Topical

 

As stated by others, I enjoy your takes on most of this and linked sources.

I do think this point leaves out a key point, especially as the discussion has gone down the route of buying futures.

If we’re all being led around by the nose as you’ve suggested, then policy points have an effect regardless of how they’re actually carried out. If both parties are merely stating that they’re going to cancel fossil fuel and fracking projects, block drilling on national parks, stop all fracking, ect, or one party is promising “drill baby drill” without planning to follow through; then either the people buying futures are either equally duped, or their pricing reflects they’re planning for the contingency the party in charge will follow words with action.

tldr: if I understand you correctly, it’s that both parties lie, and aren’t doing anything to effect oil production, it’s the futures market that’s setting prices

I think it needs to be added that it doesn’t matter if the public is deceived by this or not, or if the policy is followed through or not, but the stated goal will affect futures. To which I’d argue different political party positions do effect gas prices.

 

So which is it? You can't have it both ways. Well, unless you're bisexual.

But seriously, your argument with the oil production doesn't correlate. 2019 oil production is not far off what it is now and gas prices were much cheaper. Also inflation was much lower. So where does that leave the adjusted for inflation 2019 gas prices? Was God Emperor Trump really our Lord and Savior then?

2022 and 2023 oil production is about what it is now. In 2024 we finally see gas prices start to fall. Nowhere near 2019 prices but at least not 2023 prices and certainly not 2008 gas prices. Remember those? So if the continued high production leads to lower prices at the pump, we should see gas prices continue to fall. But they haven't as they continue to go up and down locally by 40 cents in a two week period at times.

Is this the effect of those futures being traded? Possibly. Quite frankly, I don't know **** about oil and gas pricing or production. Which is a fact I think is being ignored. Not all oil turns to gas, etc. The price of a barrel of oil isn't directly tied to a gallon of gas.

I'm not trying to argue with Joe. I'm just saying there are plenty of factors us layman have no clue about. It's like people saying they like to talk about politics. Unless you're a politician, you're not talking politics, you're just blowing hot air. Just my 2 cents of course.

 

Certainly, all politicians do lie. Often in the form of campaign promises which are either unlikely to be kept, or just outright impossible.

However, it is an oversimplification to say that there is one single factor setting the price of any commodity. Many different factors all interact, with politicians being one.

And I don't consider the commodities markets / futures traders to be a "cause," they are merely a mechanism of action.

 

agreed, and I don’t believe it’s one single source either.

I should elaborate on my point, I was trying to make the case that you can’t take responsibility away from heads of political parties for their stated policy. If someone says “gas is expensive because of Biden” it might be a gross oversimplification, but it’s not entirely wrong. The powerful political statements Biden and democrats have made will affect gas prices, it doesn’t matter if it’s because we’re deceived or it’s pragmatism. Even though it doesn’t align with your points about production and exports or policy that has been put into action. I’m saying the pen, (policy), can be mightier than the sword (legislation)

 

You can, and many more.

I know that it is comforting to think that there is one single cabal which determines the price of goods.

That may have been true in the Soviet Union, but in a global marketplace, even one beleaguered by taxes and tariffs and other government meddling, so many different factors all influence the consumer retail cost of gasoline (or crab legs, or whatever) that it'd likely be impossible to construct a coherent diagram of how commodities prices work.

 

To give some idea of how complex the oil market is, consider the following:

Earlier, I quoted statistics about US oil exports. I did not clarify that those numbers are gross exports, not net exports.

Because the US also imports oil.

While oil is fungible, it is not without cost to transport. There do exist some pipelines in North America to easily facilitate the movement of oil (and refined petroleum products) between ports and refineries, but their capacity is not infinite, and they are obviously not everywhere.

So there are times when it makes sense, for instance, to export oil from Texas to Central America, while simultaneously importing oil from Canada into Wyoming.

Net petroleum imports into the US peaked in 2005, and in October 2019, they reached zero. Since then, the US has been a net exporter of petroleum.

Also, while some gross importation does still occur as explained earlier, the amount of oil which we import from the OPEC and Persian Gulf states remains nearly zero. Canada and Mexico now account for 70% of all US imports of crude oil.



So, to say "Well, it's complicated..." is an understatement.

 

 

US farms are already subsidized with our/your tax money.
Climate change is real, not saying it's related to anything humans do but it is a slow change and nothing that we see in our short life. Start at the Younger Dryas and Gobekli Tepi, it wouldn't be possible for hunter gatherers in today's climate to build it.

 

that one time we talked about the press being propaganda.

 

A public service announcement from Douglas Adams:

 

Now that's an understatement.



The presently-active US Farm Bill was signed into law by President Trump in 2018, and consists of $867 billion in spending over six years. That's not meant as a hit against Trump. Nearly every US President since Herbert Hoover has signed a Farm Bill, Trump was merely the most recent beneficiary of that particular longstanding government / corporate establishment pact.


Like every good pork bill, of course, less than half of that goes to things which the name of the bill actually suggest. The rest of it loosened immigration policy, removed the requirement that food stamp (SNAP) recipients actually work, punished companies which invest in small-scale urban food production, extended Federal crop-protection insurance to cover marijuana crops (which are still illegal at the Federal level, mind you), and provided incentives for rural electricity companies to borrow money from the Fed.

I swear I'm not making any of that up.


Now, this sort of subsidy was sympathetic and easy to get behind back in the 1930s, when 100% of US farms were family-owned operations and the country was in the throes of the great depression and the dustbowl era simultaneously.

It makes less sense today, when the family farm is but a distant memory and agribusiness in the US is dominated by five mega-corporations (Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Tyson) whose revenues, collectively, exceed half a trillion dollars per year, and which employ more lawyers and accountants than farmers.

Nothing is so immortal as a corporate subsidy.

 

 

This was cute:

https://cdn.videy.co/pylz4ZFx.mp4#t=0.001

 

well this is honestly shocking to read in the WP:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ing-groceries/

 

It’s hard to exaggerate how bad Kamala Harris’s price-gouging proposal is.

Fixed that for them.

 

Amazing to watch the black man talk all over the white woman, and have no one on the panel tell him to let her talk.

 

I didn't see a black man. Must've been watching a different video.

 

watch both.

 

wow. im shookith.