In my recent report, Connecting Nuclear’s Past and Present: Guiding Missouri’s Future, one of the policy solutions I offer to meet electricity demand is consumer-regulated electricity (CRE). In short, CRE would allow for the creation of private energy entities, disconnected from utility grids, in order to serve the largest customers more efficiently.

A recent article on this topic caught my eye. The article mentions that delegates at the World Nuclear Association summit in London discussed forming private energy clusters, disconnected from the grid, to meet surging demand from data centers.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Bringing Energy Clusters (or CRE) to Missouri

A few weeks ago, New Hampshire’s governor signed into law House Bill 672, which allows for “off grid electricity providers”—independent and disconnected from the main grid—to generate, transmit, distribute, and sell electricity.

Whether you call it CRE, off-grid providers, or private energy clusters, the concept is similar: enabling private energy systems to serve large industrial customers with less delays, less red tape, and less pressure on the main grid and ratepayers.

Poland and the Netherlands are beginning to consider the use of energy clustering to meet industrial energy needs. The previously mentioned article identifies a few potential benefits from energy clustering:

• It would allow large customers to take their electricity from a co-located generation source
• If a thermal energy source like nuclear is used, large customers could use its industrial heat (high-temperature steam used in industrial processes like manufacturing)
• The energy developer would benefit from simplified project finance
• Both consumers and developers would avoid long transmission lines
• These clusters would also help reduce the burden on grid resources, which are at a premium in most markets and in Missouri

CRE gives large customers the option to use an energy source of their choice, so long as they meet the still-applicable regulations (such as the Clean Air Act for fossil-fuel plants).

As we have seen with the drastic actions of Meta, Microsoft, and Google, there is a market for this type of arrangement as these huge customers have sought connection to nuclear reactors. States and countries are taking notice of these market conditions and are bringing the free market into the energy sector.

Missouri needs to reduce pressure on the grid and attract investment. In the upcoming legislative session, lawmakers should seriously evaluate how CRE—or private energy clustering—could benefit consumers, energy developers, and ratepayers in our state.

Want to read more? Check out these related articles:

Connecting Nuclear’s Past and Present: Guiding Missouri’s Future

New Nuclear Energy: Business-Speed and Business Friendly

Mission Impossible and Nuclear Energy

One Way Missouri Could Keep its Grid Reliable

Weighing Consumer Regulated Electricity to Meet Energy Demand Growth

Missouri Needs to Be Prepared for Growing Energy Demand

The post Is Consumer-Regulated Electricity Going Worldwide? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How bad is crime in Kansas City? If you believe recent international headlines, we’re a “Mad Max-style hellhole,” a reference to the post-apocalyptic movie franchise. Ouch.

I grant in the piece that the headline came from a news outlet known for being sensationalist, but as Kansas City prepares to host the World Cup in 2026, our international reputation is important.

Speaking to Pete Mundo on KCMO Talk Radio the morning of May 23, Mayor Quinton Lucas, just back from a junket to Qatar, said this [at 2:32]:

Of course the Qataris were very interested in saying, “we can send people over, free of charge, to come help you.” I’ll make sure I have a chat with [KC Police] Chief Stacey Graves and some of the others before we do that, but, [it’s a] well-resourced country.

That statement came right after a discussion about transportation, but Chief Graves does not handle city transportation, nor does she serve on the board of KC2026, the committee formed to organize efforts to host the 2026 FIFA event. It appears the mayors’ understanding was that the Qataris were expressing a security concern and offering to send assistance.

Federal law does not permit foreign nationals to exercise any police powers on U.S. soil. While there may be plenty of coordination among governments and their law enforcement agencies prior to events like the World Cup, I doubt that would be handled by the hosting city’s police chief.

Just as Mayor Lucas would have been in no position to coordinate security with a foreign entity, it’s possible that the Qatari making the offer was in no position to provide it. I don’t know.

What is clear, even if Lucas doesn’t realize the implication of the offer, is that Kansas City is seen internationally as a place that cannot provide public safety to its own citizens or international visitors. That won’t be solved by advertising on buses in London, but by competent management of city resources—something we have yet to see.

