Gas-Lighting Oil Prices
Why the explanation you've been told is bullshit, the real reasons behind it, how we could effectively (and easily) resolve the problem, and why we definitely won't.
The reason you’re paying record-high gas prices, if the media narrative is to be believed, is Putin for starting an unprovoked war in Ukraine. Joe Biden suspended all energy imports from Russia and Americans are being called upon to pay more at the pump as a result, but it’s an individual sacrifice we must pay to preserve Ukrainian democracy.
”Take that, Putin!” crowed multi-millionaire Stephen Colbert, declaring its “worth a buck or two” more per gallon to keep a “clean conscience”.
The narrative we’re being fed is summarized below:
The Russia-Ukraine crisis has already helped lift oil and gasoline prices to levels unseen since 2014. Further sanctions on Moscow could drive pump prices closer to $4 a gallon.
Biden is bracing the public for just that, acknowledging on Tuesday that “defending freedom will have costs.” (SOURCE)
HERE ARE 3 REASONS WHY THIS IS FAKE NEWS
1) There is no Ukrainian democracy to save
Zelensky suspended Parliament on his first day in office. He had his political rival put under house arrest for “treason” without a trial. He banned all pro-Russian media and more recently nationalized all remaining news outlets to remove any and all voices of dissent. He also banned 11 of Ukraine’s 13 political parties (coincidentally preserving only the two far-right, Neo-Nazi factions). Not to mention the ongoing ethnic-cleansing of Russians in the Donbas region. Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the owner of the television network that aired “Servant of the People” and bankrolled Zelensky’s campaign, has been personally funding the Azov Battalion to carry it out.
Does that sound like a democracy to you? Zelensky is a corrupt, lawless, murderous, war-mongering dictator aligned with Neo-Nazis whose refusal to uphold the Minsk peace accords directly resulted in the current conflict. We’re not “defending freedom” any more than the Bush Administration was “liberating” the Iraqi people.
And if Zelensky continues to get his way, a nuclear war between Russia and the U.S. will result and a projected 90 million people would die within the first 60 minutes (according to a Princeton University simulation). Great plan.
2) Gas Prices Were Already Rising Fast
Gas averaged $2.38/gallon nationwide when Trump left Office. Prior to Putin ever invading Ukraine it had shot up to $3.62, an increase of 152%.
3) Russian Oil Isn’t A Significant Factor
The average price of a U.S. gallon of gas prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was $3.62 (week ending February 21, 2022). It has since shot up to $4.33 (week ending March 28, 2022). That’s an increase of 71-cents, up 120%. It’s impossible to honestly blame Putin for even that when only 8.2% of U.S. oil imports came from Russia, let along the 272% total increase since Biden became President.
Which leads us to the million dollar question…
WHY THE FUCK DO WE HAVE HISTORICALLY HIGH GAS PRICES RIGHT NOW??
The oil industry took a hit during the peak of pandemic lockdowns, no doubt about it, but quarterly revenues already bounced back just fine by the end of 2021.
As shown in the chart below, 2021 Q4 revenues for the two largest U.S. oil companies, Exxon and Chevron were up $17.8 billion and $11.8 billion respectively compared to Q4 in 2019, pre-Covid. (SOURCE)
“But that’s just total revenue,” you might say. “That doesn’t necessarily reflect actual profits after factoring operational expenses…”.
Read this article, chump.
Want more?
Stock prices over the last year:
Big Oil is using the war in Ukraine as a scapegoat to cover for price-gauging. The only possible motive is greed.
But the media wants you to think otherwise:
Whether Americans gullibly buy into the false narrative or are conscious of the outrageous price-gauging taking place, the political backlash is unsustainable for the Biden Administration as gas prices become increasingly untenable for consumers.
So what’s our demented President’s big plan to make it look like he gives a shit…?
President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for six months, a bid to control energy prices that have spiked after the United States and allies imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (SOURCE)
The part in italics is propaganda to give Biden political cover, as we’ve already established that the spike in gas is not because of sanctions. The part in bold is what needs to be unpacked.
The media phrases it as “1 million barrels per day for six months” because it sounds better than 180 million barrels of oil being depleted from our oil reserves. Which still means nothing unless we know the total amount of reserves we have in stock to begin with. And good luck finding that being reported on by legacy media. For that information we’ll have to (gasp) do our own research.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in December 2021 we had 593,682 million barrels. 180 million = 30% of our total energy reserves.
When Trump came into Office there were 695 million barrels. Over the course of his entire 4-years as President, overseeing a period of peak pandemic uncertainty, he tapped into just 8% or 57 million barrels, leaving behind 638 million barrels. |
Joe Biden had already quietly burned up over 45 million barrels prior to invasion of Ukraine for no apparent reason other than incompetence.
Joe Biden has therefore depleted U.S. oil reserves in one year by nearly as much as Trump did in all four years AND is further set to burn four times more than that over the next six months.
That’s the undeniable truth that the White House, and the corporate media, are desperately hiding. Why are they doing this?
