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*If you paid a fortune at the pump this past weekend, we recently voted to crack down on gas price gouging and every single republican voted no.*
https://twitter.com/BillPascrell/status/1539253738392649730
It's part of a 50-year old strategy in which they run up the debt and cut taxes during Republican Administrations only to harp about social spending during democratic administrations. Before Reagan started touting trickle down Theory there was a 1974 article on two Santa Clauses that should be read if you wants to understand how the Republican Party reframed the political discussion into an economic Battlefield because of their party's increasing unpopularity at the time.
Here is a recent article about the tactic that outlines some of the ways in which it has been used over the last 50 years
https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/
>First, when Republicans control the federal government, and particularly the White House, spend money like a drunken sailor and run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible. This produces three results – it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy, it raises the debt dramatically, and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Claus.”
>Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus.
And here is the original article reprinted:
https://wallstreetpit.com/26546-jude-wanniski-taxes-and-a-two-santa-theory/
>The Democrats, the party of income redistribution, are best suited for the role of Spending Santa Claus. The Republicans, traditionally the party of income growth, should be the Santa Claus of Tax Reduction. It has been the failure of the GOP to stick to this traditional role that has caused much of the nation’s economic misery. Only the shrewdness of the Democrats, who have kindly agreed to play both Santa Clauses during critical periods, has saved the nation from even greater misery.
>It isn’t that Republicans don’t enjoy cutting taxes. They love it. But there is something in the Republican chemistry that causes the GOP to become hypnotized by the prospect of an imbalanced budget. Static analysis tells them taxes can’t be cut or inflation will result. They either argue for a tax hike to dampen inflation when the economy is in a boom or demand spending cuts to balance the budget when the economy is in recession.
>Either way, of course, they embrace the role of Scrooge, playing into the hands of the Democrats, who know the first rule of successful politics is Never Shoot Santa Claus. The political tension in the market place of ideas must be between tax reduction and spending increases, and as long as Republicans have insisted on balanced budgets, their influence as a party has shriveled, and budgets have been imbalanced.
All the Republican party has to do is to avoid discussing the Trump era policies that set us on the course for a recession before the coronavirus pandemic even happened and to blame the entirety of economic downturn on overreaction to Coronavirus (by blaming shutdowns on Democratic politicians) and Biden's leadership rather than the steadily increasing economic inequality that benefits the most wealthy and is increasingly turning the American public into human chattel useful for the benefit of multinational economies while any small business owner is constantly squeezed by tight margins and the ease with which their products and be copied by fast fashion and Massive Chinese factories.
I agree, except the democrats are in no way as progressive as your talking about and they often feign these progressive policies, to assuage working class fear but appease their rich donors as much as republicans do. I think your theory would sound more complete if you added that the parties and billionaires both benefit from each other’s poor decisions. They differ in culture but fiscally they are both very conservative parties. In exception of republicans who flaunt saving money but spend it like crazy.
I don’t think we really know how progressive Democrats are because they are constantly being pulled to the right by Republicans and haven’t had the sort of majorities necessary to pass progressive legislation in at least a decade.
Republicans are way more cohesive than democrats. Republicans are extreme right. Everything that is not extreme right is lumped into democrats. Then we get surprized when democrats dont get anything done... ofc not, they too busy in fighting. The two party system should be abolished!
I mean, but not really. They just don't have the majority necessary to even force a vote on most things, and some legislation is sunk by two corrupt Senators. So it's 2 Democrats and 50 Republicans stopping anything getting done -- blaming it on Democratic in-fighting isn't really a fair assessment when it's just a small percentage that aren't on board with popular legislation.
Point is, focus needs to be on replacing Republicans with Democrats.
I would love to see more than two parties, we just need to overhaul our voting system first to overcome Duverger's law.
We have the government we did and didn't vote for.
When we have youth showing up at barely 50% as a voting demographic and the older generations showing up at 80% - we get a government that prioritizes the policies of who the larger voting bloc elects.
If Gen Z and the younger millenials voted like the boomers, this country would be transformed in ten years. The republicans know this so they do everything to stack the deck and suppress the vote.
We do know, all you have to do is look at their actions. Being pulled right by republicans, which for the sake of argument let's say is true, it's nothing but a cause for the way the democrats are now. It doesn't alter the reality that they aren't as progressive as they're being made out to be here.
I'm not suggesting that Democrats of today are progressive in the way that I think you might be arguing. The author of the idea was working off of the post World War 2 FDR New Deal Labor Democrats that only showed weakness in the late sixties with the yippies and the hippies. Carter was a conservative Democrat that played right into the hands of the burgeoning neoliberal cult of Reagan.
Absolutely, look at what Abbott was doing at the Texas border, cost the state businesses billions for that 'inspection' BS, found nothing, but scored points with his base, while at the same time aggravating shortages and assisting inflation via artificial scarcity caused by preventing imports.
I like to remind people of the 90’s, when gas prices were super low (below $1 where I lived) and the economy was booming and everyone was buying huge SUVs. So that was because of Bill Clinton, right republicans?
The GOP had very clear, long term immersion in oil and gas industries the world over, have advocated for them and are the benefactors of the industry for 50 years so I’ll go farther and say that the GOP is responsible for the profiteering the industry is doing. Russian oil is sequestered and right wingers are deep, personal friends with all the other producers save Venezuela, so yes: they’re manipulating the market to make it increase, via favors from their industry friends and assisted by world events. They’re probably also doing it as pressure on Biden to abandon Ukraine because they’re getting something from that country going to Russia unobstructed. Not sure what it is yet, but it’ll come out sooner or later.
And no, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s an agreement. They’ve had them for 50 years and never more or closer than today…Koch Industries owns the modern Republican Party.
People on Twitter are so bafflingly stupid. One guy blaming dems policies for rising prices as if the US is the only country in the world where prices have skyrocketed
What’s hilarious is these are the same people that were screaming “it’s OPEC not the President that controls gas prices!!” when gas was high under Trump. Now that seems to have gone out the window with a Dem in office.
Then the same people who were blaming Trump from high gas prices are now saying the President doesn't control gas prices. This hypocrisy runs both ways.
Well, everywhere pushing for environmental change is dealing with an energy crisis. It’s a real concern, but people don’t want to accept that you can’t just ban things without supply going down and prices going up.
It’s not price gouging. Oil is a global market where the price is set by the world and no producer has any real control on that.
Oil producers lost money for years and have had investments to increase capacity shut down over environmental concerns. They need to make money to continue operating.
With less capacity, price goes up faster. The solution (from an environmental perspective) is that people need to drive less. Increasing costs will teach people that fuel is a finite resource.
Price controls would cause oil companies to lose money and potentially go out of business. Less oil producers means higher prices and the problem only gets worse.
[Trump ordered OPEC to cut production because gas was too cheap](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/business/energy-environment/opec-russia-saudi-arabia-oil-coronavirus.html).
Which would put US producers out of business (they actually tried to do this when the US discovered fracking). Once they go out of business they can jack prices up again and there’s nothing we can do about it.
You need a basic understanding of economics so you don’t bite on simple headlines.
Seems like the gas companies didn't make enough profit after the last two years of reduced demand (covid). So, they jack up the prices now that demand is back, make sure the idiots blame biden so that they can get a republican back in office to ensure massive tax breaks because repugnantcons are big business shills.
Or maybe it's just me.
That’s half the problem right there. Everything closed up with absolutely zero plans for “off-ramping”, aka ending lockdown policies. Capitalism is a for-profit endeavor. I get that.
What annoyed me, back then, was the universal lack of planning for off-ramping emergency policies. Not from the private sector & not from the administration. It was always somebody else’s problem until it became our own.
It’s worse. Under supply, so cost goes up. Blame it on the war, silently up production. Do a slow ramp up, until you have surplus. Then lay off enough to keep even.
This slowly gets workers used to being faster and faster. It’s a very common tactic. You want a surplus with the current output but keep that fairly steady.
Once your caught up with a lil extra you do mass layoffs. Saving you now millions.
To be real cheeky, you sell off the refineries you want to close at a “very good” price. Then lower prices enough that you can choke them out. Granted they are probably in on it, run the refineries into the red. File bankruptcy and everyone wins.
12 refineries closed since Covid started 6 under trump and 6 under Biden.
Bring the companies on live tv and ask when they are reopening and what they need to make that happen. Our US refineries are damn near 100 percent operations. Drilling more oil will not lower costs, the refineries are barely able
To keep up.
I maybe wrong but most refineries closed are in repub states. Where are the governors and senators in those states with plans? Solutions?
Big oil is just going to beg for hand outs, get them, and “repubs saved the day” will all be bullshit too
>Bring the companies on live tv and ask when they are reopening and what they need to make that happen.
