Surprisingly this NBC report admits the obvious. The national price of a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline is projected to hit $6.00/gal by Labor Day. Some states like California are already exceeding that amount, with reports that some CA gas stations are near $10/gal. WATCH (1:08 sec):
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Within the same 30-day cycle Joe Biden asked Venezuela to produce and deliver more oil in order to help him politically. The Venezuelan government, having been the subject of an attempted coup and sanctions driven by the DC interventionist mindset, refused to assist. Joe Biden then refused to invite Venezuela to his Latin-America summit scheduled for this week.
Latin-America leaders are not stupid. It doesn’t matter whether the self-interested bully comes from the east or the west, they are not blind to the parasitic self-interest contained within the blackmail of any larger nations on the geopolitical stage; especially as the cleaving of the west and east is taking place with increased ferocity.
Today Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador announced he will not attend Joe Biden’s Latin-America summit.
AMLO joins the leaders of Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and the tiny Caribbean state of St. Vincent in refusing to attend the summit because Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were blocked from attending by the Biden administration.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] After weeks of wrangling over the issue amid threats of country boycotts, the administration excluded the three autocracies due to U.S. concerns over human rights and lack of democratic institutions in those countries, the officials said. The regional summit, scheduled for June 6-10 in Los Angeles, is expected to focus on migration and economic issues.
“I’m not going because not all the countries of America are invited,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Monday at his daily press conference. The Mexican leader said he had a good relationship with Mr. Biden and that he planned to visit the White House in July.
[…] The political rift between the U.S. and some Latin American leaders may hurt U.S. efforts to agree on a regional plan to fight irregular immigration toward the U.S., which is at record levels. In March, U.S. border authorities apprehended nearly 210,000 migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, the highest monthly tally since 2000.
The rift could also benefit China, which has significantly increased its trade and diplomatic presence in the hemisphere in the last two decades, experts say. Beijing quickly supported Mr. López Obrador’s demand that all countries of the Americas be invited to the summit. (read more)
The Biden administration’s foreign policy is advanced under the predicate of threats and bullying. Despite the media effort to gaslight the American audience, the foreign policy of Donald Trump, economic nationalism, was much more respected by leaders who appreciated negotiations on geopolitical dynamics where the interest of both nations was present at the table. For the Biden administration, as generally and historically reflected in the foreign policy of all democrats, the preferred approach is brutal force. A ‘do as we need – or you will pay a heavy price,’ diplomatic approach.
The irony of media narrative construction, reality -vs- media portrayal, is not lost on anyone who follows closely.
A sad, albeit perhaps intended outcome, will be for Latin-America countries being less willing to support any U.S. effort to stop the flow of illegal aliens from Central America through Mexico and into the U.S. via the southern border, already in crisis.
From the 30,000 ft perspective, this lack of Latin-America migration assistance would appear to be an intended feature, not a foreign policy flaw.
The Biden administration approach follows the familiar Alinsky pattern of planning and executing a purposeful crisis, then throwing up hands to say ‘we are trying, but there is no easy fix.’ Insert a similar reference toward U.S. energy costs, sound familiar?
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, “in recent years, democratic values have eroded across parts of the hemisphere.” There is every reason to believe the people behind the Biden administration are creating the rise of Autocracy while simultaneously decrying the rise of Autocracy. The unilateral fiats used by western leaders during their COVID-19 responses were completely autocratic, yet suddenly they clutch their pearls and decry autocracy.
Factually, the rise of autocratic or nationalistic perspectives helps to cement the global cleaving underway. At the end of this continuum there will be a new geopolitical alignment, a heavily controlled and manipulated set of western societies where citizens are suddenly controlled by centralized government and bureaucracy. This is what many refer to as “The Great Reset.”
In the United States all the interested parties, specifically including the media apparatus, remain committed to pretending the reset is not underway. For those who watch events unfold with eyes-wide-open, the reality of the future is clear.
In a letter filed with the SEC [SEE HERE], Tesla CEO Elon Musk is threatening to walk away from the agreement to purchase the social media platform Twitter, if the company does not provide transparency on their internal analysis surrounding fake Twitter accounts.
The letter was sent to Twitter and filed with the SEC after Twitter seemingly refused to provide details about how they can verify the accurate number of active user accounts. There is a strong possibility the purchase is now less likely. The full transcript of the letter is below:
[SEC Filing] – Dear Ms. Gadde: We are in receipt of correspondence sent on Twitter’s behalf dated June 1, 2022, responding to Mr. Musk’s request for the data and information described in my letters dated May 25, 2022 and May 31, 2022.
