Category: Economy

Biden to Increase U.S. Oil Lease Fees 50%…
While Accusing ‘Big Oil’ of Anticompetitive Price Gouging

The Biden-Harris administration issued a report Friday to increase the price of oil leasing fees on federal lands in the United States by 50 percent—even while accusing oil companies of artificially increasing prices through illegal and anticompetitive actions.

Despite record-high gasoline prices impacting American families across the country with winter around the corner, the Biden-Harris administration is recommending Congress hike the cost of oil leases on government lands from 12.50 percent to 18.75 percent.

The 6.25 percentage point royalty rate increase on oil companies would contradict the administration’s promise to lower gasoline prices. In recent weeks, the Biden-Harris administration has asked OPEC to increase oil supplies and requested the Federal Trade Commission conduct an investigation into oil companies for “anticompetitive behavior.”

The rate increase, according to the New York Times, would generate about an extra “$2.5 billion in new revenue by the end of the decade,” which oil companies would pay to the federal government, though consumers would absorb the increased cost the companies incur. So far, the Biden-Harris administration has collected $1.6 billion more from oil leases in 2021 than in 2020.

An increased royalty rate would be the first rate hike since 1920 and would fulfill President Biden’s campaign promise to global warming activists and the far-left.

 

After taking office, Biden threatened American energy independence by mandating a temporary ban on oil leases until Friday’s report was issued. But after 13 states sued and overturned the order, “Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxon Mobil offered $192 million for the rights to drill” in the Gulf of Mexico.

The report from the administration coincides with the massive tax and spend reconciliation package that Democrat leaders are attempting to jam through Congress. The package was passed in the House last week and will likely find its way into the Senate, where it stands little chance of passage as written.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have opposed many provisions in the package, including tax increases, hits to American energy independence, and welfare provisions.

The recommendation to Congress to increase the cost of oil production is the latest tactic in the war on American energy independence. In January, Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline and is also considering canceling the Michigan Line 5 pipeline. Biden also rejoined to Paris Climate Accords and is conducting an environmental regulatory review of repairs instituted by the Trump administration that protected American energy independence.

On Tuesday, Biden raided the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices, despite Vice President Harris slamming then-President Donald Trump in 2020 for refilling them. The immediate impact of the raid was an increase in oil prices. Due to constraint capacity on pipelines, the United States’ output from the reserve is 4.5 million barrels per day.

As Inflation Soars Biden Explains How the Fed Chairman Will Work to Combat…Climate Change

Speaking from the fake White House set in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden announced he will renominate Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve.

While limiting his remarks about runaway inflation, Biden explained how Powell will use his position at the monetary agency to combat climate change.

Biden’s description of how Powell will manage the Federal Reserve to work in the left’s climate change goals is indicative of his administration’s broader plans for the economy.

Last week Saule Omarova, Biden’s nominee to be the Treasury Department Comptroller, testified in front of the Senate Banking Committee. She was heavily scrutinized by Republicans and Democrats over her statements calling for the oil and gas industries to be bankrupted in order to meet climate change goals.

If confirmed, Omarova would be in charge of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC “charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations, and federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.”

 

When Looking at Treasury Nominee Saule Omarova, Do Not Forget Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

One thing CTH does is to look at proposed leftist advancements through the prism of previously blocked moves.  The Joe Biden nomination of avowed communist Saule Omarova to the Treasury Department Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) should be considered in a similar perspective.

There’s a couple of different issues surfacing in the Omarova nomination.  Obviously, she is aligned with the view that controlling money is another way to control the behavior of businesses and people; Omarova’s previous statements {Go Deep} about intentionally bankrupting oil and gas companies is indicative of the former – and the most recent statements are aligned with the latter.  WATCH:

Obviously, Saule Omarova is interested in the concept of an all controlling central bank that would eliminate the need for private banking interests.  As she states, “There will be no more private bank deposit accounts, and all of the deposit accounts will be held directly at the fed.”  The basic premise is that all employers would funnel their payrolls into a centralized federal depository, where they would be then be taxed and re-distributed, electronically, to the workers.

One central bank, owned and operated by the federal government, would replace all the purposes within the private banking system.  Given her upbringing in the former Soviet Union, and considering her education at the University of Moscow, perhaps this outlook shouldn’t be surprising.   However, her nomination alone should be viewed as astonishing.

♦ Big Picture – The COVID Passport concept, now currently deployed in Europe and Australia, then becomes the vector for entry into a digital identification process.  At the end of that digital ID process is a centralized database, which, not coincidentally, directly aligns with the capability of the U.S. federal government to trigger what Omarova is advocating in that video – a centralized system to control all financial deposits and transactions through the digital ID previously created.

