Guest “The man is dumber than a shoe” by David Middleton
OPINION REVIEW & OUTLOOK
OPEC, Biden and Gas Prices
The President wants the cartel to pump more oil, but the U.S. to pump less.By The Editorial Board
July 6, 2021As cognitive dissonance goes, this is a classic. President Biden’s explicit policy goal is to reduce U.S. oil and gas production, limiting the global supply of fossil fuels in the name of fighting climate change. Yet his Administration is now imploring the OPEC oil cartel to pump more oil so U.S. gasoline prices don’t rise more than they already have on Mr. Biden’s watch.
Oil prices climbed to a six-year high on Tuesday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia failed to agree on increasing production quotas. Last spring OPEC slashed production quotas after crude prices plunged to $20 per barrel amid economic lockdowns and a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But energy demand has snapped back in much of the world as Covid-19 vaccines roll out, governments ease lockdowns, and freight shipments surge. U.S. petroleum consumption is now roughly where it was at this time in 2019. OPEC estimates that oil demand in industrialized countries will increase by 2.7 million barrels a day this year.
[…]
Wall Street Journal
A subscription is required to read the entire article… But the first three paragraphs tell the story. The Oil Price Dot Com version doesn’t require a subscription:
Biden Urges OPEC+ To Raise Output Amid Soaring Crude Prices
By Irina Slav – Jul 06, 2021Saudi Aramco has raised the August official selling prices of crude to Asia, as the oil market tightens, sparking fears of another oil price war and prompting the Biden administration to call on OPEC to settle its internal differences and start bringing more oil to markets, Bloomberg has reported, citing administration insiders.
Aramco has set the August OSP for Arab light at $2.70/barrel, up 80 cents per barrel from July’s price, Reuters reports, while the OSP to the United States was set up 20 cents a barrel for August.
Rising oil prices and pain at American gas pumps have prompted Biden to step into the fray.
[…]
Oil Price Dot Com
About that Russia collusion thingy…
As Biden seeks to limit U.S. oil production, reliance on Russian imports rises
Bethany Blankley | The Center Square contributor Jun 18, 2021(The Center Square) – Within months of President Joe Biden halting the Keystone Pipeline, pausing new oil and gas leases on federal lands, and imposing further restrictions on U.S. oil companies, U.S. oil imports from Russia set a new record in March.
According to International Energy Agency, U.S. imports of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia reached 22.9 million barrels in March, the highest level since August 2010. They had reached over 25 million barrels in April 2009.
Crude oil imports from Russia in March stood at 6.1 million barrels, making Russia the third-largest oil exporter to the United States.
[…]
The Center Square
In just six months, the occupier of the White House, has delivered energy dominance… Russian energy dominance:
OPINION Updated on June 14
Russia’s Putin counts Biden as oil friend as US falls behind
Russia’s exports of oil to U.S. are hovering at all-time highBy Phil Flynn FOXBusiness
President Joe Biden has been great for Russian oil and gas producers, and for Russian President Vladamir Putin, energy dominance and political dominance go hand in hand.
All policies implemented by the Biden administration have created jobs, prosperity and influence for Russia’s energy sector. This has come at the expense of U.S. producers and consumers who are now paying on average over $3 per gallon at the pump, per AAA.
While Biden talks tough ahead of a June 16 summit with Putin, calling on him to act against the Russian ransomware criminals that have attacked our energy and food chain, via Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods, his policy actions have only rewarded Russia.
[…]
Phil Flynn is senior energy analyst at The PRICE Futures Group and a Fox Business Network contributor. He is one of the world’s leading market analysts, providing individual investors, professional traders, and institutions with up-to-the-minute investment and risk management insight into global petroleum, gasoline, and energy markets. His precise and timely forecasts have come to be in great demand by industry and media worldwide and his impressive career goes back almost three decades, gaining attention with his market calls and energetic personality as writer of The Energy Report. You can contact Phil by phone at (888) 264-5665 or by email at pflynn@pricegroup.com.
Fox Business
Of course… While the US oil & gas industry isn’t thrilled with Biden’s moronic policies… >$70/bbl oil and >$3.50/mcf natural gas prices are a decent consolation prize… Thanks Joe!