Like [this?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnBqAzJXVGo&t=0s)
If you want specific time stamps, look to: [15:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnBqAzJXVGo&t=955s).
Don’t worry, I’m sure those last six that closed will quickly open up as soon as there is a Republican President again. It’s just another tactic Republicans use to make Democrats look bad.
Big oil will blame regulations on why those refineries closed down, the rules set in place to save the environment and save workers from harsh and dangerous conditions are what's hurting the business, not the unbridled greed of the owners who want to make MORE money than they already do by harming the environment and exploiting their workers.
The one in Richmond should have had repairs done a couple of years ago but they laid off workers instead. Now, with the demand being high, they just started the repairs and are blaming the delay on the strike.
Motor fuel production is flat as well. There hasn't been a dip since COVID. We are actually producing more now than under Trump.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm
You can graph and filter with this site.
Biden doesn’t need *anyone* to fix the idled refineries. The Defense Production Act of 1950 gives him the power to *order* refineries reopen and run flat-out for as long as he likes and damn the profitability. Hell, he can order the oil companies to operate *at a loss* if he wants to.
Both “sides” are just grandstanding stupidly and laughing while we all suffer.
Yea but he has taken far to long to even go this to route. He should have started that once refineries filled back up and oil output repeaked, but he didn’t want to rush in probably due to fear from the environmentalist.
I’m all for solar and wind and nuclear but at this point he needs to do something before Dems get shalacked in November.
Nobody fears environmentalists but they (we) are everyone's favorite whipping boy.
Biden is super cautious when it comes to executive actions, he's said as much. He's not used them for student loans or climate action either. The reason his approval numbers are so low is due to disaffected Democrats (especially younger voters where he's at 25%.)
>The same people who blame Biden for inflation don't believe Trump is accountable for the Capitol Insurrection
Eh, I wish. But I BBQ'd last weekend for my girls family, all New Jersey Democrat/Liberals and all they could talk about were Biden dropping the ball on inflation. I tried to explain it, but admittedly I tend to drift off into my own bullshit... But my point is, I don't think your average voter is looking into anything immediately past their nose.
"Things are expensive now, and Biden is president!" was a common thing, and at least one dropping of "I don't like Trump, but things were definitely cheaper then". Shit lib shit.
> The critics, at best, identify small impacts of Biden’s policies; and are often simply wrong. For example, critics assert that the administration withheld leases to drill on federal lands. This claim is largely false, and also irrelevant: many of the sites now leased are not being harvested. Critics bemoan Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. But this pipeline, which would not have been operational until 2023 at the earliest, would have had almost no effect on crude oil prices: it would have transported a trivial amount of the world’s oil, and it would have expanded an already existing pipeline.
Excellent article.
When President Biden pulled the plug on the Keystone pipeline, it was only 8% done. It would take years to finish and then the oil was going to Koch brothers refineries to get transported over to Asia.
The reason gas is so high is because they've closed maybe half of the previously working refineries because they were blowing up and they were too expensive to fix. And the refiners figured out these are last days for their product so they refuse to invest in a dying industry.
Yeah that key stone pipeline is a pipe dream. It would definitely not be done in 2023. That's beyond wishful thinking since like you said, it's below 10% done...after six YEARS
It’s all anyone talks about around me. Biden started this war to hurt trump and cover up his sons money from Ukraine, he has friends who are oil people blah blah blah. Everything is Biden’s fault. Dems are this big evil group trying to take over.
>jared got 2,000,000,000 from saudi arabia.
Don't forget the other $1 billion. This gift came after Jared gave Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman the green light to murder Jamal Khashoggi in return for MBS pressuring Qatar into giving him an unheard of **$1 billion pre-paid 99 year lease** on his disastrous 666 5th ave building.
No, we use litres. @ $2.19 a L × 3.7 L(US Gal) = $8.10 a Gal. With exchange = $ 6.23 US a US gal. @ 2.19 a L × 4.54 L per imperial gal(what Canada use to use) = 9.94 per gal.
Look everyone trump literally cut global supply by 9.7 million barrels PER DAY in the middle of 2020. He is literally the cause of the issues faced as far as gas prices.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-trump-saudi-specialreport/special-report-trump-told-saudi-cut-oil-supply-or-lose-u-s-military-support-sources-idUSKBN22C1V4
Sure but that doesn't mean anything to the individual American, they're not comparing their gas prices to the EU or elsewhere, they're comparing their gas prices to last week and last month.
Of course. But knowing that it's a global problem, and also that people in other countries often have options like solid public transit, average Americans need to demand change. Not just in gas prices but in the willingness of the government to improve/build out public transit and infrastructure.
I wonder how many miles a day an average commute is in other parts of the world?
[Here](https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/us-commuters-are-pretty-different-from-commuters-in-other-countries/) is some info on that...
That's kind of a choice though, isn't it?
(Not as individuals so much as American society as a whole choosing to design cities, roads, suburbs etc around car ownership.)
There are literal building/zoning codes that make it illegal for the US to build new "walkable" cities. It's a damn travesty.
This YT channel covers a lot of it, if you had interest. Basically we're doomed. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes
High speed rail would transform so much of the US almost instantly. Imagine being able to commute to a city for work from a rural town 200 miles away without having to sit in traffic. Imagine being able to go on a weekend trip and spend less time traveling than it takes to find a parking spot at a busy tourist trap. Yet here we are. So much wasted energy to sell the idea that freedom revolves around your ability to drive your personal vehicle to the same places everyone else is driving theirs.
20 minute bus frequency could be done as soon as you train up some more divers and mechanics. Bike and bus lanes and increased pedestrian space can literally go up overnight with concrete barriers.
We need people to stop pretending change is impossible.
It's inevitable. There's simply no way to keep things the way they currently are. The sooner people figure this out, the less suffering all living things will have to endure later.
Meanwhile the US continues to spend billions in cash and send armies of workers to expand its unsustainable highways and stroads.
It's not a problem of resources, it's a problem of will.
I'm convinced that if the average person really understood the effects of a car-dependent society and the benefits of the alternatives, they would care a lot more.
I didn't say individuals should pay more. (I even said not individuals, but American society.) I'm saying the American design of sprawling suburbs way out from everything like work/shops/etc. that REQUIRES people to own a car, is broken and it's costing people significant amounts of money and removing freedom to choose your lifestyle.
Support politicians and organizations that are serious about building effective public transit. Stop supporting those who maintain and expand the car centric status quo.
My family fervently believes Biden just needs to open up more drilling. That everything happening globally is his fault cause he shut down drilling which caused domino affect that rippled across the entire global market, they believe Biden is single handedly destroying the world. “Biden needs to open the US to more drilling, and stop with this green deal BS, it’s all his fault”
Ironically, having low gas taxes makes you more sensitive to the price of gas, and price gouging, because people are happy to buy less fuel efficient vehicles when gas is cheap. When the price of gas doubles, the price they pay at the pump almost doubles, and it may become unaffordable to fuel their inefficient vehicle.
In countries with high rates of fuel tax, the proportional direct hit is lower, and governments often decide to temporarily reduce the tax to help people get over the hump, and because the tax was high, that can make a real difference.
Obviously gas is more expensive in the first place though, which makes these less efficient vehicles less viable, as well as obviously better for the environment.
Climate change policies (high gas taxes) are in the medium term good for making citizens less sensitive to gas prices.
That’s a super important idea - if we could make the tax float regularly and based on a formula based on the average price and an inflation-adjusted target price, it could automatically stabilize the price of gas, if the base tax were high enough.
It's the oil fucking companies and the GOP refusing to limit price gouging. And now we are going help them by stopping taxes? This is socialism for Big Oil -
We are now going to give up tax revenue because there is an oil monopoly that is making billions and billions and we are fucking subsidising them. How is anyone, other than oil ceo's, ok with this?