It doesn’t take a deep thinker to see how the federal government would eventually respond to having that much power over the financial accounts of Americans.  Cue the visual reference:

Now, pause for a minute before you call me crazy… [although in my defense, CTH has been outlining the goals and aspirations of the specific Chicago headquartered communist ideologues for almost 15 years, while most allies on Team Freedom said we were crazy]…  and consider: ‘through the prism of previously blocked moves’;  because there’s a reference here most are likely to miss.

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This administration hates you and enjoys your suffering. The Secretary of Energy who continually reminds me of Tinkerbell, let’s you know exactly what she thinks about it.

 

Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes

The Venezuelan government recently lopped off six zeros from its hyperinflating currency, the bolivar. The highest denomination currency note of 1 million bolivars, worth less than $0.25, was replaced by a one-bolivar note. At the same time, a 100-bolivar note, worth about $25.00, was introduced as the new highest denomination of the bolivar.

The currency conversion was designed to spare the government the embarrassment of having to issue a 100-million bolivar note to enable people to purchases everyday items without having to carry around bundles of notes, given that the price of a loaf of bread had risen to 7 million old bolivars. Of course, the arbitrary scaling down of the denomination of the currency will not slow inflation, because the new currency notes can be printed just as cheaply as the old. The bolivar has already lost 73 percent of its value in 2021 alone and the IMF estimates the annual inflation rate will reach 5,500 percent by the end of 2021.

It is not surprising, then that all but the poorest Venezuelans have abandoned the bolivar as a medium of exchange, let alone a store of value or unit of account. US dollars are the exchange medium of choice in Caracas and other large cities, while the Colombian peso dominates along the Colombian border, particularly in the regional city of San Cristobal. The Brazilian real is current along the southern border with Brazil and the euro and cryptocurrencies have also found niche uses.

What is wonderfully surprising is the spontaneous emergence of a pure gold currency in a remote region of southeastern Venezuela around the towns of Tumeremo and El Callao. The region abounds with precious metal ores and has a long history of luring prospectors and miners seeking their fortunes. Today, however, many of the larger mines are controlled by the government military, which is battling local gangs and guerillas.

Despite the violence and lawlessness, jobless Venezuelans from far and wide are flooding into the area to work in thriving illegal mines in exchange for payment in gold nuggets. As a result, gold flakes, which are peeled off raw nuggets with hand tools, have become the currency of choice in the region with prices for commodities and services quoted in grams of gold. Half a gold gram buys you a one-night stay in a local hotel, while a meal for two at a Chinese restaurant and a haircut will cost you a quarter of a gram and an eighth of a gram, respectively.

The gold flakes are carried in people’s pockets—usually wrapped in the nearly worthless bolivar notes. While some shops are equipped with scales to weigh the gold flakes, most sellers and their customers have become so familiar with the flakes that they evaluate them by sight. For example, the barber and his customer who transacted for the haircut agreed that three gold flakes equaled the one-eighth gram price (approximately $5.00). Gold is also starting to penetrate the nearby cities, such as the regional capital Ciudad Bolivar, as stores in shopping malls gladly accept the gold in exchange for dollars from miners who are seeking to cash out.

For gold to become a full-blown currency that can viably compete with depreciating dollars and other foreign currencies, the raw nuggets need to be minted into convenient shapes and sizes and their weight and fineness certified by reputable firms. This means that any legal barriers to private mints must be eliminated. In addition, sales and capital gains taxes on gold must be abolished. Since it is highly unlikely that these measures will be implemented by the Maduro government, we can only cheer on the inroads made by the people’s gold flake currency.

It’s not the senile moron in the White House. It’s the puppetmasters who are pulling his strings.

Bidenomics’ Build Back Better Blunder

Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck is semi-famous for saying that “in many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”

It’s becoming clearer that one of the most efficient ways to destroy the U.S. economy, outside of bombing the country, is to put Joe Biden in the White House.

Economic growth in the third quarter was a meager 2%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, the most feeble increase of the pandemic recovery. Some economists had forecast a gain closer to 3%, leaving many disappointed. As the Asia Times accurately summed it up, the U.S. “economy ground to a halt.”

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GDP Misses as US Economy Grows Only 2% in Q3, Weakest Growth Since COVID Struck

See the source image

With the Atlanta Fed cutting its GDPNow estimate to just 0.2% yesterday…

… there were big worries that today the BEA could reveal a shocker of a number, one far below the rapidly falling consensus estimate of 2.6%. Well, the Q3 GDP number just came out and it was bad, but not nearly as bad as it could have been: at 2.0%, it did indeed miss the 2.6% consensus by a lot but it could have been far worse.

