Brian Kilmeade: Is Biden's luck running out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EVUGJsBM4
Bank of America Warns that the Summer of Hell is Coming
Even Elon Musk is Getting Worried About the Economy - Prepare Now
Gas Prices Have Doubled Since Joe Biden Assumed Office
Gas prices on Saturday had more than doubled since President Joe Biden assumed office, AAA data shows.
Gas prices reached a seven day record average of $4.81 on Saturday, doubling the $2.39 per gallon price on Biden’s inauguration day.
Since Biden assumed office, the nation has suffered from his energy and fiscal policies, supply chain woes, and 40-year-high inflation. On Thursday, the Washington Post admitted Biden’s “$1.9 trillion rescue package in March 2021 was too large” because it fueled inflation.
Biden has repeatedly said he is doing everything he can to lower costs for Americans. Yet Biden has not reversed course on several key stifling energy policies, Breitbart News reported:
Biden has waged war on both public and private financing of oil drilling while subsidizing green-new-deal-like energy plans. As a result, American oil production is down from 2019, the year before the pandemic. Hard numbers suggest 2022 oil production is 12 million barrels per day, or eight percent less than in 2019.
Biden has made it increasingly more difficult for oil companies to gain financing to drill on private lands. He has also halted new drilling on public lands and terminated the Keystone Pipeline project that would have transported vast amounts of oil to American refineries.
President Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters on Thursday that Americans will have to pay at least four dollars a gallon for the foreseeable future. “The price of gas is likely to remain above $4 per gallon,” she estimated based on Department of Energy data.
Granholm has said in the past that high gas prices will encourage people to transition to more expensive, fuel-efficient vehicles.
In April, Biden suggested Americans can save money by purchasing an electric vehicle. “Under my plan, which is before the Congress now, we can take advantage of the next generation of electric vehicles,” he said. “A typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter and Gettr @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Gas Hits $9.45 Per Gallon in Mendocino, CA
California has high gas prices -- especially in Mendocino County, home of Schlafer’s Auto Repair. As Matt Lever points out:
"If a driver was to fill up at Schlafer’s, they could find themselves paying the highest price for a regular gallon of gasoline ever documented in the history of the United States: $9.45.
"Patrick De Haan, the Head Petroleum Analyst for GasBuddy, confirmed that Schlafer’s is currently charging the most in the United States for gasoline. Being that California stands as the priciest market during a time when the United States has the highest gas prices in history, De Haan agreed that $9.45/gallon could 'very possibly' be the most expensive gallon of gas in the history of the United States....
"In a past interview, Judy Schlafer, the owner and proprietor of the service station, told us her prices are influenced by the fact the shop acts as an independent business, not a franchise of Chevron. Her business does not sell food and drink, the goods that most often bring profit to gas stations across the United States.
"Currently, California’s average price for a gallon of gasoline is $6.19/gallon with multiple locations reportedly selling their gas at more than $7.25/gallon, a watershed price superseding the federal minimum wage.
"The North Coast of California currently is one of the most expensive regions for drivers with Humboldt County being the highest average price on the North Coast at $6.69/gallon."
Gas prices continue to rise despite Joe Biden partially emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As the Daily Caller reported, gas prices rose every time Joe Biden released oil from the reserve, showing that it achieved nothing except leaving less in the reserve to deal with a future emergency.
Biden's release of oil from the reserve is just a political gimmick designed to make it look like he is trying to cut oil prices. Critics have argued that Biden's releases of oil were illegal, because they weren't in response to an emergency.
In a recent gaffe, Biden suggested he actually likes high gas prices, because they push people away from using fossil fuels. In his gaffe, Biden celebrated the high gas prices Americans now face as part of an "incredible transition."
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was designed to store 714 million barrels of oil for emergencies, already contained less than 600 million barrels, its lowest level in 20 years. Biden’s current release of 180 million barrels will take the reserve to its lowest level ever, without even having much impact on oil prices.
Thanks to Democrats’ past decision to keep President Trump from expanding the reserve back when oil was dirt cheap, the amount of oil in the reserve is just too tiny to have much effect on gas prices. America could have refilled and expanded the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2020 when oil was cheap, and then sold the oil later at a time of high prices, for a hefty profit.
In March 2020, President Trump proposed adding oil to the strategic petroleum reserve when oil cost only $14 per barrel, but Democrats blocked him from doing that. Now, oil is more expensive, $120 per barrel. Not buying oil back in 2020 cost the U.S. government the opportunity to make billions of dollars reselling the oil today at a profit of over $100 per barrel. If Congress had authorized the purchase of several hundred million barrels of oil for $14 back in 2020, the federal government could sell that oil today for over $100 per barrel, making tens of billions of dollars in profits (if Congressional authorized such a non-emergency sale, as it probably would).