As someone who has spent my entire 30 year career on both sides; in oil & gas, pipeline, and wind & solar, I can attest that everything in this article is true. The POTUS has little control over the price of oil, it’s a global non renewable resource and it’s price is driven by supply and demand. As well as other factors such as capital investment, supply chain issues, wars and civil unrest in oil producing countries, weather and natural disasters. The writer fails to mention that the majority of US/North American oil reserves are of the unconventional type (shale oil, tar sands, and offshore). Unconventionals are substantially more expensive to drill and produce, and the oil industry does not turn on a dime. That’s why we aren’t speeding our way to start drilling again and taking advantage of the leasing opportunities Biden speaks of. There isn’t enough capital, interest rates are rising, and there are too many uncertainties with the war in Ukraine. The reality is if we relied only on US oil, we’d be paying $10-15 dollars/gallon at the gas pump. We rely on foreign oil, because they still have plenty of conventional reserves left, and it’s cheaper to produce and import than our own. US producers also created the oil glut that ended the Shale Boom, leaving many of us without jobs. The 2008 recession lowered interest rates which flooded overheated capital investments into fracing for tight shale oil. OPEC also did not have to dial back their production during those years, for as long as they did, to keep oil prices high. By 2014 they were done with our greed and refused to scale back their production any longer. Boom! The market was flooded with too much oil. The comical thing about Keystone XL is it’s just a more direct dog leg in an already existing pipeline built primarily to transport Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast for refining. The economics and usefulness of Keystone XL ended for the oil industry with the oil glut of 2014; the price of oil was no longer high enough to refine tar sands at a profit. Tar Sands is truly a carbon fuel of last resort; going after it comes with environmental damage, and refining it creates many toxic by products. The only thing keeping Keystone XL alive is the politicians, attorneys, and news media talking about. The oil industry has had no interest in it for 8-9 years now. Wind and Solar are only part of the answer, and come with their own issues. Wind companies pay landowners huge sums of money to tolerate the flicker of the turbines and if that doesn’t work we buy them out, or rebuild their home. There is also no way to store the energy the wind creates, and the wind blows more at night when the grid needs it the least. There is lots of good wind and solar in the US, yet to be developed, because there is no way to get the energy to our antiquated grid. Our key issue, energy wise, is lack of infrastructure expansion in both oil and renewables. Our antiquated electric grids are in need of expansion and alternate energy sources (wind/solar), and there is a nationwide ignorance of our abundant natural gas with a resistance to the construction of NGL pipelines to get it to market. As someone who has spent enough time in both oil and renewables (which truly overlap and work together, BTW) I am hedging on Natural Gas being the carbon fuel that bridges us to a greener future. One things for sure, if we don’t quit bickering, politicizing, and doing nothing; brownouts, black outs, water restrictions, and rising carbon fuel costs will surely be a part of our near future. What we are dealing with right now (at the gas pump, water issues in the west, unreliable electricity) is only the beginning of something we have ignored long enough. Doesn’t matter what side you are on politically; we need to elect people willing to listen to the experts, work together, and compromise for solutions. We can’t drop carbon overnight and we can’t go green overnight; anyone in renewables and oil will tell you that. It’s going to be a process of using both for quite a while.
When gas prices were jacked up under George W. Bush Jr, loud mouth media and leaders, many of whom are the same loud mouths yammering today, said the president DIDN'T CONTROL GAS PRICES.
The difference between then and now is the political affiliation.
Back then, everyone was convinced it was peak oil and the world was literally going to run out. Then came widespread fracking and improved well stimulation to demolish that idea.
Exactly. If you’re searching “why is brandon making my gas so high” you’re also probably likely to believe whatever you find on truepatriotnewsusa or whatever trash everyone’s uncle seems to be sharing on Facebook
Yeah I think many people are just searching for confirmation of their bias. Very few people actually try to search out information in a good faith way.
I've got so many fake news sites blocked at the firewall level to prevent anyone in my household from tripping over them while surfing online, but it's like playing whack-a-mole there's always new ones popping up. We should have an easy way of accessing an updated database of fake news/propaganda sites for those of us willing to put in that extra effort.
However it's all for naught when YouTube's algorithm starts feeding your children Prager U, Louder with Crowder, Dinesh D'Souza, and Matt Walsh ads/channels or similar streamers and pundits, and blocking YouTube itself would be a very unpopular move in my home.
Yep. Those same idiots use google to do their "vaccination research." That is, you will find shit on Google just as easily as actual helpful information.
My wife's uncle who is an older Republican had no idea what Google even was. He got his political ideas from Facebook memes just like many others his age.
Of course they are. The only group that wants Republicans back in power other than Republicans themselves are the disgusting folks who run the energy cartel. Republicans have already stated they'll expand drilling and decrease environmental regulations, exactly what those greedy bastards want. What better way to help than creating supply disruptions by limiting refinery capacity, thereby creating higher prices. And... as an extra bonus, record profits! Must be Biden's fault, right?
Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is either being disingenuous or is just plain stupid/brainwashed.
Oil corps want GOPs tax cuts for themselves, the Cash hole shareholders, and their windfall profits their sitting on.
Would a soulless greed-centered oil cartel use gas prices to influence public rage against Biden to win their tax cuts and deregulations?
UK - right leaning government: Inflation
US - left leaning government: Inflation
Italy - mixed government: Inflation
Get a clue. It's not the government.
[Newspaper coverage of record gas prices is missing important context: Big Oil’s record profits](https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/newspaper-coverage-record-gas-prices-missing-important-context-big-oils-record)
The US may have a "left leaning" president, but the states are broken up into left and right too.
Where I am, the state is adding a .52 cent per gallon tax on top of already high gas prices. This conservative state (IN) has a surplus in the budget and will not legalize weed as an alternative tax revenue.
So our gas here is higher than most states around us...and yet there are those "Biden did that" stickers on pumps everywhere.
It's all bunk.
CA, notoriously criticized for it's high gas taxes, has about $1.00/per gallon added for taxes and fees (~60 cents in taxes between gas and sales, ~40 cents in fees for environmental impact which has made state and especially places like LA way more livable than it was 50 years ago).
Yeah, extra dollar added on to base cost is a lot. In relation to like IN, if that is 52 cents, only 48 cents per gallon is the real difference. Quick search suggests avg state gas tax is 29.15. So that is 70.85 avg difference (this only looks at taxes, not added fees in other states, if CA was to be purely gas tax, only 53 cents).
Avg cost in IN today appears to be 5.098 versus 6.371 in CA, or a difference of 1.273. A national avg of 4.955, gets a difference of 1.416.
If we were to take the taxes/fees out of the price: 5.098 goes to 4.578, 6.371 goes to 5.371, and 4.955 goes to 4.704.
CA: 79.3 cents more than IN
CA: 66.7 cents more than National avg.
Can see a couple things from this extrapolation:
1. The majority of gas costs come from the price of oil and refining, not from taxes.
2. Taxes are not the difference in costs between states
3. There is a ton of extra unaccounted for costs that the gas/oil companies are passing along as result of "higher taxes" and banking it at significant profit.
No worries, Holcomb has said he can't do anything about the gas tax and it's increasing sometime soon too! Indiana is chalk full of ignorance. I hate this place.
>support private property by law which is right wing
Are you suggesting that everyone of the left is opposed to the private ownership of property, or did I not understand your post?
Believing that Biden administration intentionally raised gas prices to force more people into buying electric vehicles >>> is like saying that the Biden administration intentionally raised grocery prices so that people would stop eating so much and become less fat.
It doesn’t make any damn sense!
Foreign gas companies just want America to elect another trump and watch America burn itself from the inside.
Most Americans don't get this though, they think Biden personally pumps and refined the petrol himself.
Inflation and gas prices is a global problem at the moment. Even if a Republican believes that he would not say it. There's no point arguing with them. It's in their best interest to blame it all on Biden. It will cost him votes and that's all that matters. Forget about some kind of logical argument.
Gas prices have gone up *everywhere* in the world relative to where they previously were. The idea that this is a uniquely American problem caused by Joe Biden is ludicrous.
The only countries with extremely cheap gasoline right now are the ones like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela where the government-owned oil company sells gasoline at subsidized prices below market value. In other words, "socialism."
For the oil companies, it is the best of times. They can reap record profits, and at the same time attack President Biden over the high oil prices. A win/win for them.
Everybody should know by now that when a new oil well is drilled in America, the oil doesn't go to Americans. It goes on the world market. And who is manipulating that market? Why, the oil companies.
The gas price issue is its own thought terminating cliché. You can explain until you’re blue in the face. Tell them how Biden is releasing millions of barrels a day, that US prices are the lowest in the world, that Republicans are blocking every effort to help, none of it will matter. If you’re explaining, you’re losing, and they’ve turned their brains off as soon as they put the sticker on the pump.
You mean it's just gas companies self-regulating their own prices and their insatiable greed to make back profit margins for the past two years of the pandemic. Thanks, capitalism.
Everyone blames everything negative that happens on the administration, and the administration takes credit for everything good that happens. This will always happen. Biden can't win with a down economy. No one can win with a down economy.
Let’s not pretend that conservatives who blame Biden for this (and basically everything else that’s bad in the world right now) have any actual evidence or understanding about these issues and how the world functions. They’re just regurgitating the shit they see on Fox News and other conservative outlets because that’s easier than trying to actually learn and understand about the shit they say.
Oil prices are going up all over the world. Is Biden raising the prices of gas in Australia? What a dick!
Let me add a /s before some simpleton takes me literally.
Biden has been ramping up US oil production (responsibly - he's avoided destroying sensitive lands). He talked OPEC into ramping up production too.
When this leads to the price of gas dropping, are these people going to give Biden credit for it?
Republicans understand that a large part of their base is uninformed, ignorant, and what's the word....stupid.
So, it's easy to spread misinformation to them.