Mr. Musk does not agree with the characterizations in Twitter’s June 1 letter. Twitter has, in fact, refused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022 to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform.
Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details regarding the company’s own testing methodologies, whether through written materials or verbal explanations, is tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests. Twitter’s effort to characterize it otherwise is merely an attempt to obfuscate and confuse the issue. Mr. Musk has made it clear that he does not believe the company’s lax testing methodologies are adequate so he must conduct his own analysis. The data he has requested is necessary to do so.
As noted, under various terms of the merger agreement, Twitter is required to provide data and information that Mr. Musk requests in connection with the consummation of the transaction. Twitter’s obligations to provide Mr. Musk with information is not, as the company’s June 1 letter suggests, limited to a “very specific purpose: facilitating the closing of the transaction.” To the contrary, Mr. Musk is entitled to seek, and Twitter is obligated to provide, information and data for, inter alia, “any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction” (Section 6.4).
Twitter must also provide reasonable cooperation in connection with Mr. Musk’s efforts to secure the debt financing necessary to consummate the transaction, including by providing information “reasonably requested” by Mr. Musk (Section 6.11). Mr. Musk’s requests for user data not only satisfies both criteria, but also meets even Twitter’s narrowed interpretation of the merger agreement, as this information is necessary to facilitate the closing of the transaction.
As Twitter’s prospective owner, Mr. Musk is clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitter’s business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing. To do both, he must have a complete and accurate understanding of the very core of Twitter’s business model—its active user base. In any event, Mr. Musk is not required to explain his rationale for requesting the data, nor submit to the new conditions the company has attempted to impose on his contractual right to the requested data. At this point, Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.
If Twitter is confident in its publicized spam estimates, Mr. Musk does not understand the company’s reluctance to allow Mr. Musk to independently evaluate those estimates. As noted in our previous correspondence, Mr. Musk will of course comply with the restrictions provided under Section 6.4, including by ensuring that anyone reviewing the data is bound by a non-disclosure agreement, and Mr. Musk will not retain or otherwise use any competitively sensitive information if the transaction is not consummated.
Based on Twitter’s behavior to date, and the company’s latest correspondence in particular, Mr. Musk believes the company is actively resisting and thwarting his information rights (and the company’s corresponding obligations) under the merger agreement. This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.” (LINK)
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has said the company has consistently estimated that fewer than 5% of Twitter accounts are fake. Twitter has disclosed its bot estimates to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for years. However, they also caution their estimate might be too low.
The Twitter sale agreement allows Elon Musk to get out of the deal if there is a “material adverse effect” caused by the company. The agreement defines those terms as a change that negatively affects Twitter’s business or financial conditions. Overall, this looks to be a legal issue that will be determined through litigation.
Twitter has a compelling interest against disclosure and transparency, if in the actual number of bots or fake accounts is substantially above their previous estimates. Prior filings with the SEC claimed a particular standard, if that standard is inaccurate by design or flawed analysis, all prior SEC filings by Twitter could be deemed false and subject the company to fines and/or shareholder lawsuits.
It will be interesting to keep watching this play out…
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Last Friday the Biden administration raised the mandatory amount of biofuel, specifically ethanol, that must be blended within the U.S. gasoline supply. The previous amount of 10% (summer blend) was raised to a year-round 15% (waiver) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This is likely to lead to two sets of bigger issues, less food and higher gas prices.
♦ First issue. – The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a government mandate, passed in 2005 and expanded in 2007, that requires growing volumes of biofuels to be blended into U.S. transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel every year. Approximately 40 percent of corn grown in the U.S. is used for ethanol. Raising the amount of ethanol required in gasoline will result in the need for more biofuel (corn). With farming costs and outputs already under pressure this could be problematic.
♦ Second issue – The EPA enforces the biofuel standard by requiring refineries to submit purchase credits (known as Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proving the purchases. This enforcement requirement sets up a system where the RIN credits are bought and sold by small refineries who do not have the infrastructure to do the blending process. They purchase second-hand RIN credits from parties that blended or imported biofuels directly. This sets up a secondary income stream, a trading market for the larger oil companies, refineries and importers.