The post Is Kansas City a Public Safety Charity Case? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Often synonymous with Airbnb or Vrbo, STR properties are units intended to be rented out for less than a month. These properties provide a place to stay for people passing through and visiting St. Louis, encourage competition within the lodging industry, and bring revenue to their communities. Some owners, however, have been renting to unpredictable tenants, leading to out-of-control parties, violence, and even murder.

STR regulation has become common in major cities such as New York and London. Even some Missouri municipalities are adopting new rules. Citing similar frustrations to the City of St. Louis, St. Charles just placed a moratorium on new residential STRs in most of the city for a year.

The proposed regulations in St. Louis would, among other changes, create a permit and punishment system to hold STR operators accountable, require a Graduated Business License for owners renting out property they do not live in and a permit for individuals who rent out their primary residence, require a 24/7 available contact for the STR, and limit individuals to four permits for units they do not live in.

While some regulations on STRs are warranted due to the disturbances and dangers they can cause, parts of the proposal appear excessive.

The limit of four STR properties per owner seems like a solution in search of a problem. The city might have included a limit to prevent STR owners from operating many units (so many that someone could not realistically operate them alone) and ensuring that there is always some level of oversight for the STR properties. However, the requirements for each rental (24/7 contact, licenses, permits, punishments) should be more than enough to keep STR owners in check without more regulation. If someone can properly run several STRs without harming the community, why is the government trying to place further restrictions on them and create incentives to subvert the law?

More troubling is requiring permits for owner-occupied units. An STR is considered an owner-occupied unit when a property owner rents out a space where they live (such as a finished basement, or a garage converted into a studio). From the bill:

Applicants for a Short-Term Rental permit for an Owner-Occupied Dwelling Unit shall submit, on an annual basis, an application for a Short-Term Rental permit to the Building Division. The application shall be accompanied by a non-refundable application fee in the amount of $150.00. – Board Bill 33, Page 5, Line 19

Not only does this degrade a means by which countless people have been able to afford academic programs or help lodge friends and family, it might run afoul of state law. Missouri Statute 71.990 limits restrictions on “home-based businesses” and may conflict with the proposed bills. St. Charles’s legislation might not be legal either. It is likely that courts will have to sort out the interplay between Missouri statute and local ordinances.

Overall, these bills appear to do a good job of regulating non-owner-occupied properties. They would give communities more power in mitigating problems with STRs while not being restrictive on those who rent their property. The proposals for owner-occupied properties, however, could be improved.

My colleagues Avery Frank and David Stokes discuss their opinions on the proposed bills here.

The post On Short-Term Rentals appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As first appearing in the Kansas City Star and the American Spectator:

A surprised and outraged Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.” But Dec. 7, 1941, may also be remembered as one of the great turning points (for the better) in world history. It had the startling effect of rousing a sleeping giant (the United States) into purposeful action, and that was the primary factor in stopping the forces of evil from cruising to an easy triumph in World War II. In Churchill’s words, the world was in danger of entering “a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

The Japanese Imperial Navy struck Pearl Harbor in two waves beginning at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time. Japanese aircraft destroyed much of the U.S. Pacific fleet and killed a total of 2,403 Americans – which compares to the 2,605 Americans and 372 U.S. residents from other countries who lost their lives in the surprise attack on the United States launched by al Qaeda on 9-11-2001.

As the Japanese readied for their attack, Hitler was sitting pretty – perilously close to winning a two-front war. Having already conquered France and other smaller European nations in 1940, German troops scored one victory after another against the poorly equipped and outmanned British Army in Southern Europe and North Africa in 1941. “Evacuation going fairly well – that’s all we’re really good at!” Alexander Cadogan, at the British Foreign Office, observed in his diary during the British withdrawal from Greece. “Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs, pitted against professionals.”

Things looked no better on the eastern front – with the German army on the outskirts of Moscow. In three parallel offenses, German forces invaded Russia in late June – sweeping across the vast countryside with the same lightning speed that marked the earlier invasions of Poland and Western Europe. Desperately short of every kind of war materiel from boots and rifles to tanks and planes, the Russian army was saved by the onset of winter.

