. You’ll be the first to find all sorts of simple tech treasures! Photoshop for the rest of us Allow me to introduce you to Photopea. Photopea is a powerful tool that many of our Cool Tools newsletter readers have recommended over time. You can get started with it in roughly 10 seconds. It’s simple: Just head to the Photopea website. (The first time you load it, youll want to click the X in the top-right corner to hide the welcome banner.) Then choose the Open From Computer button and select an image from your device’s storageor, if you’re on a PC, drag and drop an image from your computers file manager directly onto the Photopea page. Photopea makes it easy to import files from your phone or computer. Youll then see an image-editing interface that’ll look immediately familiar if youve ever used Adobe Photoshop. Photopea is packed with professional-grade tools that are normally limited to costly, complex, and at-times clunky desktop image editors. Youll find layers, filters, a clone stamp for touch-ups, a background removal system, and even batch resizing and image-converting options. Whenever you’re made the modifications you need, click the “File” menu and select “Save” to download your final file. That’s it. Photopea looks and feels a lot like Photoshop, but it’s completely free and runs entirely in your browser. Now you’ve got a Photoshop-caliber image editor at your fingertips whenever you need itfor free, usable without signing in, and without any software installation required. Whats not to love? You can use Photopea on its website in your browser. (It’s technically compatible with both desktop and mobile browsers, but the desktop experience tends to be best. If you see a Photopea app in the Android or iOS App Store, know that it isn’t official or associated with this same site.) Photopea is free with ads. You can sign up for an account and pay $5 per month to remove the ads and get access to AI photo-editing tools, if you like, but it absolutely isn’t required. Photopeas privacy policy says all your photos are stored on your device and never sent to any remote servers or shared in any way. Keep the geeky goodies coming with my free Cool Tools newsletter. You’ll get an instant introduction to an incredible audio app and a new off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday!
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When both my picky kids discovered they loved eggs, it was a blessed relief for meal planning. After years of trying to find dinners that everyone was happy to eat, my kids affinity for eggs added quiche, frittatas, and omelets to our cooking repertoire. We now go through two dozen eggs a week at chez Guy Birken. Which means I have personally been paying very close attention to spiking egg prices. My local grocery store is selling a dozen eggs for $5.99more than two times the price of eggs as of March 2024. If youve been wondering why you need a second mortgage to afford your breakfast, heres what you need to know about this price eggsplosion. Supply and demand Even if you slept through your Econ 101 class, you probably remember the law of supply and demand: When supply is low and/or demand is high, prices increase. In the case of the humble chicken egg, supply is down because of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), aka the bird flu, while demand has remained the same, resulting in higher prices. Avian flu Since 2022, over 166 million birds have come down with this harmless-sounding malady, and over three-quarters of the affected birds are egg-laying hens. Millions of chickens have died and millions more have been culled to prevent the spread of this very contagious disease. The loss of so many chickens means there is a smaller supply of eggs, which has pushed up the price. Bird flu may be the primary driver of the eye-watering prices of a dozen eggs, but its not the only one. Garden-variety inflation has also affected the price of eggs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unadjusted Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 2.8% for the year ending February 2025. This may not sound like muchand it is only 0.8% higher than the Feds goal of 2% inflationbut it does have an effect on the cost of getting an egg from a hen to a dairy aisle when everything from chicken feed to gasoline is more expensive. Inelastic demand When prices for many goods go up, many consumers will substitute a different product. For example, if beef prices suddenly skyrocketed, a lot of shoppers would buy pork, chicken, or tofu instead. This is known as elasticity of demand and it helps keep prices somewhat stable. (Elasticity of demand is also why grocery prices tend to go up much more slowly than healthcare prices, since its easy to substitute one protein for another and impossible to substitute one prescription drug for another.) But eggs are an inelastic product. Even when their prices spike, people still buy about the same number of eggs. There are not many appropriate substitutes for eggs in applications like baking, and eggs offer a relatively low-cost source of healthy protein, even when prices rise. Since consumers continue to purchase eggs at about the same rate they always did, prices wont go down until the supply returns to previous levels. Will egg prices keep rising? Like many consumers, I have simply been paying the higher prices for eggs on the assumption that what goes up must eventually come down. Thats how its gone for every previous price spike Ive lived through. But that is not necessarily what will happen this time around. This version of the avian flu appears to be more virulent and tenacious than other strains of the disease. The 20142015 bird flu outbreak disappeared after about a year, since hot weather helped kill off the virus. The current outbreak has been affecting our nations birds since 2022 and the change of seasons has not had a noticeable effect on ending the virusso we may yet see scrambled eggs become a status symbol. Of course, no economist, journalist, or farmer has a crystal ball. There is no way to know for sure where egg prices are headedand its not like we can stockpile eggs to prepare. Finding cheaper eggs (or egg substitutes) There are a number of options available to shoppers to keep eggs from destroying their grocery budget. (Please note: despite the current administrations recommendation, raising backyard chickens is not feasible for most peopleand introducing a heap of inexperienced urban farmers to the joys of backyard poultry could prolong the avian flu outbreak.) To start, check the local egg prices at the Pantry & Larder site Eggspensive. This site tracks the cost of a dozen eggs at every Walmart location nationwide. The Krazy Coupon Ladys egg price comparison and egg coupons can also help you get the lowest possible price. You can also work around your egg needs for many recipes. While egg substitutes in baking are never quite perfect, using ingredients like applesauce, Greek yogurt, mashed banana, aquafaba, or vinegar + baking soda can re-create some of the specific properties eggs add to your favorite baked goods. And dont forget that vegans like baked goods, too. (If you havent tried vegan baking since you broke your tooth on a carob-chip cookie in the 1980s, youll be delighted to learn that its come a long way.) Vegan bakers have come up with a number of delicious recipes that dont equire any eggs or egg substitutes. Dealing with eggstreme prices The price of eggs often works as a political shorthand to describe the kitchen table economic worries of the average person. But since last fall, theres nothing metaphorical about the high price of eggs in America. The ongoing avian flu has reduced the supply of eggs, and the demand for eggs has remained inelastic. Its possible that egg prices will continue to rise if we cant get the bird flu under control, but that doesnt mean youre stuck paying through the nose for your eggs. Several websites offer price trackers and coupons for eggs, and there are a number of substitutes that can re-create eggy properties for your baking and other recipesand dabbling with some vegan recipes can help you avoid the need for eggs altogether.
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