When is it enough? When do people emerge with pitch forks and torches?
They already have. It happened on Jan 6.
There were no weapons brought with.
Nothing was torched, unlike your buddies with Antifa and BLM.
The only one murdered was an unarmed white woman.
“There were no weapons brought with.”
Bollocks. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/19/977879589/yes-capitol-rioters-were-armed-here-are-the-weapons-prosecutors-say-they-used
From the leftist National Public Radio article, “At least 3 dozen had “weapons”.” 3 whole dozen!!!!!
A true violent armed insurrection.
With 3 dozen “weapons” like flag poles with flags on them. American flags. Now that is a real weapon, a flag on a pole.
The good news is we are going to see who is right. From the photos, and eye witness accounts it’s looking like it will be me. They weren’t there for a picnic. They wanted to subvert democracy any way they could.
Simon or Uncle Joe .
Who is the dumber ??
Classy comment…. for a five year old.
Simple Simon, living up to his nickname, again.
So you think I’m wrong? You think those who invaded Washington were there for a picnic. Good up standing citizens who were there to right the election wrong? Haha like I said we will see if the courts see it that way. And for the record I support no group who take the law in to their own hands unlike the blinded here.
People are starting to understand the gravity of the problem. I published the following in 2020:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/11/30/ottawas-latest-climate-plan-bets-on-expensive-and-unproven-carbon-capture-technologies/#comment-3136930
SITUATION ASSESSMENT:
It’s ALL a Marxist-Democrat scam – false enviro-hysteria including the Climate and Green-Energy frauds, the full-Gulag lockdown for Covid-19, paid-and-planned protests by Antifa and BLM, AND NOW the mail-in ballot US election scam – it’s all false.
We published that the Climate-and-Green-Energy scare was a false narrative in 2002, and by 2009 I wrote that there was a covert agenda, Now the radical greens are admitting that “Global Warming aka Climate Change and Green Energy” was false propaganda, a smokescreen for their Marxist objectives.
I called Covid-19 correctly on 21March2020 – NO LOCKDOWN! Covid-19 was a relatively mild flu except for the very elderly and infirm. Covid-19 is less dangerous than seasonal flu’s of recent decades that nobody remembers – the full-Gulag lockdown was not just a huge over-reaction, it was a WHO-led scam.
The UN, the WHO, the IMF and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are using the Covid-19 false crisis to reshape the global economy into their neo-Marxist model.
In October 2019, Event 201, sponsored by the WEF, the Bill Gates Fdn, etc. simulated a global coronavirus pandemic. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about
Just months later a relatively mild Wuhan-lab-manufactured coronavirus flu was overblown into a false global pandemic, promoted by the WHO into an economy-destroying global lockdown.
The Covid-19 lockdown enabled the huge mail-in vote, where the Dems produced millions of false ballots. All the pieces of the puzzle were in place. In fact, Trump won by a landslide – the 2020 USA election was stolen by fraud.
The radical green objective is to destroy prosperity and move the USA to a planned economy – with a few rich at the top looking down on all the peasants – that describes most countries, and the USA is next if Biden wins.
We stand at the abyss. If Biden wins, it will be the end of freedom. Europe and Canada have already fallen far down that “poverty road to Venezuela”. If America falls, there will be nowhere left to run to.
Post Script:
Canada is finished, thoroughly corrupted by Trudeau and his team. Alberta has carried the entire country financially for generations through our oil wealth – a million dollars per Alberta family has been donated to the rest-of-Canada since 1961. The average Canadian is too innumerate and illiterate to understand what is happening to him – sheep to the slaughter…
Why do you disrespect shoes?
Exactly. Shoes are very emotionally sensitive. They have soles…
.
.
.
Give me a break, it was either bad puns or paying attention to my Skype meeting!
But Joe’s just a sock-puppet.
How do soles fit in?
If the shoe fits… 👞
At least we know shoes have a sole. A soul maybe missing in some politicians.
Why disrespect shoes?
Because they’re all so straight-laced!
Because David is their arch enemy!