Pearl Harbor changed everything – ending the long, enfeebling debate inside the U.S. between isolationists and interventionists. Suddenly, America was at war, and almost everyone – from FDR on down to Charles Lindbergh, hitherto an arch isolationist – agreed that this was a war that had to be fought with everything we had. Overnight Lindbergh turned from dove to hawk. Though unable to regain the Army Air Corps commission which he had resigned in April 1941, Lindbergh flew 50 combat missions in the Pacific Theater as a civilian consultant.

Within days of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of thousands of Americans made up their minds to join the armed forces. That included the two oldest sons of Joseph Kennedy, another isolationist and outspoken advocate of the appeasement of Nazi Germany, whose departure from London where he had served as U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s was a major addition by subtraction for both Roosevelt and Churchill. The older Kennedy left England in October 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain, which reduced much of London and other cities to rubble.

My late father – then 24, a reporter with the Kansas City Star, with a wife and baby daughter – was one of the many who rushed to serve. He failed his first Navy physical – being exceedingly thin – but passed the second time after gorging on food and water. He was one of the “ninety-day wonders” – sent to officer training school for just 90 days of rigorous physical and classroom training – and went on to skipper a submarine chaser that saw action along the eastern seaboard, off the coast of North Africa, and in the North Atlantic.

If any disaster may be called a good disaster, it was Pearl Harbor, which awakened America with a violent start and averted what might easily have been the greatest setback to human freedom, joy, and advancement in world history.

Andrew B. Wilson is a resident fellow and senior writer at the Show-Me Institute.

The post Remembering Pearl Harbor appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Here are five market-oriented resolutions for a more prosperous 2014:

1. Privatize the United States Postal Service (USPS). The United States should follow the lead of other Western nations, including Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Britain, in deregulating and privatizing mail service. It is a form of economic insanity, which can only be explained by the power of the postal union and its political friends, to require daily delivery of mountains of mostly junk mail to U.S. households. The USPS should have to compete with FedEx, UPS and other private concerns in the delivery of first-class mail.

2. Follow suit with other public services. Look for other ways to benefit consumers and taxpayers by deregulating or privatizing other public services, with airports, roads and public utilities at the top of the list. There is a reason vacation travel is much cheaper and more convenient within European and Mediterranean countries than it is in North America and the Caribbean. Europe has widespread airport privatization and greater reliance on market forces to allocate scarce resources. As travel writer Rick Steves says on his website, “Ryanair routinely flies from London to any one of dozens of European cities for less than $20” (through its most heavily discounted fares paid weeks or months in advance).

3. Do not buy the “living wage” rhetoric. Recognize the folly of calls to increase the minimum wage — now $7.25 nationally — to $10 or more at a time of sky-high youth and minority unemployment. Why would a fast-food restaurant — or any other business — want to hire someone for $10 an hour who adds, say, only $6 an hour in additional profit, before counting the cost of his or her wages? To do so would be to accept a $4-an-hour loss. Raising the minimum wage thus has the perverse effect of causing unemployment. It artificially reduces the demand for labor and makes the first rung on the job ladder higher than it ought to be for young and unskilled workers.

4. Break the health insurance oligopoly. The next stage in the seemingly never-ending debate about health care, now entering its sixth year, might be between full-scale nationalization — as one way of rescuing the Affordable Care Act from going into a full-scale “death spiral” in 2014 — and the creation of a much more market-oriented system than the status quo ante. The starting point for a market-oriented approach should be in freeing — and, indeed, forcing — insurers to compete across state lines on both price and range of product offerings, without a great assortment of government dictates or mandates at either the state or federal level.

That would give individual consumers the right to buy low-cost, low-price health insurance — from a far larger universe of sellers. And it would cause big insurers to lose the monopolistic or oligopolistic positions they have built up over the years through assiduous lobbying at statehouses around the country. Their cozy arrangements with state regulatory offices have resulted in mandates to cover everything from hair pieces and contraceptives to acupuncture and marriage counseling. Opening the insurance market to open-ended interstate commerce will cause all producers — both insurers and health care providers — to reduce costs and look for more and better ways to satisfy the health care customer.