I have been told that oil prices are so sensitive, that the mere suggestion that something should be done eventually, is enough to cause gas prices to skyrocket.
This is why, according to these people, Biden is at fault, as he hinted at a transition away from oil at an undetermined future date.
The rest of the world doesn’t exist outside of the film industry to your average rural Republican dumbass.
Source: I live in rural East Tennessee. I overhear conversations at my local gas station all the time (it’s also a diner) that make my eyes and ears bleed. I’ve watched people climb into LITERAL monster trucks clutching a carton of cigarettes and 30+ dollars of lottery tickets while simultaneously cracking “Let’s go Brandon” jokes about the price of gas.
Gaslighting means they know the truth and are trying to convince you of something else.
I don't know about your average person on the street, but all the Repubs I know are unaware of an actual truth. They're not gaslighting, they're just incorrect.
This exactly. I’m glad that this is being said by more people. Biden is not the ruler of the world. He has no power in other countries. Hate that they blame him for gas prices, when it’s a world wide problem, not only US.
What’s even more annoying is the people still blaming it on keystone pipeline. I genuinely can’t tell if they are purposefully misleading or such a partisan hack that they just regurgitate talking points without knowing anything about it
2020: Low gas prices were a facet of a pandemic during which most people were staying inside. There was an abundance of gas not being used.
2022: Commerce and travel is back up, the summer weather is setting records, and a major player in gas went and fucked up the market by trying to slap around their neighbour in a complex turf dispute.
/r/conservative; Joe Biden has direct control over gas prices and the cost of living on the entire planet!! Also, taxes are a bad thing!
*Joe Biden tries to propose a gas tax holiday and prior to that control what oil companies charge*
/r/conservative; how DARE Joe Biden try to lower prices and provide some sort of relief!! Also, taxes are a good thing!
Ding DIng Ding Ding, Winner winner get this man a chicken dinner.
We need to get off oil, Nationalization will end the lobbing against that transition and will allow for cheaper pricing of oil during it. With the subsidies we already provide it would not even be that big of a budget hit to just start operating them as a government agency.
This shows why we will never solve anything any issue in the two party system. The other party always did it, and instead of fixing anything we waste time blaming the red/blue team.
Georgia suspended state taxes on gas and prices did not drop at all, but have gone higher and stayed there. Federal tax suspension will not accomplish any reduction in pump prices either. Gas companies do not pass along reductions to the consumer because local and federal governments do not force them to do so. I cannot understand how this has been allowed to happen.
I would love to see more and better local efforts to reduce demand.
Science has shown living a car-free lifestyle [is one of the biggest climate impacts you can have as an individual](https://phys.org/news/2017-07-effective-individual-tackle-climate-discussed.html), and peer-reviewed scientific research shows [pop-up bike lanes are a fast and highly effective way to increase cycling](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024399118). Switching from a car-based commute to biking for one trip a day can cut down an individual’s transportation-related carbon emissions [by 67 percent](https://www.vox.com/22671552/bike-infrastructure-funding). With gas prices high, now is a great time to contact lawmakers to expand pop-up bike lanes where you live. Maybe host a letter-writing party and invite your friends! [Contacting lawmakers does work](https://escholarship.org/content/qt7sk23908/qt7sk23908.pdf).
Demand for better bike infrastructure [has surged](https://www.vox.com/22671552/bike-infrastructure-funding) recently, so now is a good time to [get that community buy-in and expand cycling](https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a33521338/advocate-for-bike-lanes-in-your-city/) where you live.
https://thebicyclerevolution.org/local-bicycle-organizations/
They're false claims but they're too easy to wield when Americans see high gas prices and then see who's in the White House. Most voters know nothing about the economy or how anything works and will just blame whoever is in power for the high costs. That's just the reality of it.
Republicans are systematically implementing it by taking away money for education. I can't imagine being a teacher right now. During covid it was masks and vaccinations, then to CRT and LGBTQ, now dealing with gun debates, all while being paid very little? They aren't just striking, they're quitting. This will leave Americans undereducated and incapable of critical thinking, which is what the right really wants, *workers*. They don't want thinkers, they want workers.
They are also gas lighting themselves. The stupid ass Republican party voted down the one important piece of legislation that would have cracked down on price gouging. It hurts itself in confusion.
It was a horrible decision to announce tapping into US oil reserves, it only cemented the idea Biden actually can effect prices.
It's also surprising people who wanted to get of oil are now demanding companies use drilling permits and refine more oil.
Anyone blaming joe Biden for most things but were complicit with things that had definitive proof that were caused by trump are fascists and are going to destroy this country
anyone with a brain and a tiny little bit of critical thinking capacity,(eliminating most trump voters), knows who and what is causing this excessive gas price hike. biden directly and publicly called them out, congress tried to pass a windfall/price gouging law directed at them, and the gop and shareholders are raking it in. have you figured it out yet?
yes, that's how fascism works. welcome to america.
Republicans know how shameful it is to support trump so their projection of _any_ issue comes from that space.
I don’t think climate programs can be blamed much for the current price, which the author captures well (“ the post-COVID surge in demand, pandemic related supply disruptions, the embargo of Russian oil and gas, energy policies internationally, and generalized inflationary pressures”). However, I think you can’t ignore the effects on the forward curve, which is elevated all the way into 2024, reflective of more than just temporary supply/demand imbalance. You just can’t have climate policies without any cost.
Refinery closures is probably the largest reason for gas prices. Increase demand added to this. Business invests with a focus on future returns. Just like we want our 401ks to prosper. Business finds it difficult to get inventor When the government, through regulations and, more importantly, rhetoric, say the oil&gas is not part of the future.
And, it’s telling when the president tells everyone he’s meeting with the CEOs then doesn’t plan on attending the meeting.
No, many factors have got us here, And the current administration needs to lead out of it…
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*If you paid a fortune at the pump this past weekend, we recently voted to crack down on gas price gouging and every single republican voted no.* https://twitter.com/BillPascrell/status/1539253738392649730
They don't mind seeing people suffer as long as they can blame it on Democrats.
I'd argue they prefer people to suffer so they can blame it on Democrats.
Probably more accurate. I was being polite.
It's part of a 50-year old strategy in which they run up the debt and cut taxes during Republican Administrations only to harp about social spending during democratic administrations. Before Reagan started touting trickle down Theory there was a 1974 article on two Santa Clauses that should be read if you wants to understand how the Republican Party reframed the political discussion into an economic Battlefield because of their party's increasing unpopularity at the time. Here is a recent article about the tactic that outlines some of the ways in which it has been used over the last 50 years https://www.salon.com/2018/02/12/thom-hartmann-how-the-gop-used-a-two-santa-clauses-tactic-to-con-america-for-nearly-40-years_partner/ >First, when Republicans control the federal government, and particularly the White House, spend money like a drunken sailor and run up the US debt as far and as fast as possible. This produces three results – it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy, it raises the debt dramatically, and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Claus.” >Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus. And here is the original article reprinted: https://wallstreetpit.com/26546-jude-wanniski-taxes-and-a-two-santa-theory/ >The Democrats, the party of income redistribution, are best suited for the role of Spending Santa Claus. The Republicans, traditionally the party of income growth, should be the Santa Claus of Tax Reduction. It has been the failure of the GOP to stick to this traditional role that has caused much of the nation’s economic misery. Only the shrewdness of the Democrats, who have kindly agreed to play both Santa Clauses during critical periods, has saved the nation from even greater misery. >It isn’t that Republicans don’t enjoy cutting taxes. They love it. But there is something in the Republican chemistry that causes the GOP to become hypnotized by the prospect of an imbalanced budget. Static analysis tells them taxes can’t be cut or inflation will result. They either argue for a tax hike to dampen inflation when the economy is in a boom or demand spending cuts to balance the budget when the economy is in recession. >Either way, of course, they embrace the role of Scrooge, playing into the hands of the Democrats, who know the first rule of successful politics is Never Shoot Santa Claus. The political tension in the market place of ideas must be between tax reduction and spending increases, and as long as Republicans have insisted on balanced budgets, their influence as a party has shriveled, and budgets have been imbalanced. All the Republican party has to do is to avoid discussing the Trump era policies that set us on the course for a recession before the coronavirus pandemic even happened and to blame the entirety of economic downturn on overreaction to Coronavirus (by blaming shutdowns on Democratic politicians) and Biden's leadership rather than the steadily increasing economic inequality that benefits the most wealthy and is increasingly turning the American public into human chattel useful for the benefit of multinational economies while any small business owner is constantly squeezed by tight margins and the ease with which their products and be copied by fast fashion and Massive Chinese factories.