It was all done tongue-in-cheek anyway!
These things write themselves…..
Because half of them are Leftists. Only half of them are right – surprisingly all the time!
It’s part of the grand plan, they want oil prices so high that ‘ruinables’ will look cheap !
Biden’s policies are so lame as to offer support for any number
of conspiracy theories as to what the Administration is really up to, as the supposed reasons are so manifestly stupid. I would propose that Biden really is that dumb.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.”
— Barack Hussein Obama
Except Joe Biden himself hasn’t made a decision himself, except what flavor ice cream to get, in a couple of years. It would be better if we came up with an acronym to encompass “the person or committee responsible for that in this administration”. Suggestions anyone? Nominations?
Second quibble: don’t call this administration dumb. Or even incompetent. If they were merely incompetent chances are their policy decisions would actually help the country about half the time. With a 100% effective rate of “incompetence” it’s time to conclude the destruction is intentional and deliberate.
The Politburo?
The CCP?
the Committee Responsible for All Policies ?
Occam’s Razor
Don’t forget Machiavelli advised us to not attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by ignorance when talking about despots.
I had seen much the same comment attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, except the phrase was do not attribute to malice that can be explained by stupidity.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/06/covid-passports-malfunctions-discrimination-and-police-abuse-of-process/#comment-3286438
CHINESE PROFESSOR REVEALS PLOT IN SHOCK VIDEO: US ELITES AND CHINA HAVE TEAMED UP TO TAKE CONTROL OF AMERICA
December 9, 2020
https://www.revolver.news/2020/12/chinese-professor-reveals-plot-in-shock-video-us-elites-and-china-have-teamed-up-to-take-control-of-america/
[excerpt]
“Trump has been saying that Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation,” Di says. “Who helped him build the foundation? Got it?”
The crowd did get it, as chuckles rippled through the audience. In fact, watching the whole video makes it clear the audience found Di’s entire speech hilarious. To wealthy and connected Chinese, that’s America: A joke country whose elites are bought off by the rising Chinese superpower. Tucker Carlson covered the story with characteristic thoroughness and insight (click to watch video).
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are NOT in charge of policy. Biden is Senile, and Harris has an IQ of less than room temperature and neither could run a one car parade.
The globalists and Chinese Communists running our government, all three branches of the federal government and many state governments and most of academia, are INTENTIONALLY destroying our economy, and the energy sector is top priority. Without energy, no other industry can function. The food and housing markets are also being crippled. We either rise up or pack up and wait for the cattle cars.
You left out the thing called “media” which is really propaganda….and the so called “entertainment” industry which is just brainwashing and perversion ….the enemy outside is the CCP and inside it’s the demrat party. The climate change battle is just one part of the larger war which will disintegrate the country. Too bad that we are only one generation away from losing it and have to fight an eternal war against the evil criminal forces that want to destroy freedom.
That’s how it looks but with what end in mind?
Some form of retribution for something? A parallel to Pol Pot cleansing his country of evil by going back to the stone age? Destroy and rebuild in some utopian image? Some vision of a new thousand year reich? Or is it just a government level equivalent of a toddler’s tantrum?
I just don’t get it.
Exactly! I don’t get it either. Who benefits from all this destruction of the West, certainly not the wealthy in the West as their stock will fall along with the general decline. The only real victors I can see from this suicidal behavior is the CCP and Russia. And in the long run, looks like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
Fundament to an anarchist’s belief is that the current “system” is corrupted beyond repair and it is necessary to destroy it completely in order to rebuild with a socialist Utopia. This time they will get it right!
The Cloward/Piven strategy is a milder form.
I love that accidental(?) misprint, “Fundament.”
In order for “globalists” to govern globally, national government must be subservient, powerless.
President Trump was not just “ America First”. He was the inspiration to India Japan, even socialist Mexico, numerous Easter European nations, and others to reject globalization, to do what was best for their nations, and they were beginning to work together. China was dragged back to the table. The EU was being pushed In directions they did not want to go. The relatively moderate Middle East nations were recognizing Israel. Trump was winning. Small businesses were growing. Real wages were increasing. The walk-away movement was gathering steam, Production jobs were coming back to the US, India was set to replace mercantileist China, activists judges were being replaced, and other EU nations were talking about following the UK.