The RIN credit trading platform is similar to what we might expect to see if the ‘Carbon Trading’ scheme was ever put into place. However, now that summer biofuel requirements for blended gasoline have gone from 10% to 15%, the price of the RIN credits will likely jump. This will cost refineries billions in additional expenses,…. which will mean the cost of the gasoline from the refineries will increase,….. which will mean the cost of the gasoline at the pump will go higher.
The EPA theory is that RIN credits should be expensive thereby forcing all oil refineries to invest in infrastructure that makes the blended fuel. All of the infrastructure from the refinery to the gas station would need to be modified to facilitate the new 15% RFS standard. Again, higher prices at the pumps as a result of oil companies and refineries needing to spend billions on upgrades. Which brings us to issue number three.
♦ Third Issue – “Ethanol is a valuable source of octane in finished gasoline, but it is chemically different than petroleum gasoline and cannot be used in concentrations above 10 percent in small engines — like outboard boat motors, motorcycles, lawnmowers, generators or chain saws — or in any cars made before 2001. Complicating matters further, most cars on the road today still aren’t warrantied to run on gasoline with more than 10 percent ethanol. Retail stations also must have compatible infrastructure in order to sell gasoline with higher ethanol blends.” This issue is known within the industry as “The Blend Wall.”
The net result of Joe Biden’s EPA raising the mandatory amount of biofuel that must be present in the U.S. gas supply is this:
The predictable Biden outcome is the absolute worst scenario for the middle-class.
ABC Article on the EPA change HERE.
AFPM Background Information HERE.
WASHINGTON – “The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers group, which represents refineries, called the 2022 figure “bewildering and contrary to the administration’s claims to be doing everything in their power to provide relief to consumers.” The group said unachievable mandates will increase fuel production costs and keep consumer prices high.” (more)
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is warning investors against popular “meme stocks.” Yet, they have gone too far by offering direct trading advice. Specifically, the SEC produced a video (see below) about GameStop (GME) that has retail investors reeling.
GameStop was certainly trading in volatile territory during Q1 2021. A group of online retail investors promoted the stock and allegedly were partially responsible for causing Melvin Capital hedge fund to lose 53% of its capital in January. The short squeeze seems to be highly exaggerated and the four largest asset managers in the world owned 39% of GameStop at the time. Those who traded properly, or simply got lucky, profited off of the volatility, but, obviously, that is not recommended for the amateur investor.
The problem here is that the SEC is trying to deter the retail investor to protect the hedge funds. The SEC should not be telling the public which stocks to avoid and I do not believe the shareholders of GME or other “meme stocks” will be happy with this advice.
Inflation does not discriminate based on income. According to a new Bloomberg report, over one-third of Americans earning at least $250,000 annually are living paycheck to paycheck. Only 5% of the nation earns over $250,000 per year, and this is who the politicians would call “the rich.” One in ten noted that they struggled to cover their household expenses in April.
This is especially true for Millennials who lack decades of savings and were forced to purchase housing and other big-ticket items at the historically high price levels. Among those earning $250,000 or more per year, 55.4% of Millennials reported living paycheck to paycheck compared to 26% of Boomers. In the $100,000 to $150,000 income range, 63% of Millennials reported an inability to save compared to 26% of Boomers.
Living paycheck to paycheck comes with the risk of slipping into debt. The Federal Reserve recently reported that 78% of Americans believed they were living comfortably financially, but they may be seeing the situation through rose-colored glasses. One in nine respondents from the same Fed survey admitted that they could not afford a mere $400 emergency expense. In this current economy, the wise are reassessing their spending as inflation is not expected to decline anytime soon.
As calls to repeal the Second Amendment continue, Americans have been buying guns at a record pace. Over 1 million civilians purchased firearms in the month of May alone, marking a record-breaking streak of 34 months of increased sales. Although the left would like the world to believe that there are no restrictions on buying guns, the majority of people who applied were not eligible. The FBI reportedly conducted 2.4 million background checks last month alone.
Gun sales in Canada have spiked as well after tyrant Trudeau announced plans to ban sales under Bill C-21. Numerous gun shops reported selling out of handguns entirely after the PM announced that it will become illegal to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere.” There are 2,500 gun retailers in Canada, and all of those shops are expecting to go out of business within months if not weeks. Exactly 55,000 guns were imported into Canada last year, but that legal trade will be prohibited.