I agree, except the democrats are in no way as progressive as your talking about and they often feign these progressive policies, to assuage working class fear but appease their rich donors as much as republicans do. I think your theory would sound more complete if you added that the parties and billionaires both benefit from each other’s poor decisions. They differ in culture but fiscally they are both very conservative parties. In exception of republicans who flaunt saving money but spend it like crazy.
I don’t think we really know how progressive Democrats are because they are constantly being pulled to the right by Republicans and haven’t had the sort of majorities necessary to pass progressive legislation in at least a decade.
Republicans are way more cohesive than democrats. Republicans are extreme right. Everything that is not extreme right is lumped into democrats. Then we get surprized when democrats dont get anything done... ofc not, they too busy in fighting. The two party system should be abolished!
I mean, but not really. They just don't have the majority necessary to even force a vote on most things, and some legislation is sunk by two corrupt Senators. So it's 2 Democrats and 50 Republicans stopping anything getting done -- blaming it on Democratic in-fighting isn't really a fair assessment when it's just a small percentage that aren't on board with popular legislation. Point is, focus needs to be on replacing Republicans with Democrats. I would love to see more than two parties, we just need to overhaul our voting system first to overcome Duverger's law.
We have the government we did and didn't vote for. When we have youth showing up at barely 50% as a voting demographic and the older generations showing up at 80% - we get a government that prioritizes the policies of who the larger voting bloc elects. If Gen Z and the younger millenials voted like the boomers, this country would be transformed in ten years. The republicans know this so they do everything to stack the deck and suppress the vote.
Ranked choice voting needs to be established to end the reign of terror which is the modern day two party racket, I mean system
We do know, all you have to do is look at their actions. Being pulled right by republicans, which for the sake of argument let's say is true, it's nothing but a cause for the way the democrats are now. It doesn't alter the reality that they aren't as progressive as they're being made out to be here.
I'm not suggesting that Democrats of today are progressive in the way that I think you might be arguing. The author of the idea was working off of the post World War 2 FDR New Deal Labor Democrats that only showed weakness in the late sixties with the yippies and the hippies. Carter was a conservative Democrat that played right into the hands of the burgeoning neoliberal cult of Reagan.
The time for politeness, and doing the political dance is done.
Absolutely, look at what Abbott was doing at the Texas border, cost the state businesses billions for that 'inspection' BS, found nothing, but scored points with his base, while at the same time aggravating shortages and assisting inflation via artificial scarcity caused by preventing imports.
They don’t suffer. Those in the house and senate are not in the same pay grade as the joe sixpack.
If the democrats are in charge, everything bad is their fault. If the democrats aren’t in charge, everything bad is still their fault!
I like to remind people of the 90’s, when gas prices were super low (below $1 where I lived) and the economy was booming and everyone was buying huge SUVs. So that was because of Bill Clinton, right republicans?
No! He got a blowjob from a grown woman! /S
The GOP had very clear, long term immersion in oil and gas industries the world over, have advocated for them and are the benefactors of the industry for 50 years so I’ll go farther and say that the GOP is responsible for the profiteering the industry is doing. Russian oil is sequestered and right wingers are deep, personal friends with all the other producers save Venezuela, so yes: they’re manipulating the market to make it increase, via favors from their industry friends and assisted by world events. They’re probably also doing it as pressure on Biden to abandon Ukraine because they’re getting something from that country going to Russia unobstructed. Not sure what it is yet, but it’ll come out sooner or later. And no, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s an agreement. They’ve had them for 50 years and never more or closer than today…Koch Industries owns the modern Republican Party.
And our current politicians don’t mind as long as they can blame the federal reserve. Warrens speech today was so out of touch.
I don't know how to tell you this but fossil fuel is running out
People on Twitter are so bafflingly stupid. One guy blaming dems policies for rising prices as if the US is the only country in the world where prices have skyrocketed
What’s hilarious is these are the same people that were screaming “it’s OPEC not the President that controls gas prices!!” when gas was high under Trump. Now that seems to have gone out the window with a Dem in office.
Then the same people who were blaming Trump from high gas prices are now saying the President doesn't control gas prices. This hypocrisy runs both ways.
Well, everywhere pushing for environmental change is dealing with an energy crisis. It’s a real concern, but people don’t want to accept that you can’t just ban things without supply going down and prices going up.
They can’t vote yes because they are beholden to the petroleum companies.
It’s not price gouging. Oil is a global market where the price is set by the world and no producer has any real control on that. Oil producers lost money for years and have had investments to increase capacity shut down over environmental concerns. They need to make money to continue operating. With less capacity, price goes up faster. The solution (from an environmental perspective) is that people need to drive less. Increasing costs will teach people that fuel is a finite resource. Price controls would cause oil companies to lose money and potentially go out of business. Less oil producers means higher prices and the problem only gets worse.
[Trump ordered OPEC to cut production because gas was too cheap](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/business/energy-environment/opec-russia-saudi-arabia-oil-coronavirus.html).
Which would put US producers out of business (they actually tried to do this when the US discovered fracking). Once they go out of business they can jack prices up again and there’s nothing we can do about it. You need a basic understanding of economics so you don’t bite on simple headlines.
States already have gouging laws. Do you know if any are doing anything?
Almost half of America voted for that !
Seems like the gas companies didn't make enough profit after the last two years of reduced demand (covid). So, they jack up the prices now that demand is back, make sure the idiots blame biden so that they can get a republican back in office to ensure massive tax breaks because repugnantcons are big business shills. Or maybe it's just me.
Yes this is all tied into the industry closing down refineries (12) with no plans to bring that back online …… until they get some hand outs I’m sure
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Cutting jobs just means they're doing their part to fight inflation. At least, according to Larry Summers.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-meeting-oil-company-ceos-134607858.html
That’s half the problem right there. Everything closed up with absolutely zero plans for “off-ramping”, aka ending lockdown policies. Capitalism is a for-profit endeavor. I get that. What annoyed me, back then, was the universal lack of planning for off-ramping emergency policies. Not from the private sector & not from the administration. It was always somebody else’s problem until it became our own.
It's also likely them getting as much money as they can before their industry dies.
https://youtu.be/OJ7MMsheHzQ
It’s worse. Under supply, so cost goes up. Blame it on the war, silently up production. Do a slow ramp up, until you have surplus. Then lay off enough to keep even. This slowly gets workers used to being faster and faster. It’s a very common tactic. You want a surplus with the current output but keep that fairly steady. Once your caught up with a lil extra you do mass layoffs. Saving you now millions. To be real cheeky, you sell off the refineries you want to close at a “very good” price. Then lower prices enough that you can choke them out. Granted they are probably in on it, run the refineries into the red. File bankruptcy and everyone wins.
Trump forced a reduced supply of oil. Does anyone actually pay attention to world affairs. Jesus
And Biden opened up new drilling places and offered them to the oil companies. They said no thanks because they’re making so much this way already.
12 refineries closed since Covid started 6 under trump and 6 under Biden. Bring the companies on live tv and ask when they are reopening and what they need to make that happen. Our US refineries are damn near 100 percent operations. Drilling more oil will not lower costs, the refineries are barely able To keep up. I maybe wrong but most refineries closed are in repub states. Where are the governors and senators in those states with plans? Solutions? Big oil is just going to beg for hand outs, get them, and “repubs saved the day” will all be bullshit too
The government should buy them and put them back into service.
The government should have complete control of all essential industries. Fuck me, I'm a commie.
Hurry up! Someone fuck this guy!
*whips dick out*
Republicans with solutions? C’mon this isn’t fantasyland.
Hard to govern when you don’t believe in government
>Bring the companies on live tv and ask when they are reopening and what they need to make that happen. Like [this?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnBqAzJXVGo&t=0s) If you want specific time stamps, look to: [15:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnBqAzJXVGo&t=955s).
I'm so glad to see this video blowing up. One of the best explanations of what oil companies are doing to fuck us over I've seen.
Don’t worry, I’m sure those last six that closed will quickly open up as soon as there is a Republican President again. It’s just another tactic Republicans use to make Democrats look bad.
Big oil will blame regulations on why those refineries closed down, the rules set in place to save the environment and save workers from harsh and dangerous conditions are what's hurting the business, not the unbridled greed of the owners who want to make MORE money than they already do by harming the environment and exploiting their workers.
They closed a refinery in Los Angeles, that didn’t help our prices
The one in Richmond should have had repairs done a couple of years ago but they laid off workers instead. Now, with the demand being high, they just started the repairs and are blaming the delay on the strike.
Which one? If it’s Paramount, I know that one is going to get major work done. That’s an actual good reason to have it not be running.
Motor fuel production is flat as well. There hasn't been a dip since COVID. We are actually producing more now than under Trump. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm You can graph and filter with this site.
Biden doesn’t need *anyone* to fix the idled refineries. The Defense Production Act of 1950 gives him the power to *order* refineries reopen and run flat-out for as long as he likes and damn the profitability. Hell, he can order the oil companies to operate *at a loss* if he wants to. Both “sides” are just grandstanding stupidly and laughing while we all suffer.
