Yup a wordplay and it is not the only one I have, but it is one of the less ‘hurtful’ ones. In the first, I have a republican mindset, I have always had that. I oppose Trump in all its glorified stupidity. I believe the US lost a great man with the passing of John McCain and I think the republicans wrongfully stabbed Liz Cheney in the back on the words of a bully, but we will have a reckoning on that later. Today we start with SkyNews who gave us ‘‘Morally bankrupt’: Biden ‘humiliated’ by Saudi Arabia and oil companies’ (at https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/morally-bankrupt-biden-humilitaed-by-saudi-arabia-and-oil-companies/video/5819a070a892b5de3db7a8f259bff9c6), now granted the news is 2 days old. I wanted a little time to mull things over, but the text as given by “The president said it’s “unacceptable” that oil companies are making record profits during “a time of war.”” Oh? America is in a war? Who are they in war with? With their ‘proud boys’, with their failures? The list goes on and it is not a nice list. They gave the power to Wall Street and Wall Street ants ledgers, not excuses.
And we were given a list of the oil companies
Marathon Petroleum, Valero Energy, ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, Chevron, BP, and Shell.
Marathon made $69B in 2020, that was their operating income, Their Net profit was $9.9B in 2020. Valero might have had a larger revenue $117B (2018), but a much lower Net profit which was a mere $4B (2018), Exxon mobile was the bigger player with $276B (2021), yet only with a Net income of $23B (2021), less than 10%. Are they corporations? Yes they are! They own responsibility to their shareholders and 10% does not add up to much and the statement of “record profits” does not add up, well not completely. You see Biden was handed a bad hand and the Russians gave that to him, so to see him blame American companies is one failure, to nag and bitch to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia after he vowed to make them a pariah on something lacking clear evidence is a second failure. None of these players owe him, or the American people anything. This is the setting of a commodity driven economy. Consider the list. The US is one of the top three oil producing nations, so why is all that oil squandered? Why did the presidents (all of them, Republicans as well) not halt the consumption of oil? Why was something not done 20 years ago? I have articles spanning back decades on this folly. In 2015 Americans told me to shut up (fair enough), but now they do not get to scream!
They can have ice cream (to soften the blow) but not whinge and whine.
You see the problem is so much larger, and the US is part of that problem, it was never part of that solution. In 1999 crude oil was at an almost all time low of $19.35 a barrel. The cost was so low that oil providers started to shut down, the only time is was lower was in July 1946. Oil has had a rollercoaster life with tops in 2008 ($187) and April 1980 ($142), so as it is now at around $114 I would say “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, oh and before I forget what wars were the US in in 2008, or 1980?
No, as I see it when you decide to hand the reigns to Wall Street, you cannot ‘yap’ like the little chihuahua. A commodity driven economy does not care, it does not care that your granny is sick, that the dog ate your homework, or that the mistress will not have sex with you as you only bought her a Microlino instead of a Dodge Challenger. All parts a commodity driven economy cares nothing about.
And Saudi Arabia? They need to do what is best for their country, not what matters to their greed driven customers. Does it hurt me? Yes it does, but that is the world I live in. I do not control oil, I do not control wealth, as such I am its plaything just like anyone else. As such SkyNews has a point with “US President Joe Biden has been criticised as “morally bankrupt” and “weak” in regard to his energy policy after it was revealed he is planning to visit Saudi Arabia to discuss the global oil crisis.” Yes, it is one way to look, but if he cannot control the American people who are eager to dig a deeper grave by the day (they are almost deep enough to say ‘Nǐ hǎo’ to the Chinese people) and no one in the US is stopping the need for oil, higher prices is where it will be. A simple setting of Supply and Demand.
It is getting worse, less than 3 hours ago we were informed (by Reuters) “Egypt and Saudi Arabia have signed 14 agreements valued at $7.7 billion during a visit to Cairo by Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman” in addition there is “the establishment of a $150 million “pharmaceutical city” by Egypt’s Pharco Pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia” That is the true benefit of being a true ally to Saudi Arabia, a setting now starts that will cost the American coffers billions, just as I predicted will happen in 2016, 2018, 2020 and now we see the first (or second) impact in 2022. The US pharmaceutical branch in Saudi Arabia will lose power, Egypt will rise. Egypt will offer services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for billions, those billions are lost to the US and the EU. This is the impact of a failed policy that never had any strength to begin with.
So in all this, the administrations of the US (not President Biden) failed its citizens. The administration set the paper tiger in motion that looks nice, but when the people around it know that this tiger is paper (unlike the one below)
There will be a lack of reaction, a lack of adherence and that is when we realise there was never any need to adhere to anything. So the American people pissed off the KSA and Elon Musk (both energy saviours). So how exactly was that letter anything but a bad idea even before it was written? I see it was a desperate act of an administration that saw its fuel policy go to $5.87 (from $2.17) a rise of well over 100%. We get the desperation of the letter, but the expectation of success is equally laughable. As such what is the letter anything else but an admission that bankruptcy is merely just around the corner? When this all comes to blow the larger setting will come into play and there Wall Street will get to learn the lesson that absolute greed has merely one direction and it is not a good one, but those in Wall Street will have packed up their 8 or 9 figure balance and they will have headed for a zero tax shelter with warm sands and warm beaches. The rest? Well good luck to them. Oh and do not forget winter (and the need for heating fuel) is a mere 17 weeks away now.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 