People want to feel protected. The underground market for guns will surge in Canada, and these guns will become untraceable. Criminals especially will find a way to buy and distribute firearms with zero restrictions. The ban will not erase demand.
The American view during the 70s was more concerned about gold rather than the value of the dollar against world currencies. Most Americans never traveled to Europe so their impression of currencies was the Canadian dollar which was about par with the dollar that Americans would encounter when visiting Niagra Falls. I remember as a kid the family would drive up there and we would cross the border for the best view from the Canadian side. That was probably my first experience with a foreign currency other than ancient Roman coins when I bought my first one for $10 when I was probably 10 years old.
The other hot spot outside the United States was crossing the border to visit Tijuana in Mexico. That was a real hot spot largely promoted due to the Prohibition Days during the Roaring 20s. The Mexican peso was just this cheap thing that nobody really understood and they never understood how to count their change.
It was Roosevelt who confiscated gold from the banks and created a two-tier system whereby gold was used for international transactions, but silver was used for domestic currency backing until Kennedy ended the silver standard in 1965. Because gold was illegal to own except in coins dated 1947 or before, Americans really had little exposure to foreign currencies. They did not see the foreign exchange rate of the dollar during the 70s and 80s, it was all about gold. I even had a conversation with Paul Volcker who was focused not on the inflation rate as much as he too was obsessed with the rise in the price of gold from $35 in 1971 to $875 on January 21st, 1980 which he saw as the real inflation measurement.
As for the Europeans, they were focused on the dollar and the collapse of Bretton Woods. They were all buying gold after March 1968 when the first crack in Bretton Woods took place allowing a parallel free market in gold in Europe. That was the birth of a two-tier monetary system. Overall, the Europeans were pushing the price of gold up in terms of dollars.
It was a wild time during the 70s. Because I was in New Jersey, the three major gold refineries were there. I was dealing with Englehard which ended up being Phibro post-1975 which took over Solomon Brothers. Before 1975, Americans could buy gold in coin form as long as it bore a date of 1947 and before. Austria, Hungary, and Mexico were the big sellers of gold. They were restricting coins with old dates so Americans could buy gold before 1975.
So I was in the thick of things back then insofar as trading was concerned. I had European clients in Gold and I dealt with all the Swiss banks at the time. By sheer fate, being a market maker in gold, taught me a lot. Gold was the first financial instrument for futures trading beyond currencies. The US bonds began trading in 1977 and S&P500 futures came in during 1985.
Gold rallied into 1974 on ANTICIPATION of Americans were going to run out and buy gold. They were expecting a gold rush. Being in the business, I never got one phone call about buying gold because it would be legal. Everyone who believed in gold had been buying gold coins all along.
The talk of the town was that gold would go to $500 as soon as the Americans were allowed to buy on January 1st, 1975. I sold gold short at the top mainly on a fundamental basis. I did not see any new demand. My Economic Confidence Model said it was a high. But I traded based on my observations.
I watched gold collapse back down to about $100 going into 1976. This is when after watching the ECM for 6 years, I went with it. I opened a new store in the Quakerbride mall and I signed a 10-year lease with a personal guarantee and I got them to eliminate the CPI clause. After all, the talk then was about another depression.
I watched 1968 was the first crack in Bretton Woods and the birth of the two-tier monetary system. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo was a decision to stop exporting oil to the United States. Then-president Richard Nixon appeared particularly concerned that Arab nations might impose a selective embargo on the United States for its pro-Israel policy. He was correct. Oct. 19, 1973, was the official start of the embargo when the Middle East countries announced a 5% production cut per month in response to the Yom Kippur war between Egypt and Israel. They saw Israel’s victory in that war, was because of aid from the United States. The embargoing nations then threatened that the cuts would be restored once Israel withdrew from Palestine and Jerusalem. Obviously, that never happened.
As always, we MUST look at the CONTEXT of the period. First, the climate consensus was that we were heading to a new Ice Age – not global warming. That meant there would be a higher demand for oil to stay warm in winter. In 1971 and 1972, fears began to grow in the developed world that if we were not already running out of energy supplies, we would soon as additional nations adopt western industrial structures.
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) warned the population would outgrow the food production so we needed to curtail the growth of the population and advocated deliberately creating a plague among the poor to reduce their number. If you ever really read Malthus, you can see the influence he has still had on people like Bill Gates, George Soros, and Klaus Schwab.