This is, IMV, about what is called “The Great Reset”. breaking the dollar, a new cashless digital currency allowing total control of your wealth, greatly expanded global power working hand in hand with big tech, fascism on global steroids.
And yes, it was and is incredibly short sighted, and the more they succeed, the more likely the disparate factions, united in sovereign conquest, will fraction into a savage and violent struggle of who is to really fill the power vacuum of a vanquished United States, and humbled national governments around the globe.
Revenge is part of it. The CCP is waging the Opium Wars in reverse by flooding Mexico with fentanyl precursors. Putin wants vengeance for losing the Cold War. Iran’s whole culture is based upon getting even for Ali.
As David says, it’s cognitive dissonance. Better known as doublethink.
But… the powerful underlying motive for this apparently egregious policy is: that the superior American virtue demonstrated by virtuously trying to eliminate its own fossil fuel production will shame the leaders of Russia and all the OPECs into eliminating their own oil and gas production. This policy, may appear a bit naive – even suicidally stupid – to the unindoctrinated, but – never underestimate the power of knowing that you’re saving the planet.
I have $50 that says oil will be $500 a barrel in 2030. Any takers?
I’ll take that. $20. Even odds, although your confidence should give me 3:1 (but of course, you are a smart rock). Now we just have to live that long.
Oil will in the near future be classified into “bad oil” and “good oil”.
“Bad oil” will be a fossil fuel that is combusted for transport etc, while “good oil” will be used in smart phones, clothing, plastic fashion accessories, etc.
Already happening…
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/29/energy-transition-blue-oil-edition/
Like the good oil and coal used to make solar panels and wind turbines.
Are you doing overs / unders? What odds?
I paid $72.27 before tip for a steak dinner for two at a middling decent chain steakhouse less than a week ago. One drink apiece before dinner, six ounce sirloins, two sides, coffee and a shared dessert after. Senior discount.
Nine years from now, with this bunch in power? I expect to fork over at least seven or eight of those Benjamins for the same thing. (Assuming we are still permitted meat. Tofu with red food coloring I expect will be at least a little bit cheaper.)
Trump Russia colluuuusion right Simon?
For an eyeopener, I highly recommend bookmarking this website.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/07/08/day-two-the-fourth-branch-of-government-the-intelligence-branch/
Day Two – The Fourth Branch of Government, The Intelligence BranchJuly 8, 2021 | Sundance
…read the entire article here….it is well worth your time….
If we start with this interview between Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald, we can see they get a lot of the foundation correct, but they misaligned the cornerstone.
When Barack Obama was installed in January 2009, the Democrats held a 60 seat majority in the U.S. Senate. As the people behind the Obama installation began executing their longer-term plan {SEE DAY ONE}, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a tool to create the Intelligence Branch; it was not an unintentional series of events.
When Obama was installed, Dianne Feinstein was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and Democrat operative Dan Jones was her lead staffer. Feinstein was completely controlled by those around her including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The CIA was in the process of turning over personnel following the Bush era, and as a result of a massive multi-year narrative of diminished credibility (Iraq WMD), a deep purge was underway. Obama/Holder were in the process of shifting intelligence alignment and the intensely political Democrat Leader Harry Reid was a key participant.
WATCH the Interview:
https://youtu.be/qzcOtzZRizc
That article is quite an eye opener and helps explain why Congress is so ineffective at oversight.
It’s serious however for a laugh watch Tucker Carlson’s rollicking interview with Mark Steyn (down the page).
But at least no more mean tweets!
Does Biden actually expect us to believe that he is does something for the climate when he (essentially) transfers domestic oil and gas production overseas resulting in increased imports?. Where is the drop in global CO2 emissions?
Same thing with mining rare earths and other metals. Is the fact that the mining is done in China and elsewhere for importation to the U.S. supposed to matter to the environment on a global level?
I suppose Biden is going to tell us all that he actually knows what he is doing. Yeah, so did the engineers of the the Titanic. I will never understand how someone like Biden finds is way into the White House.