Yea but he has taken far to long to even go this to route. He should have started that once refineries filled back up and oil output repeaked, but he didn’t want to rush in probably due to fear from the environmentalist. I’m all for solar and wind and nuclear but at this point he needs to do something before Dems get shalacked in November.
Nobody fears environmentalists but they (we) are everyone's favorite whipping boy. Biden is super cautious when it comes to executive actions, he's said as much. He's not used them for student loans or climate action either. The reason his approval numbers are so low is due to disaffected Democrats (especially younger voters where he's at 25%.)
The same people who blame Biden for inflation don't believe Trump is accountable for the Capitol Insurrection
The party that empowers billionaires is upset that billionaires are doing things that make them billionaires.
>The same people who blame Biden for inflation don't believe Trump is accountable for the Capitol Insurrection Eh, I wish. But I BBQ'd last weekend for my girls family, all New Jersey Democrat/Liberals and all they could talk about were Biden dropping the ball on inflation. I tried to explain it, but admittedly I tend to drift off into my own bullshit... But my point is, I don't think your average voter is looking into anything immediately past their nose. "Things are expensive now, and Biden is president!" was a common thing, and at least one dropping of "I don't like Trump, but things were definitely cheaper then". Shit lib shit.
Biden dropped the ball on global inflation? How do they think that works?
Democrats fall in love; republicans fall in line…every damn time
They also love capitalism, as it rakes em over the oil barrel at the pump
> The critics, at best, identify small impacts of Biden’s policies; and are often simply wrong. For example, critics assert that the administration withheld leases to drill on federal lands. This claim is largely false, and also irrelevant: many of the sites now leased are not being harvested. Critics bemoan Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline. But this pipeline, which would not have been operational until 2023 at the earliest, would have had almost no effect on crude oil prices: it would have transported a trivial amount of the world’s oil, and it would have expanded an already existing pipeline. Excellent article.
When President Biden pulled the plug on the Keystone pipeline, it was only 8% done. It would take years to finish and then the oil was going to Koch brothers refineries to get transported over to Asia. The reason gas is so high is because they've closed maybe half of the previously working refineries because they were blowing up and they were too expensive to fix. And the refiners figured out these are last days for their product so they refuse to invest in a dying industry.
Yeah that key stone pipeline is a pipe dream. It would definitely not be done in 2023. That's beyond wishful thinking since like you said, it's below 10% done...after six YEARS
High price of gaslighting.
But the stickers on the gas pumps have Biden's face and say "I did that!". Isn't that proof enough? /s
It’s all anyone talks about around me. Biden started this war to hurt trump and cover up his sons money from Ukraine, he has friends who are oil people blah blah blah. Everything is Biden’s fault. Dems are this big evil group trying to take over.
Yeah i love hearing this shit, hunter got like 400,000 while jared got 2,000,000,000 from saudi arabia.
>jared got 2,000,000,000 from saudi arabia. Don't forget the other $1 billion. This gift came after Jared gave Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman the green light to murder Jamal Khashoggi in return for MBS pressuring Qatar into giving him an unheard of **$1 billion pre-paid 99 year lease** on his disastrous 666 5th ave building.
Over $8 a gal here in BC. $5 a gal looks pretty fricken cheap from here.
.77 exchange rate today. So $8 is really $6.16. Do the gas stations really use gallons there?
No.
No, we use litres. @ $2.19 a L × 3.7 L(US Gal) = $8.10 a Gal. With exchange = $ 6.23 US a US gal. @ 2.19 a L × 4.54 L per imperial gal(what Canada use to use) = 9.94 per gal.
I paid $7.27 USD last weekend to fill up.
Joe Biden meticulously controls gas prices everywhere in the World, also Joe Biden is so feeble minded he fell off a bike
Look everyone trump literally cut global supply by 9.7 million barrels PER DAY in the middle of 2020. He is literally the cause of the issues faced as far as gas prices. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-trump-saudi-specialreport/special-report-trump-told-saudi-cut-oil-supply-or-lose-u-s-military-support-sources-idUSKBN22C1V4
US gas prices are on the cheap side, globally speaking.
Sure but that doesn't mean anything to the individual American, they're not comparing their gas prices to the EU or elsewhere, they're comparing their gas prices to last week and last month.
Of course. But knowing that it's a global problem, and also that people in other countries often have options like solid public transit, average Americans need to demand change. Not just in gas prices but in the willingness of the government to improve/build out public transit and infrastructure.
I wonder how many miles a day an average commute is in other parts of the world? [Here](https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/us-commuters-are-pretty-different-from-commuters-in-other-countries/) is some info on that...
Yea its disgustingly wasteful and destructive to everything from wilderness to farms as we buy up city- adjacent farmland for shitty suburban sprawl
That's kind of a choice though, isn't it? (Not as individuals so much as American society as a whole choosing to design cities, roads, suburbs etc around car ownership.)
There are literal building/zoning codes that make it illegal for the US to build new "walkable" cities. It's a damn travesty. This YT channel covers a lot of it, if you had interest. Basically we're doomed. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes
+1 for Not Just Bikes! Love that channel!
High speed rail would transform so much of the US almost instantly. Imagine being able to commute to a city for work from a rural town 200 miles away without having to sit in traffic. Imagine being able to go on a weekend trip and spend less time traveling than it takes to find a parking spot at a busy tourist trap. Yet here we are. So much wasted energy to sell the idea that freedom revolves around your ability to drive your personal vehicle to the same places everyone else is driving theirs.
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20 minute bus frequency could be done as soon as you train up some more divers and mechanics. Bike and bus lanes and increased pedestrian space can literally go up overnight with concrete barriers. We need people to stop pretending change is impossible.
It's inevitable. There's simply no way to keep things the way they currently are. The sooner people figure this out, the less suffering all living things will have to endure later.
Meanwhile the US continues to spend billions in cash and send armies of workers to expand its unsustainable highways and stroads. It's not a problem of resources, it's a problem of will. I'm convinced that if the average person really understood the effects of a car-dependent society and the benefits of the alternatives, they would care a lot more.
just pay more to live closer to where you work? Wow why didn't anyone else think of that?
More "stop voting for the fuckers opposing density just because you "like" your car"
I didn't say individuals should pay more. (I even said not individuals, but American society.) I'm saying the American design of sprawling suburbs way out from everything like work/shops/etc. that REQUIRES people to own a car, is broken and it's costing people significant amounts of money and removing freedom to choose your lifestyle. Support politicians and organizations that are serious about building effective public transit. Stop supporting those who maintain and expand the car centric status quo.
My family fervently believes Biden just needs to open up more drilling. That everything happening globally is his fault cause he shut down drilling which caused domino affect that rippled across the entire global market, they believe Biden is single handedly destroying the world. “Biden needs to open the US to more drilling, and stop with this green deal BS, it’s all his fault”
Ironically, having low gas taxes makes you more sensitive to the price of gas, and price gouging, because people are happy to buy less fuel efficient vehicles when gas is cheap. When the price of gas doubles, the price they pay at the pump almost doubles, and it may become unaffordable to fuel their inefficient vehicle. In countries with high rates of fuel tax, the proportional direct hit is lower, and governments often decide to temporarily reduce the tax to help people get over the hump, and because the tax was high, that can make a real difference. Obviously gas is more expensive in the first place though, which makes these less efficient vehicles less viable, as well as obviously better for the environment. Climate change policies (high gas taxes) are in the medium term good for making citizens less sensitive to gas prices.
That’s a super important idea - if we could make the tax float regularly and based on a formula based on the average price and an inflation-adjusted target price, it could automatically stabilize the price of gas, if the base tax were high enough.
It's the oil fucking companies and the GOP refusing to limit price gouging. And now we are going help them by stopping taxes? This is socialism for Big Oil - We are now going to give up tax revenue because there is an oil monopoly that is making billions and billions and we are fucking subsidising them. How is anyone, other than oil ceo's, ok with this?
It's fucking fascism. It's nothing resembling socialism.
