Inflation - Don't Be Stupid
It's because of corporate greed not Biden Administration policies.
“It’s the economy stupid.” – James Carville
“Let’s work together to keep oil prices high.” – Pioneer Natural Resources CEO, Scott Sheffield message to OPEC oil minister.
For all those who are concerned about inflation and want to blame it on the Biden Administration, do the research and check your sources…
Don’t be misinformed or misled. Don’t be stupid.
According to multiple sources (the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, Reuters, the IMF, the US Senate Committee on the Budget, the Brookings Institute, S&P Global, Vox, and even the Heritage Foundation) US taxpayers subsidize the fossil fuel industries to the tune of over $20B annually. Not a typo; TWENTY with a B.
And that’s not all. As reported by Vox, in 2018 a study done by Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a clean-energy advocacy group composed of retired military and business leaders attempted to put a number on the costs to the US military of defending oil supplies, everything from guarding shipping lanes to maintaining troop commitments in key oil-producing nations. They concluded “conservatively” that the annual cost at that time was over $81B. Again, not a typo.
The reason for inflation and the high price of goods and services since 2020? Greed.
“Much of the higher prices we’ve faced across the economy come back to the increased price of oil.
“Oil is an input into all sorts of goods. So, all the companies find that their inputs are more expensive. The oil price increases (in 2021) started an inflationary spiral in the rest of the economy, because all their CEOs are looking at the price of oil and the profits of oil companies and they noticed that people would pay.” (Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project.)
“The collusion in the oil industry tells us an important story about (why) inflation is happening. Inflation … isn’t simply the result of government spending as some might argue, or the invisible hand of the marketplace. No, it’s the result of human hands at work. It’s in the tests of an oil CEO (specifically Scott Sheffield of Pioneer Natural Resources) to a foreign oil minister saying, “Let’s work together to keep oil prices high.” — More Perfect Union
In 2022, the oil industry experienced its highest profits ever. (over $200,000,000,000.00 Again, not a typo; $200B in profits) That same year, Americans paid the highest prices ever at the pump for gasoline. In 2023 US companies ExxonMobil profited $36B and Chevron $21B respectively. They made those profits while US taxpayers subsidized oil companies through over $14B in tax incentives and a variety of other means.
Trump attacks the Biden Administration as “globalists” and vermin that he vows to eradicate while telling oil and gas execs that he will roll back environmental regulatory safeguards, cut their taxes, and allow them to “drill baby drill” in the Arctic National Refuge and wherever they want in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for a billion dollar quid pro quo contribution to his campaign for the presidency. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09
Additionally, Trump is vowing to impose tariffs and a range of other policies that will (inflate) send prices skyrocketing for everything we buy. That assessment is according to Moody’s, the New York Times, Axios, CNBC, Bloomberg, Morningstar, and myriad others. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-win-mean-higher-inflation
High rates of inflation in the recent past are not due to Biden Administration policies. To include making the US the most prolific oil producing country in the world rightly or wrongly, Biden’s policies are bringing inflation down. The high rates of inflation in recent years are quite simply due to unmitigated greed, and Trump, in more of his perfect quid pro quo conversations, is promising to increase the impacts that greed has on every American’s everyday lives.
Trump thinks the American people are stupid.
“Stupid is as stupid does.” – Forrest Gump
Don’t be stupid.