…..and will someone please tell the Democrats that the White House is not a retirement home?
Uh, the answer is dumb voters and cheating in the election. This Biden creature has never had a job in his life….He doesn’t just lie – he does bold face lies. A little state is responsible for first allowing him in office….they could have elected a dog or goat or horse and we would be much better off.
Many will believe he is saving the world
Sad, low information, low IQ sheeple.
Please understand, they cheated!
What about the economic fundamentals like balance of payments and national debt?
Economics isn’t my field so maybe I’m missing something but shouldn’t even the dumbest congress critter think those things are really really important?
“Balance of payments” to a congress critter is balancing how much different lobbyists are willing to pay. They are very good at that job; identifying who can write the biggest check.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2021/06/Life-without-Petroleum1.mp4
Note to Charles the Moderator
For the sake of accuracy, please use David’s Blank Looks Matter picture in the future instead of that picture from when Biden was Vice President. (That white flag with an eagle is the official flag of the office of the VP. The Presidential flag is dark blue, so we know that’s an old picture from at least 5 years ago before he completely lost his marbles).
I said on January 22 that Biden is the best gift Putin could ever have hoped for (and for us in canada) as he constrains supply which will only drive up price.
Leftists continue to think that if they constrain supply in North America we’ll stop using oil, which is ridiculous.
Demand going up, price going up, my business booming.
Thanks Joe, good boy, couldn’t be better policy if written by Putin himself
Dementia Joe?
All economies function on four basic cornerstones:
1) Capital investment
2) Raw materials
3) Energy
4) Labor
Name four things the democrat sponsored Green New Deal and their other agendas are opposed to.
Once you do that, you can see what the plan is. It’s not rocket science.
Under Trump, for the first time in 75 years, the US was 100% energy independent, oil was cheap, electrical costs were low (could have been lower had we not built so many unreliable wind/solar farms), and we had the best economy in 75 years…
Since Biden’s election: crude oil prices have doubled, Russian cyber attacks on US oil pipelines actually caused gas lines (not seen since Carter), gas prices up 30%, plastic prices up 100%, transportation costs doubled, agricultural costs up 50%, inflation at 5%, the huge number of regulation/mandates Trump rescinded have all been reinstated, massive corporate and individual taxes will soon be greatly increased, Demented Joe’s disastrous performance at G7 and Russia Summit made US a laughingstock, HUGE amounts of money to be wasted on expensive/unreliable/unsustainable wind/solar projects etc.,…
Demented Joe is one of the worst presidents ever.
They’ll soon have to keep Demented Joe locked in his basement as his mental decline is getting worse on a daily basis.
Biden has no influence over anything. He is nothing but an avatar.
Forrest-san:
Agreed. Rumor has it Susan Rice seems to be running the show with input from the Obamas, Pelosi, Schumer and Sanders.
Joe is just an empty sock puppet with no decision making powers nor abilities.
”THEY”, as Biden often inadvertently says, tell him what to read on the teleprompter and give him notes to read back to the press when asked softball questions (which are almost always vetted).
it’s sad such a man has become President.
I’ll trade you a former bouncer/drama teacher for your sock puppet.
Ironically, driving up the price of oil will transfer wealth from consuming states (mostly Democrat-controlled) to producing states (mostly Republican-controlled). I feel a “windfall profits” tax coming back.
No they’re going to “eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies”.
Let me translate that from the original socialist for you. They’re no longer going to let you keep ANY of the profit, and will revert to the natural 100% tax.
You see, they only “subsidize” economic activity that is “good”. Those things have a low tax rate like 60%. (You see the 40% subsidy there, right?)
RAY McGOVERN: Once We Were Allies; Then Came MICIMATT
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/05/08/ray-mcgovern-once-we-were-allies-then-came-micimatt/
MICIMATT’s Joe is the logical conclusion of decades of propaganda…
Trouble is, some here also sound like MICIMATT’s ….
PS. for the humor challenged : Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex
and he’s added 33% to the price of petrol/diesel here in the UK since he was elected.
How long ago is that?
Then Boris the Bonking Buffoon tells us that annual inflation is running at (circa) 0.6%
Is there any escape from these clowns
Pitchforks and torches.