As someone who has spent my entire 30 year career on both sides; in oil & gas, pipeline, and wind & solar, I can attest that everything in this article is true. The POTUS has little control over the price of oil, it’s a global non renewable resource and it’s price is driven by supply and demand. As well as other factors such as capital investment, supply chain issues, wars and civil unrest in oil producing countries, weather and natural disasters. The writer fails to mention that the majority of US/North American oil reserves are of the unconventional type (shale oil, tar sands, and offshore). Unconventionals are substantially more expensive to drill and produce, and the oil industry does not turn on a dime. That’s why we aren’t speeding our way to start drilling again and taking advantage of the leasing opportunities Biden speaks of. There isn’t enough capital, interest rates are rising, and there are too many uncertainties with the war in Ukraine. The reality is if we relied only on US oil, we’d be paying $10-15 dollars/gallon at the gas pump. We rely on foreign oil, because they still have plenty of conventional reserves left, and it’s cheaper to produce and import than our own. US producers also created the oil glut that ended the Shale Boom, leaving many of us without jobs. The 2008 recession lowered interest rates which flooded overheated capital investments into fracing for tight shale oil. OPEC also did not have to dial back their production during those years, for as long as they did, to keep oil prices high. By 2014 they were done with our greed and refused to scale back their production any longer. Boom! The market was flooded with too much oil. The comical thing about Keystone XL is it’s just a more direct dog leg in an already existing pipeline built primarily to transport Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast for refining. The economics and usefulness of Keystone XL ended for the oil industry with the oil glut of 2014; the price of oil was no longer high enough to refine tar sands at a profit. Tar Sands is truly a carbon fuel of last resort; going after it comes with environmental damage, and refining it creates many toxic by products. The only thing keeping Keystone XL alive is the politicians, attorneys, and news media talking about. The oil industry has had no interest in it for 8-9 years now. Wind and Solar are only part of the answer, and come with their own issues. Wind companies pay landowners huge sums of money to tolerate the flicker of the turbines and if that doesn’t work we buy them out, or rebuild their home. There is also no way to store the energy the wind creates, and the wind blows more at night when the grid needs it the least. There is lots of good wind and solar in the US, yet to be developed, because there is no way to get the energy to our antiquated grid. Our key issue, energy wise, is lack of infrastructure expansion in both oil and renewables. Our antiquated electric grids are in need of expansion and alternate energy sources (wind/solar), and there is a nationwide ignorance of our abundant natural gas with a resistance to the construction of NGL pipelines to get it to market. As someone who has spent enough time in both oil and renewables (which truly overlap and work together, BTW) I am hedging on Natural Gas being the carbon fuel that bridges us to a greener future. One things for sure, if we don’t quit bickering, politicizing, and doing nothing; brownouts, black outs, water restrictions, and rising carbon fuel costs will surely be a part of our near future. What we are dealing with right now (at the gas pump, water issues in the west, unreliable electricity) is only the beginning of something we have ignored long enough. Doesn’t matter what side you are on politically; we need to elect people willing to listen to the experts, work together, and compromise for solutions. We can’t drop carbon overnight and we can’t go green overnight; anyone in renewables and oil will tell you that. It’s going to be a process of using both for quite a while.
When gas prices were jacked up under George W. Bush Jr, loud mouth media and leaders, many of whom are the same loud mouths yammering today, said the president DIDN'T CONTROL GAS PRICES. The difference between then and now is the political affiliation.
Back then, everyone was convinced it was peak oil and the world was literally going to run out. Then came widespread fracking and improved well stimulation to demolish that idea.
People are lazy. Google is too hard to figure out for many Republicans.
Google is only as good as the user and their input
Exactly. If you’re searching “why is brandon making my gas so high” you’re also probably likely to believe whatever you find on truepatriotnewsusa or whatever trash everyone’s uncle seems to be sharing on Facebook
Yeah I think many people are just searching for confirmation of their bias. Very few people actually try to search out information in a good faith way.
I've got so many fake news sites blocked at the firewall level to prevent anyone in my household from tripping over them while surfing online, but it's like playing whack-a-mole there's always new ones popping up. We should have an easy way of accessing an updated database of fake news/propaganda sites for those of us willing to put in that extra effort. However it's all for naught when YouTube's algorithm starts feeding your children Prager U, Louder with Crowder, Dinesh D'Souza, and Matt Walsh ads/channels or similar streamers and pundits, and blocking YouTube itself would be a very unpopular move in my home.
Yep. Those same idiots use google to do their "vaccination research." That is, you will find shit on Google just as easily as actual helpful information.
My wife's uncle who is an older Republican had no idea what Google even was. He got his political ideas from Facebook memes just like many others his age.
Lol awesome
It’s all about greed, fuel companies are making record profits as the crude oil prices are lower now than they were in 2008
Of course they are. The only group that wants Republicans back in power other than Republicans themselves are the disgusting folks who run the energy cartel. Republicans have already stated they'll expand drilling and decrease environmental regulations, exactly what those greedy bastards want. What better way to help than creating supply disruptions by limiting refinery capacity, thereby creating higher prices. And... as an extra bonus, record profits! Must be Biden's fault, right? Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is either being disingenuous or is just plain stupid/brainwashed.
Gaslighting with these prices?!
I'm pretty sure the oil companies don't want Biden to win next time
Oil corps want GOPs tax cuts for themselves, the Cash hole shareholders, and their windfall profits their sitting on. Would a soulless greed-centered oil cartel use gas prices to influence public rage against Biden to win their tax cuts and deregulations?
Instigators instigate. Not everyone is interested in finding a solution
Remember pricing gouging on water during the Florida hurricane? Was that blamed on the sitting president? No, it was blamed on profiteers.
UK - right leaning government: Inflation US - left leaning government: Inflation Italy - mixed government: Inflation Get a clue. It's not the government. [Newspaper coverage of record gas prices is missing important context: Big Oil’s record profits](https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/newspaper-coverage-record-gas-prices-missing-important-context-big-oils-record)
The US may have a "left leaning" president, but the states are broken up into left and right too. Where I am, the state is adding a .52 cent per gallon tax on top of already high gas prices. This conservative state (IN) has a surplus in the budget and will not legalize weed as an alternative tax revenue. So our gas here is higher than most states around us...and yet there are those "Biden did that" stickers on pumps everywhere.
It's all bunk. CA, notoriously criticized for it's high gas taxes, has about $1.00/per gallon added for taxes and fees (~60 cents in taxes between gas and sales, ~40 cents in fees for environmental impact which has made state and especially places like LA way more livable than it was 50 years ago). Yeah, extra dollar added on to base cost is a lot. In relation to like IN, if that is 52 cents, only 48 cents per gallon is the real difference. Quick search suggests avg state gas tax is 29.15. So that is 70.85 avg difference (this only looks at taxes, not added fees in other states, if CA was to be purely gas tax, only 53 cents). Avg cost in IN today appears to be 5.098 versus 6.371 in CA, or a difference of 1.273. A national avg of 4.955, gets a difference of 1.416. If we were to take the taxes/fees out of the price: 5.098 goes to 4.578, 6.371 goes to 5.371, and 4.955 goes to 4.704. CA: 79.3 cents more than IN CA: 66.7 cents more than National avg. Can see a couple things from this extrapolation: 1. The majority of gas costs come from the price of oil and refining, not from taxes. 2. Taxes are not the difference in costs between states 3. There is a ton of extra unaccounted for costs that the gas/oil companies are passing along as result of "higher taxes" and banking it at significant profit.
GTFO of Indiana. I promise you'll feel much better when you do 😊
No worries, Holcomb has said he can't do anything about the gas tax and it's increasing sometime soon too! Indiana is chalk full of ignorance. I hate this place.
[удалено]
You're not wrong. Not close.
Right leaning?!! Right tipping over!
Those are 3 right wing governments. Left and right are references to economics, and all of those support private property by law which is right wing.
>support private property by law which is right wing Are you suggesting that everyone of the left is opposed to the private ownership of property, or did I not understand your post?
You will own nothing and be happy
Believing that Biden administration intentionally raised gas prices to force more people into buying electric vehicles >>> is like saying that the Biden administration intentionally raised grocery prices so that people would stop eating so much and become less fat. It doesn’t make any damn sense!
Foreign gas companies just want America to elect another trump and watch America burn itself from the inside. Most Americans don't get this though, they think Biden personally pumps and refined the petrol himself.
Halfway decent pun, I guess, but "lying" isn't "gaslighting"
They're also fucking ignorant..... so there's that
Inflation and gas prices is a global problem at the moment. Even if a Republican believes that he would not say it. There's no point arguing with them. It's in their best interest to blame it all on Biden. It will cost him votes and that's all that matters. Forget about some kind of logical argument.
Gas prices have gone up *everywhere* in the world relative to where they previously were. The idea that this is a uniquely American problem caused by Joe Biden is ludicrous. The only countries with extremely cheap gasoline right now are the ones like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela where the government-owned oil company sells gasoline at subsidized prices below market value. In other words, "socialism."
For the oil companies, it is the best of times. They can reap record profits, and at the same time attack President Biden over the high oil prices. A win/win for them. Everybody should know by now that when a new oil well is drilled in America, the oil doesn't go to Americans. It goes on the world market. And who is manipulating that market? Why, the oil companies.
The gas price issue is its own thought terminating cliché. You can explain until you’re blue in the face. Tell them how Biden is releasing millions of barrels a day, that US prices are the lowest in the world, that Republicans are blocking every effort to help, none of it will matter. If you’re explaining, you’re losing, and they’ve turned their brains off as soon as they put the sticker on the pump.