5. Choose growth over class warfare. Be prepared for the proponents of big government to try to turn every debate — whether it is about health care, privatization, the minimum wage, entitlement reform, curbing the power and privileges of public sector unions or any other issue — into another rant on what President Obama has called “the defining issue of our time”: namely, income inequality. However, the president and others greatly exaggerate income disparities between different quintiles in the distribution of income by ignoring the effects of high taxes on high earners and, for lower earners, the effects of income tax rebates, food stamps and other welfare. One study finds that income inequality actually declined between 1993 and 2007, after adjusting for taxes and transfer payments.

But the real takeaway here is what the poor and the middle class really need to achieve a better life for themselves and their children. That is faster growth, not more income redistribution. It is the opportunity for self-improvement, not the fallback of welfare dependency.

Andrew B. Wilson is resident fellow and senior writer at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.

The post Let Market Guide Us To Prosperity In ’14 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773.

Wait, what?

Let’s go back a bit. For years, the British East India Company enjoyed a monopoly — granted by the British crown — on importing tea to Britain. Because the American colonies were under British rule, this also meant that all their tea had to come from the East India Company — first imported to London, then shipped to America by a third party. At the time, Britain had high import tariffs, which raised the price of all East India Company tea. Colonists could buy Dutch tea smuggled into the colonies  much more cheaply because it never touched a port with high tariffs. In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to import tea to the colonies duty-free. Suddenly, all the people who imported tea to the colonies, legally and illegally, were priced out of the market by a competitor that received special government favors. Some of the people on the boats in Boston Harbor the night of December 16 were concerned about overreaching government authority and a pattern of abuse, but lots of them were smugglers or legal shippers who were rebelling against the loss of their livelihood to a government policy that favored one business at the expense of others.

Here’s another quote from Wikipedia:

In 1772, legally imported Bohea, the most common variety of tea, sold for about 3 shillings (3s) per pound.^[33] After the Tea Act, colonial consignees would be able to sell it for 2 shillings per pound (2s), just under the smugglers’ price of 2 shillings and 1 penny (2s 1d).^[34]

So the colonists got their tea cheaper than before. Where’s the problem? Well, in addition to the problem of taxation without representation, competing businessmen lost out under the new tariff regime. There were other losers as well — namely every British citizen who paid higher taxes because the East India Company had this duty-free dispensation.

My co-workers at the Show-Me Institute have talked about targeted tax credits before. Targeted tax credits are just one way that governments pick winners and losers in the marketplace. When this happens, the logic of the market is overturned and almost everyone suffers — except those the government selects to receive its largess. It’s easy to point to these people and conclude that the tax credit was a success, but maybe that’s because the injured parties so seldom throw a historic party to make their plight known to the world.

The post The Boston Tea Party and . . . Targeted Tax Credits? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As I said back in August, the Postal Service’s decline seems to be inevitable. USPS is subsidized not by tax dollars but by regulatory capture: The Private Express Statutes limit private mail carriers from delivering mail to mailboxes and from charging less than $3 to deliver a letter.

Luckily for the USPS, it doesn’t have to compete in a free market, where its work schedule would be drastically insufficient to compete successfully with others. UPS and FedEx don’t have the same regulatory luxury, and consequently have some locations that are open 24 hours a day and on weekends, because that is what customers want. Private delivery companies also price shipments based on distance traveled, which makes more sense than the flat rate that the USPS levies for first-class letters. Mailing a letter to one’s landlord in the next town over has a lower marginal cost for a postal service than mailing a letter to a cousin across the country, but first-class USPS prices don’t reflect that.

Unlike private delivery services, the USPS does not face direct competitive pressure, and so has found it difficult to adjust to changing technology and market conditions. This has left the agency well past its prime, if that prime ever really existed. James Bovard pointed out in a review of USPS history that government-provided postal services were originally conceived as revenue generators, and that regulators had to actively stamp out competitors who were providing more reliable, trustworthy services at lower prices:

The early colonists inherited the tradition of government postal monopoly from Britain. In sixteenth-century England, the Tudor monarch outlawed private post in order to hinder communication between potentially rebellious subjects. Later, the monopoly was justified as a revenue raiser for the Crown. But even 270 years ago, private carriers were breaking the law and providing the public with better service than the government:

In 1709, Charles Povey used bell ringers to collect letters, which he delivered anywhere in London for a halfpenny. The Post Office prosecuted Povey, who was convicted and fined, and then it adopted his system for the government service.[2]

Since 1709, not much has changed in how governments run their postal monopolies.