It must be great being Joe Biden.
Every morning you wake up and somebody tells you that you are president of the United States.
Isn’t that Dr. Jill’s job?
Kind of a 50 First Dates thing with the good doctor playing the part of Adam Sandler I guess.
His “artist” son must be on some other boards…
Hey! I’ve got some very smart shoes
“Energy Independence” MATTERS!
Consequences seem to be ignored in Progressive policies.
Blank look? Looks kind of wall-eyed to me, like one eye works and the other one doesn’t.
If oil drops to $20/barrel, why is gas at the pump so high? It won’t get vehicles off the road, and raises the price of consumer goods. Truckers are paying higher prices, too, for no real reason.
This is ridiculous.
And welcome your brothers the Taliban.
OPEC can’t believe their luck. Americans elected a “leader” who can’t tie his own shoes, a “leader” who thinks energy independence is a sin, a “leader” who wants Americans to enter the global economic contest with both hands an one leg tied behind their back, a “leader” whose greatest accomplishment is choosing ice cream, a “leader” who invites ridicule by foreign enemies and even his own friendly press, a “leader” who, once his neck is firmly in the grip of America’s most rabid enemies, tells those same enemies where his weakest points are and then begs pathetically not to be hit there.
And now that same “leader” is witlessly inviting foreign powers and enemies to enslave America again through the mighty sword of energy dependence. In less than a half year he took the US from energy dominance to a country that begs its enemies for favors.
Not only that but totally lacks a sole.
Let me see if I understand this. Biden kills the Keystone pipeline, ending thousands of jobs to create lower paying solar jobs. Then he kills drilling on federal lands, reducing natural gas production, and coal production and prices shoot up, to replace the gas. Now he is on his knees begging Russia and Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, after killing oil production at home.
I just wanted to make sure I had that right.
It’s called leadership, he is saving the Planet and at the same time publicly shaming Xi-Jing and Putin and the various Ayatollah’s in the Middle East. They will all soon realize their folly and fall in line behind Biden’s extraordinary leadership example. Make the Planet Great Again (MAPA)
I was being somewhat sarcastic here, and then I saw this just right now on DailyMail:
John Kerry will travel to Russia next week to discuss ‘global climate ambition,’ the State Department announced.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9773557/John-Kerry-fly-Russia-discuss-climate-change.html
Hope and Change you can believe in is back!
Kerry is a grade A moron.
I like to think, that as he is Biden’s ‘sole-mate’, his Grade A is with Honours, so he should be referred to as an ‘Ah Sole’.
Any sane climate true believer that actually cared about the country and the environment would push to block oil from middle eastern and Russian sources, since they don’t have the same level, any level, of environmental protection, and in fact block all oil imported by tanker as to risky for the environment. That would prop up oil production inside the country, creating a high level of employment and keeping the money in the country, which would go a long way to subsidizing the hurt from the unreliable not-really-renewable energy sources the clim-unists want to force on us. But Biden and company look like they are just in the back pocket of foreign oil companies, bought and paid for to remove the US as a significant oil producer.
Every action Biden takes harms the United States and others.
He’s taking money out of poor people’s pockets with the increased price of gasoline, and the increased price of gasoline will cause increased prices in everything transported, which is just about everything.
It’s Bizarro world at the White House. They do the opposite of what they should be doing.
And the worst part is that we have to hope that this demented old coot can hang on another 3-1/2 years until January 2025, so that we don’t end up with an even worse situation.
That’s too funny – Biden has managed to unite Dems and the GOP – all praying for the health and safety of Biden so that the US doesn’t end up with President Harris.
Yep. At least China Joe used to have a brain.
<b>Notice the missing context and how it totally changes the meaning?<b/>
Aramco has set the August OSP for Arab light at $2.70/barrel, up 80 cents per barrel from July’s price, Reuters reports, while the OSP to the United States was set up 20 cents a barrel for August.
It [Aramco] set the August OSP for the flagship Arab light crude at $2.70 a barrel <b>above the Oman/Dubai average for Asia<b/>, up 80 cents from July.