Thus, in 1976 I went with the ECM. That was the wild wave of inflation and the very top of the next wave turned out to be 1981.35 which was the day of the high in interest rates.
What I learned was that none of the fundamentals mattered in the end. Gold would decline with inflation at times and rally at other times. It was more complex than that. The final rally from the $400 level to $875 had nothing to do with inflation, that was the invasion of Russia into Afghanistan.
The reliable was simply the objective analysis.
Republicans in Washington DC, the right wing of the UniParty vulture, play the game of Chaff and Countermeasures whenever it comes to the investigation of lawbreaking that targets people outside the system. If you are an ‘ordinary’ American with no connection to the insider’s club, the best you can hope for is a strongly worded message of support from the GOP. Prior examples of Chaff and Countermeasures have included: Fast and Furious, IRS Targeting, Benghazi, Spygate, Trump-Russia Collusion, and the 2020 election fraud.
STEPS: 1) The electorate become aware of a political issue or action; often illegal. 2) The electorate becomes angry. 3) DC needs to protect itself. 4) Countermeasures are assigned and deployed to delay, obfuscate and create the illusion of investigation of the illegal governmental action. 5) Electorate watch. 6) Investigation goes nowhere. 7) Countermeasure deployment successful. 8) Pause-Wait-Repeat.
John Ratcliffe appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the outcome of the Michael Sussmann not-guilty verdict. Ratcliffe waxes poetically noting the evidence at trial looks very badly upon the Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann investigation. Ratcliffe says justice is going to have to come at the ballot box. WATCH:
In response to the arrest of Trump advisor Peter Navarro, which included handcuffs and leg-irons for a perp walk, Mr. Ratcliffe notes that FBI Director Christopher Wray should probably look into that…. As if Direct Chris Wray wasn’t an active participant in the decision-making. Mr. Ratcliffe does a great job pretending not to know things.
Here is one succinct interview containing the smorgasbord of far-left policies the people behind Joe Biden are proposing as the solution to the inflation crisis they have created. It is remarkable to see it all packed into one 8-minute segment. There is so much crazy in here it would take a week of articles to unpack it.
The ultra-leftist Biden Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, appears on ABC with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the solutions to the massive economic collapse that looms all around us. Within the interview Buttigieg states the Biden administration goal is to use the high cost of living (policy driven inflation) as an opportunity for the government to take over household expenses and create equity via government distribution.
If reasonable people do not intervene quickly, the executive branch and legislative branch will move to begin subsidizing and controlling medicine, childcare, housing and food costs by diverting tax dollars into the social equity system. Depending on income, the Biden administration plans to offset higher prices for Americans by providing the essential services and products they need. In essence, Democrat-Socialism with a filter of equity in distribution, ie “enhanced dependency.” WATCH:
Remarkably, Stephanopoulos references one of the most insane New York Times op-ed’s ever written around economics {ARTICLE HERE}. Within the reference, the Democrat legislative proposal is for the government to take over the purchasing of essential products like food, fuel, gasoline and medicine. The government would then distribute those products. The entire premise is based on some academic leftist theory of economics that is just nuts. It looks nothing like capitalism.
The baseline for the approach contains the premise that inflation is driven by too many people chasing scarce goods. Thus prices are rising. This is how the Democrats look at inflation and explain the problem. Their solution is for government to buy the food at the prices they claim people cannot afford, and then sell the food at prices they claim the people can afford. [Replace ‘food’ with any item they determine]
Notice in the interview when Buttigieg is challenged about the high cost of gasoline, he complains that oil companies are not drilling enough to generate the oil and refinery capacity that we need. Essentially, the oil companies are to blame for not creating more supply.
Now, pause, and think about that.
The same Pete Buttigieg voices strong opposition to any further exploitation of oil and natural gas. Buttigieg and the Biden administration vociferously advocate for green energy transition with extreme urgency and apply punitive punishment toward any opposition. Moments later, they are blaming the oil and gas industry for not providing enough supply….
…. Do you know what that advocacy conflict sounds like? That conflicted and twisted mental outlook is the psychology happening in abusive relationships. If you had made me a better sandwich, I wouldn’t have needed to punch you in the mouth. If the oil companies we restrict were doing the things we restrict them not to do, then things would be better.
Because the oil, gas, farms or (fill_in_the_blank) etc are not doing their jobs correctly – as to predict the damage caused by govt policy and offset the consequences – then government must take over the controls of the industry and manage the process. History rhymes…
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