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BLUF:
On the rare occasions that he comes to the cameras to deliver remarks, most often he finishes speaking, turns around abruptly, and returns to the recesses of the White House.

It’s an apt image presented by an administration that is usually very concerned about visuals and symbolism.

Biden is leaving the lasting impression that, as he does to members of the press, he is simply turning his back on the American people.

Biden on Energy Crisis: Begging Others to Save Him From Himself.

President Joe Biden is drowning in a sea of crises of his own creation, and Americans are the ones who are paying the price.

There’s an ongoing humanitarian and national security calamity at the southern border.

Thirteen U.S. service members are dead, and an unknown number of our citizens remain stranded in Afghanistan following Biden’s disastrous withdrawal.

COVID-19 is still rampant, despite Biden’s promises that he would defeat the virus, while his vaccine mandate has divided the country.

Americans are not taking the millions of jobs available and the economy is stalled, as many have chosen the option of being paid by the government to stay home instead of working.

Biden’s administration failed to identify the growing supply chain disruption, which did not occur overnight and threatens to further strangle the economy. Labor shortages are a contributing factor, including a lack of truck drivers to help unload ships and transport goods (see the above point about workers not accepting available jobs).

And energy prices continue to rise, helping to drive mounting inflation and hurting Americans—especially those with moderate or low incomes—at a time when the economy should be hitting its stride coming out of the pandemic lockdowns.

It is on the costs of energy where Biden’s failures are most starkly visible.

On his very first day in office, Biden scrapped the Keystone XL pipeline, killing 11,000 jobs in the process and making good on his campaign promise to be hostile to the fossil fuel industry.

Continuing his assault on natural resource development, Biden suspended oil and natural gas leases in Alaska.

Former President Donald Trump had propelled America to energy independence, but Biden has purposely squandered it. His policies are designed to reduce domestic production of petroleum, meaning we have become necessarily more reliant on foreign sources.

Biden’s approach has been an economic disaster.

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Comment O’ The Day

“It is interesting that the group that claimed Trump was an instrument of Russia are actually putting people in power that believe the completely failed economic system of the Soviet Union should inspire what we do in the US.”

Biden Comptroller pick Saule Omarova refuses to turn over Moscow State University thesis on Marxism
Sen. Pat Toomey claimed Omarova removed the thesis from her recent CV

President Biden’s pick for Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is facing a hard fight over her past comments and studies as she refuses to turn over her thesis on Marxism while a student at Moscow State University.

Saule Omarova was born in the Soviet Union in what is now called Kazakhstan and graduated from Moscow State University in 1989. She has pointed to the USSR’s practices as recently as 2019, when she tweeted about the gender pay gap, citing the USSR as a better model.

U.S. Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Pat Toomey, R-Pa., last week asked Omarova to turn over a copy of her thesis – in both English and the original Russian – for review by the committee no later than Oct. 13. Her thesis, titled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” remains an item of interest to some members on the committee.

Saule Omarova

Ms. Saule T. Omarova, Professor of Law and Director, Jack Clarke Program on the Law and Regulation of Financial Institutions and Markets, Cornell University.

“While it appears that you have deleted any reference to your thesis in the version of your curriculum vitae (CV) that is currently available on the Cornell Law School website, the paper appeared on your CV as recently as April 2017,” Toomey wrote on Oct. 6.

Omarova had not complied with the request as of Thursday, Oct. 14, a spokesperson for Senate Banking Committee Republicans claimed.

“Ms. Omarova has time to attack Republicans in an interview with the Financial Times, but she can’t bother to comply with a Banking Committee requirement that nominees— regardless of their political party or ideology—submit copies of their writings,” said Amanda Gonzalez Thompson. “We certainly hope she reconsiders so Senators have the information necessary to fulfill their constitutional duty to advise and consent on appointments.”

Thompson argued that such requests are a common part of the vetting process, and other candidates have faced similar requests from committees in the past.

Omarova spoke with the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday in which she claimed that Republicans find her an easy target to “demonize” because she is “an immigrant, a woman, a minority.”

“There is definitely a different standard applied to someone like me,” Omarova said. She asserted that she believes some of the criticism leveled against her is racist in nature.

Toomey stated in no uncertain terms during a committee hearing last week that he does not believe her country of origin factors into consideration for her nomination.

“I also pointed out that some of the most wonderful, loyal, and greatest Americans that I’ve ever met are Americans who happen to have been born and raised behind the Iron Curtain and come to this country,” Toomey said. “That fact of her background has no bearing whatsoever on my judgement about how profoundly misguided the policies she has advocated are and it is perfectly appropriate for us to examine those policies.”