In 1789 the Constitution granted the federal government the right to set up a post office, but it did not prohibit competition from private services. However, the first postal act, in 1792, did effectively outlaw private competition.

The first postage rates were extremely high, as Congress tried to force easterners to subsidize the more expensive service to outlying settlements on the western frontier. As the Postal Service’s official history notes, “Until 1851, the cost of sending a single sheet letter 40 miles was either 6› or 8›. When the letter traveled over 400 miles, it cost 25›. These prices doubled, tripled, or quadrupled with each additional sheet.”[3] In 1843, “it cost 18 1/2› to send a letter from New York City to Troy, New York, but only 12 1/2› to send a barrel of flour the same distance.”[4] The government charged 25› to deliver a letter from Philadelphia to New York.

Henry Wells (later of Wells-Fargo fame) entered the market, charged 6› a letter, and delivered faster.[5] In the Boston area alone, over a hundred private express companies carried the mail. Private companies delivered letters directly to addressees’ homes, while the government still required people to pick up their mail at the nearest post office.

As private business flourished, government postal revenues declined. The postmaster general admitted in 1843 that many people thought the government’s monopoly was “odious,” but insisted that it had to be preserved for the good of the country.[6] In 1845, Congress tightened the laws prohibiting competition and increased the penalties for violators. In 1851, Congress lowered postal rates and began providing a direct subsidy for postal operations.

An 1844 competitor, the American Letter Mail Company, was founded and operated by notable proto-libertarian Lysander Spooner. This competition was so effective and efficient that “The end result was that in 1851 Congress again had to lower the postal rates to a uniform 3 cents” from previous prices “of 18 3/4 cents or 25 cents.” Lawmakers simultaneously put Spooner out of business for good by strengthening the USPS monopoly laws.

The notion that government postal services may have been necessary to provide a crucial public service in the absence of trustworthy private alternatives doesn’t stand up to the historical record, and is even less justifiable in today’s electronic information age, in which private companies are the primary means by which most people send and receive sensitive communication.

Missourians — and the United States in general — would greatly benefit if the USPS lost its monopoly protection so that costs could be reduced through the efficiency of competitive pressure, rather than through elimination of services.

The post Maybe When Service Drops to One Day a Week, We Can Eliminate Its Monopoly Protection? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

My Tim Hardaway writing skills aside (that reference will be lost on just about every one of my readers, except for one loyal dude who reads from London), we all know how the current economy has really hit the financial health of malls and the cities that depend on them. One such city in St. Louis County is St. Ann, home to Northwest Plaza, which will go into foreclosure soon, and has been in trouble for some time. This will have a significant impact on St. Ann’s finances, but the city does have options.

Option one, which it will likely follow, would be to pour even more tax incentives into the property in an attempt to revive it. The St. Ann city manager is quoted in this Post-Dispatch article:

Conley said the structure of the public assistance for mall redevelopment remains. He noted that city officials hope for an eventual revival of St. Ann’s largest commercial property.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who would disagree that something needs to be done up there,” he said.

Well, I disagree, for whatever that is worth.

Option 2, which is probably a long-term solution with short-term budget pains, would be NOT to pour more tax dollars into a failing developement, and instead just become another sales tax pool city within St. Louis County. I doubt anyone in St. Ann is seriously considering this, although I would love to be wrong. If St. Ann became a pool city, it would benefit from growth around the county, and would not be so dependent on one particular mall. This move would increase the total amount of tax dollars available in the pool, and with St. Ann’s large population, the city would get a significant amount from it each year — although not near what they used to get when Northwest Plaza was a thriving mall. Those days are gone, however, and an investment in public dollars might change things around, or it might not. A switch to “B” or “Pool” status would be in the long-term interest of the city and its people.

Lest you think I am picking on St. Ann, I think Crestwood should do the exact same thing.