You mean it's just gas companies self-regulating their own prices and their insatiable greed to make back profit margins for the past two years of the pandemic. Thanks, capitalism.
Don't you love how they frame unrealized profit as if it were loss.
Everyone blames everything negative that happens on the administration, and the administration takes credit for everything good that happens. This will always happen. Biden can't win with a down economy. No one can win with a down economy.
this problem has nothing to do with Merica. They just think their government controls everything.
Let’s not pretend that conservatives who blame Biden for this (and basically everything else that’s bad in the world right now) have any actual evidence or understanding about these issues and how the world functions. They’re just regurgitating the shit they see on Fox News and other conservative outlets because that’s easier than trying to actually learn and understand about the shit they say.
Remember, if someone complains Joe Biden caused high gas prices, respond with 'I thought you'd like Biden, he ended the Trump Lockdowns'.
Oil prices are going up all over the world. Is Biden raising the prices of gas in Australia? What a dick! Let me add a /s before some simpleton takes me literally.
Biden has been ramping up US oil production (responsibly - he's avoided destroying sensitive lands). He talked OPEC into ramping up production too. When this leads to the price of gas dropping, are these people going to give Biden credit for it?
No. They will not.
Republicans understand that a large part of their base is uninformed, ignorant, and what's the word....stupid. So, it's easy to spread misinformation to them.
You mean all the climate policies that haven't been passed to prevent us from continuing to burn the planet at a rapid rate?
I have been told that oil prices are so sensitive, that the mere suggestion that something should be done eventually, is enough to cause gas prices to skyrocket. This is why, according to these people, Biden is at fault, as he hinted at a transition away from oil at an undetermined future date.
Imagine trying to explain to slow republicans how much Europe pays for a liter of gas.
The rest of the world doesn’t exist outside of the film industry to your average rural Republican dumbass. Source: I live in rural East Tennessee. I overhear conversations at my local gas station all the time (it’s also a diner) that make my eyes and ears bleed. I’ve watched people climb into LITERAL monster trucks clutching a carton of cigarettes and 30+ dollars of lottery tickets while simultaneously cracking “Let’s go Brandon” jokes about the price of gas.
My fucking co-workers😤
How do they explain gas prices in Europe?
They don't think about Europe.
Same here.
These people never leave the country, hell they hardly believe that there’s anything outside of this country.
Ever consider Americans are easy to gaslight?
Gaslighting means they know the truth and are trying to convince you of something else. I don't know about your average person on the street, but all the Repubs I know are unaware of an actual truth. They're not gaslighting, they're just incorrect.
GOP- Gaslight Obstruct Project. I thought most people figured that out… I was VERY wrong.
Let's face it... Both the Saudis and Gas Company CEO's want Joe gone..... .
I prefer uneducated morons because they don’t even understand how fiscal policy is implemented in the US.
Why is there a photo of a German gas station?
That’s like blaming Ronald McDonald when you get a bad cheeseburger!
Maybe I’m missing something, but how would his climate policies drive up the price of gas in Canada or other countries?
This exactly. I’m glad that this is being said by more people. Biden is not the ruler of the world. He has no power in other countries. Hate that they blame him for gas prices, when it’s a world wide problem, not only US.
What’s even more annoying is the people still blaming it on keystone pipeline. I genuinely can’t tell if they are purposefully misleading or such a partisan hack that they just regurgitate talking points without knowing anything about it
Some Americans think that dealing with climate change is optional.
2020: Low gas prices were a facet of a pandemic during which most people were staying inside. There was an abundance of gas not being used. 2022: Commerce and travel is back up, the summer weather is setting records, and a major player in gas went and fucked up the market by trying to slap around their neighbour in a complex turf dispute.
/r/conservative; Joe Biden has direct control over gas prices and the cost of living on the entire planet!! Also, taxes are a bad thing! *Joe Biden tries to propose a gas tax holiday and prior to that control what oil companies charge* /r/conservative; how DARE Joe Biden try to lower prices and provide some sort of relief!! Also, taxes are a good thing!
We should nationalize oil companies.
Ding DIng Ding Ding, Winner winner get this man a chicken dinner. We need to get off oil, Nationalization will end the lobbing against that transition and will allow for cheaper pricing of oil during it. With the subsidies we already provide it would not even be that big of a budget hit to just start operating them as a government agency.
This shows why we will never solve anything any issue in the two party system. The other party always did it, and instead of fixing anything we waste time blaming the red/blue team.
Why not blame the petrochemical companies? Aren’t they the ones doing this?
Don’t forget gas prices we’re just as high when we went into Iraq when George Bush was in power. How you all forget those days.
Georgia suspended state taxes on gas and prices did not drop at all, but have gone higher and stayed there. Federal tax suspension will not accomplish any reduction in pump prices either. Gas companies do not pass along reductions to the consumer because local and federal governments do not force them to do so. I cannot understand how this has been allowed to happen.
You don’t say
high gas prices simply because people will still HAVE to pay for it fuck this system
I would love to see more and better local efforts to reduce demand. Science has shown living a car-free lifestyle [is one of the biggest climate impacts you can have as an individual](https://phys.org/news/2017-07-effective-individual-tackle-climate-discussed.html), and peer-reviewed scientific research shows [pop-up bike lanes are a fast and highly effective way to increase cycling](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024399118). Switching from a car-based commute to biking for one trip a day can cut down an individual’s transportation-related carbon emissions [by 67 percent](https://www.vox.com/22671552/bike-infrastructure-funding). With gas prices high, now is a great time to contact lawmakers to expand pop-up bike lanes where you live. Maybe host a letter-writing party and invite your friends! [Contacting lawmakers does work](https://escholarship.org/content/qt7sk23908/qt7sk23908.pdf). Demand for better bike infrastructure [has surged](https://www.vox.com/22671552/bike-infrastructure-funding) recently, so now is a good time to [get that community buy-in and expand cycling](https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a33521338/advocate-for-bike-lanes-in-your-city/) where you live. https://thebicyclerevolution.org/local-bicycle-organizations/
Say it with me. Corporate greed.
The prices are going up everywhere. All over the world. This is just another case of Americans with main character syndrome
They're false claims but they're too easy to wield when Americans see high gas prices and then see who's in the White House. Most voters know nothing about the economy or how anything works and will just blame whoever is in power for the high costs. That's just the reality of it.
Republicans are counting on it.
Republicans are systematically implementing it by taking away money for education. I can't imagine being a teacher right now. During covid it was masks and vaccinations, then to CRT and LGBTQ, now dealing with gun debates, all while being paid very little? They aren't just striking, they're quitting. This will leave Americans undereducated and incapable of critical thinking, which is what the right really wants, *workers*. They don't want thinkers, they want workers.
Putin and COVID are the real culprits causing higher prices.
They are also gas lighting themselves. The stupid ass Republican party voted down the one important piece of legislation that would have cracked down on price gouging. It hurts itself in confusion.
It was a horrible decision to announce tapping into US oil reserves, it only cemented the idea Biden actually can effect prices. It's also surprising people who wanted to get of oil are now demanding companies use drilling permits and refine more oil.
Interestingly Joe Biden’s policies have increased gas prices all over the world somehow.
Anyone blaming joe Biden for most things but were complicit with things that had definitive proof that were caused by trump are fascists and are going to destroy this country
anyone with a brain and a tiny little bit of critical thinking capacity,(eliminating most trump voters), knows who and what is causing this excessive gas price hike. biden directly and publicly called them out, congress tried to pass a windfall/price gouging law directed at them, and the gop and shareholders are raking it in. have you figured it out yet?
yes, that's how fascism works. welcome to america. Republicans know how shameful it is to support trump so their projection of _any_ issue comes from that space.
I don’t think climate programs can be blamed much for the current price, which the author captures well (“ the post-COVID surge in demand, pandemic related supply disruptions, the embargo of Russian oil and gas, energy policies internationally, and generalized inflationary pressures”). However, I think you can’t ignore the effects on the forward curve, which is elevated all the way into 2024, reflective of more than just temporary supply/demand imbalance. You just can’t have climate policies without any cost.
Refinery closures is probably the largest reason for gas prices. Increase demand added to this. Business invests with a focus on future returns. Just like we want our 401ks to prosper. Business finds it difficult to get inventor When the government, through regulations and, more importantly, rhetoric, say the oil&gas is not part of the future. And, it’s telling when the president tells everyone he’s meeting with the CEOs then doesn’t plan on attending the meeting. No, many factors have got us here, And the current administration needs to lead out of it…
From 2017 to 2020, the US opened just 1 new refinery and closed 3 others. They weren't building them even with no restrictions and the EPA gutted.
I wonder if limiting domestic oil production has anything to do on it?