But the oil reserve is nowhere near full, and no effort was made to expand its capacity when oil was cheap. Now, there is too little oil in the reserve to have much effect on oil prices, and the price of a barrel of oil could be even higher in a few months.
Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law. He also once worked in the Education Department.
Don't Fall for Biden's Inflation Bunk
President Biden, desperate to provide lift to his sagging approval ratings, has released his "plan for fighting inflation" and it’s a doozy.
For too long, the president didn’t have a plan, because it served his interests to say inflation was only “transitory.” “Who you gonna believe,” he seemed to ask us, “me and [Federal Reserve Chair] Jay [Powell], or your lyin’ eyes at the grocery store?”
To reassure us that he’s serious about this, he took to the pages of The Wall Street Journal.
Biden’s first exaggeration appears in the opening line of the third paragraph: “In January 2021, when I took office, the recovery had stalled.…“ In that and succeeding paragraphs, he takes credit for all manner of things: “The job market is the strongest since the post-World War II era," “A higher percentage of Americans reported feeling financially comfortable at the end of 2021 than at any time since the survey began in 2013," “Business investment is up 20%," “The U.S. is in a better economic position than almost any other country," and “The U.S. economy may grow faster this year than China’s economy for the first time since 1976.”
Biden’s assertion that the economy had “stalled” is important. So is the presence (absence?) of the dog that didn’t bark – that is, the shutdown-induced retrenchment in the economy. Together, they build the foundation for the rest of his argument.
A weak foundation it is.
First, by what measure does Biden allege the recovery “stalled”?
A look at U.S. economic growth on a month-by-month basis reveals important data. Before the coronavirus arrived, the economy was humming along nicely, hitting a peak of $21.92 trillion at the end of February 2020. Then came the shutdown-induced retrenchment, driving our economy to a low point of $18.51 trillion in April 2020. That was followed by a robust recovery, so much so that the economy had recovered fully, and surpassed its previous peak, reaching $22.02 trillion by the time Biden arrived in January 2021.
During those nine months of recovery, in only one of them – November 2020 – did economic growth “stall.” In the other eight months, the economy was roaring back, full steam ahead.
Second, in virtually all of the things he takes credit for, he fails to mention that each metric is relative, not absolute, and is compared to what came before – where “before” is the trench at the bottom of the retrenchment. Measuring from such a low starting point has the effect of enhancing the achievement.
For instance, Biden claims credit for the strongest job market since World War II, and for the fact that “manufacturing jobs are growing at their fastest rate in 30 years.” But he fails to mention that the shutdown-induced retrenchment cost us 22 million jobs. When you’re starting so far behind, even 30 miles per hour looks like Indy-car speed.
Perhaps most insulting is the assertion that our economy may grow faster than China’s in 2022 for the first time since 1976. For what does he take us? Biden drops that on us as if he and his economic team had anything to do with that, when, in reality, if that actually comes to pass, it will be because of a slowdown in China’s economic growth, courtesy of policies imposed by the Chinese Communist Party – because of which, China’s shutdown-induced retrenchment is hitting it in 2022 rather than two years ago, when it hit the rest of the world.
Then comes Biden’s biggest mistake, cloaked as an achievement – his renomination of Fed Chair Jay Powell.
As Fed chair, Powell was the government official most responsible for keeping inflation under control.
Overseeing the worst inflation in 40 years is, to put it mildly, failing at keeping inflation under control.
Yet Biden chose to renominate Powell for another four-year term at the helm of the Fed. There’s no amount of window-dressing that can hide that fundamental fact.
All in all, it’s the standard drivel we’ve come to expect from Team Biden. Save yourself the effort, and put your time to better and more productive use – go see “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Jenny Beth Martin is honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
Granholm: SPR Release Is ‘Doing Its Job’ – But Gas Prices Will Be ‘Rough’ ‘Through the End of the Year’
During portions of an interview with ABC News released on Friday, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm argued that the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is “doing its job.” Because the point of the release “is to stabilize the global market” for oil and warned that gas prices will increase over the summer and gas prices will be “rough” “from now through the end of the year, really.”
Granholm stated, “The point of this — it’s doing its job. Because it is to stabilize the global market. I mean, we happen to have the largest tool of any country in terms of the volume of our strategic petroleum reserves.”
ABC News Correspondent Alex Presha then asked, “Do you feel like we’re close to that stabilization? Do you think things are still going to still continue to tick up?”
Granholm answered, “Well, we are starting the driving season, not just in the United States, but in other parts of the world, too. That means demand for oil products like gasoline goes up.”
She also said, “The driving season is beginning. There will be more demand for gasoline, more demand for oil. That will cause additional upward pressure, like it does every year, but now it’s on top of already high prices. So, this is going to be a rough — from now through the end of the year, really.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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