The post St. Ann Could Become a “Pool” Sales Tax City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Booz Allen considered two potential U.K. HSR lines (London-Manchester and London-Edinburgh/Glasgow). They found that the CO₂ emissions required to move HSR passenger seats were about the same as those required to move automobile seats — hardly a slam dunk for rail. In fact, intercity bus came out considerably cleaner than HSR on a per-seat-mile basis.

HSR would emit less on a per-seat mile basis than air travel. But the major caveat is that all of these figures consider emissions from operations only, without taking into account the very large amount of pollution that will be created in the construction of the HSR system. […]

[Given] 100 percent rail ridership, emissions over a 60-year period would be lower if the HSR line was never built.

Keep in mind that this study focuses on high speed rail projects in England, but “given its high population density and short distances, Britain may actually be a better place for HSR than most areas of our country.”

It is worth noting that this study assumes static technological progress. This is not a fatal flaw. Assuming that technology will improve in the coming years and lead to lower environmental harm by way of trains, it is reasonable to conclude that this technological change would be widespread and trans-industrial. If historical trends are any indication, technological gains will be realized and implemented quicker and with more ease in airlines and automobiles, and at a pace that will continually outstrip the meager gains that trains will achieve.

The bottom line here is that for high-speed rail expansion to be at all environmentally friendly, ridership will have to spike to numbers that we can’t reasonably expect. This is an important realization, and is one that casts considerable doubt on claims that high speed rail is a necessary step to show true support for the environment.

The post Environmental Benefits of High-Speed Rail Overstated appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As my fellow bloggers have noted, with differing degrees of enthusiasm, we are in the midst of a tax “holiday.” My consternation about this practice is mostly explainable by the theory-driven gripe I’m about to offer. However, I’m also upset that the holiday has landed on one of the few weekends where I have better things to do than draw funds out of savings.

The tax holiday is a feel-good gimmick. Many people, maybe even some needy parents gearing up for another costly school year, will return home from the store with a few more bucks than they otherwise might have. The state budget won’t really suffer, either. What’s the harm? If you don’t find yourself frequently daydreaming about monetary policy, there really isn’t any; enjoy your shopping spree.

Still with me? Then you’ll agree that the tax holiday tarnishes the price system’s fidelity as an indicator of value. This distortion is based on the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, state and local revenues draw heavily from sales tax. In fact, I think it’s reasonable to say that a good’s price after tax is more faithful than its pretax price at representing that good’s real cost. By this reasoning, the expenditures of state and local governments are inputs partially included in the price of a good. This makes sense, considering who builds the roads on which inventories and customers travel. When this input is discounted, the resulting price could (and will) motivate consumers to buy more than they otherwise would in an efficient market. Sarah’s example of a hypothetical shopper driving far away to cash in on tax-free shopping is a great example of how price distortions can affect individual behavior in negative ways.

I also feel shorted because of the arbitrary nature of the holiday. In general, I’m enthusiastic about reducing taxes and regulation in hopes of bettering economic freedom. However, this instance of a tax break slightly benefits those who shop during this weekend at a tiny cost to those who make purchases on the other 362 days. In order to retain the tax revenue that would be available without a holiday, Missouri officials will have to marginally increase the sales tax rate. If they choose not to do so, the state will have less revenue than it otherwise would. Although it’s certainly not the case that tax revenue necessarily benefits me or any other voter effectively, it does so to at least some extent. The holiday also unnecessarily benefits those who spend relatively more money during these three days. There’s just no good reason for rewarding people who shop this weekend rather than any other.

So, is the tax holiday highly damaging? Absolutely not. However, any humanitarian advocate for it should research more direct methods to promote their desired outcomes. In the end, we are only billing ourselves to indulge in a weekend of slightly less expensive shopping. I think the only really unfortunate outcome of this event is that we further distance public sentiment from good economic thought by allowing shoppers to get excited about a gimmick.

The post Stuck Inside of Retail With the Tax Holiday Blues Again appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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The other highlight of seeing the movie again was catching a very young Ari Gold as one of the characters hanging out at the Gas ‘N Sip trying to get Lloyd to go to a kegger with them. "Bitches, man!"

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