Using up emergency oil reserves should be a last resort, used only for the most extreme of circumstances. To waste it frivolously poses a national security risk. So Biden’s decision damn well better be absolutely necessary and yield fairly significant results. The former is clearly not the case (re: sky-rocketing Big Oil profits), but even if Big Oil isn’t held responsible for their war-profiteering scam at least gas prices will go down… right?
Straight from the same NBC article:
“The president said it was not known how much gasoline prices could decline as a result of his move, but he suggested it might be “anything from 10 cents to 35 cents a gallon.”
Wait, what? So we’re going to destroy 30% of our emergency oil reserves because it might cause a decline in price? And if it does, it could be as little as 10 cents per gallon and the most optimistic projected savings would be 35 cents? So instead of paying $5.59 a gallon here in California I’d be paying $5.24 in the best case scenario?
WHAT’S THE F’N POINT?
If depleting America’s energy reserves by 30% yields little to no benefit for American consumers… why do it at all? Who benefits?
The only motive left that makes any sense would be to strategically damage the Russian economy. Not that we should be doing that anyway, since the U.S. should be focused on diplomatic deescalation tactics rather than risking nuclear Armageddon for the sake of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis. But strictly from the warmongering Biden Administration’s perspective, this cutting off of all oil imports from Russia could be an effective means of putting the screws to Putin.
But does it even do that?
Remember earlier when I pointed out that only 8.2% of U.S. oil imports previously came from Russia? We imported a total of just under 200 million barrels in 2021. 8.2% of that would be 16.4 million barrels of Russian oil per year that the U.S. is no longer purchasing.
Funny, because India’s overall demand for oil is coincidentally projected to jump exactly 8.2%, or 5.15 million barrels per day this year, totaling 1,880 million barrels per year. And they’re turning to Russia to satisfy this demand.
Do you really think Putin is worried about selling 16.4 million barrels LESS to the U.S. per year if Russia can sell 1,880 million barrels MORE to India?
Even though Russia is selling those barrels to India at a discounted rate of $25-30 per barrel, such a massive increase in exports to India still not only neutralizes the loss of exports to the U.S. yields a substantially higher net profit. Biden’s ban on Russian oil imports is therefore entirely pointless, other than to provide a scapegoat to cover-up Big Oil’s scam.
*** UPDATE - 4/14/22 ***
I have already been thoroughly validated that U.S. sanctions on Russian oil imports were entirely pointless. Check this out:
THEN HOW CAN WE BRING DOWN GAS PRICES?
The only action Congress will do is deliver a theatrical scolding to Big Oil companies. Nothing will come of it, other than create the illusion that they have empathy for their voters. They could NOT care any less.
What lawmakers should and would do, if they cared, is suspend all oil subsidies, outlaw the price-gauging of essential resources, and compel Big Oil to use their tens of billions in profits to absorb any price increases. Congress won’t take these steps. They won’t even make public transportation free, which would reduce individual car use and ergo lessen the amount of oil being burned. No, that would make too much sense.
A second option which could be accomplished by the President through Executive Action would be to nationalize the oil companies. Since oil is such a vital resource for the vast majority of Americans, why should it be a for-profit industry in the first place? $649 billion of our taxpayer dollars were already going toward oil subsidizes in 2015 (nearly $5 trillion globally)?
Big Oil effectively doesn’t bring in any tax revenue and would not exist without taxpayer money so why not just nationalize the industry? Our taxes should never be used as a crutch for private companies, only the public sector. So either the subsidies should end or Big Oil should become public utilities.
Or just keep blaming Putin.
A third option, which isn’t a long-term solution but could be effective in the short-term, would be to restore actual free-market principles by breaking up Big Oil monopolies into multiple smaller companies to reintroduce competition, ergo driving down consumer prices. National security experts supported doing exactly that back in 2013. So why didn’t it happen?
BIG OIL OWNS CONGRESS:
Yeah.
So as you see gas prices rise, be sure to remember that Big Oil’s greed, enabled by Congress and the White House, is directly responsible. NOT PUTIN.
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Oil companies are making money right now because the price of oil is up but the price of lumber was up 400% in 12 months. Nickel was up over 100% in a few days recently. All commodities have gone parabolic. Food prices are outrageous and no one wants to nationalize the food industry.
It’s policy. Oil companies don’t set prices, markets do.
We don’t want to nationalize Apple just because they charge outrageous fees for a ‘necessity’ item and make insane profits.
Oil and gas costs will go down again. A lot of oil companies went out of business over the past few years. Exxon was losing money a few years ago.
Oil and gas companies don’t want to take risks anymore because they are being told their product is killing the planet and won’t be needed in the very near future. This is 100% climate policy driving prices through the roof. Oil and gas companies react to policy and markets forces and both are telling them they aren’t needed anymore. If you had a product that almost everyone hated and your were being told they wanted to run you out of business in the not to distant future, you would ‘get what you could while the gettin was good’ and I take any capital risks. This whole debacle was created by our government, not oil companies. Let oil companies make investments knowing they won’t get shutdown when they try to connect a pipeline to their oilfields (keystone pipeline) and they will come through for America.