Republicans have targeted past comments by Omarova in which she praised the USSR economic model, citing it as an example of a system that the U.S. should look to for inspiration.

“Until I came to the U.S., I couldn’t imagine that things like gender pay gap still existed in today’s world,” Omarova wrote. “Say what you will about old USSR, there was no gender pay gap there. Market doesn’t always ‘know best.’”

A number of officials have written to voice opposition to Omarova’s nomination, pointing to other comments she has made in which she laid out her intention to reshape “the basic architecture and dynamics of modern finance.”

Omarova did not respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.

 

Bitcoin Crashes After China Rules All Crypto-Related Transactions Illegal

The People’s Bank of China revived its tough stance on digital currencies on Friday, ruling all crypto-related trading activities illegal and banning overseas crypto exchanges from providing services to mainland investors.

The regulator announced plans to bar financial institutions, payment companies and internet firms from facilitating cryptocurrency trading, as well as to strengthen monitoring of risks from such activities.

“Overseas virtual currency exchanges that use the internet to offer services to domestic residents is also considered illegal financial activity,” the PBOC said in a Q&A posted to its website.

“Financial institutions and non-bank payment institutions cannot offer services to activities and operations related to virtual currencies,” the central bank said.

The move sent bitcoin and other virtual currencies plummeting. The world’s number one digital asset by market capitalization dropped over 5% to below $42,000. Other cryptocurrencies followed the declining trend with ether dropping 10% to below $2,800, while dogecoin crashed over 8% to below $0.20, according to the Coinmarketcap website.

The latest ruling comes as part of a broader state-run campaign by Chinese regulators against cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Beijing banned mining in major bitcoin hubs, such as Sichuan, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, which led to a sharp drop in bitcoin’s processing power, as multiple miners took their equipment offline.

Biden Has a Plan to Create a Gestapo Force…Using an Agency That’s Already Been Engulfed in Controversy

What was the joke? We don’t have an SS-Gestapo because we already have the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Taxes are probably some of the records, if not the only records that the government is meticulous about when it comes to reporting. For years, the IRS simply did not have the resources to act like the bloodthirsty hawk it has always wanted to be. Now, Joe Biden is hoping to rebuild the IRS into a tax Gestapo force. How? Well, if the vaccine mandates were any indication, it’s the usual formula of government overreach that’s overlooked because the liberal media loves this guy.

Yes, the media were tough on Biden during the Afghanistan fiasco. A broken clock is right twice a day. And while gold stars are warranted here, it’s sort of sad — since this is the media’s job.

The Afghanistan withdrawal was shambolic. It was terrible. Now, when are the media going to hit him on how we left Americans behind in Afghanistan? When will they hit him for his lackadaisical approach to rising inflation, which is seen first and foremost by female voters who balance the budgets in America’s homes? The jobs reports are abysmal. The French are recalling their ambassador. And the border is lost. This administration is a serial failure.

Yet, I digress. How creepy is Biden’s IRS plan? Well, any account, personal or business, that has over $600 will be monitored. Yeah, you heard that right. Virtually every Americans’ bank account will be under the microscope of the IRS. Why is this being missed? Well, first, it’s buried in that monstrosity of a human infrastructure bill that comes in at a “conservative” price tag of $3.5 trillion, which is on top of the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill that comes in at $1.2 trillion. And people wonder why inflation is through the roof (via Fox Business):

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As long as the $$ is the world’s main reserve currency, the goobermint can kick this can down the road for awhile longer.
If that ever changes – and China and Russia are hard at work on it -it will quickly go from bad to worse.

And I don’t think he’s actually ‘bought it’. He’s just caught between the political rock and hard place, where he can’t dare do anything but lie.

WEIMAR? IT’S US

Modern Monetary Theory has officially arrived. That theory, embraced by ignoramuses like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but by no economists, to my knowledge, holds that a government can just print money and distribute it to taxpayers Democratic Party constituencies, with no ill effects. And it will be real money, representing wealth, that will raise everyone’s standard of living.

It is hard to imagine anyone being dumb enough to fall for such nonsense (AOC and the Squad excepted), but the Chairman of the House Budget Committee has bought it hook, line and sinker:

One obvious question is, if the government can just print money and thereby create wealth, why do we have taxes at all? To be consistent, the Democrats should advocate abolishing the federal personal and corporate income taxes, as well as the federal estate tax.

Of course, Modern Monetary Theory is not modern at all. It has been tried by desperate governments for several centuries, and arguably back to ancient times. Just ask residents of the Weimar Republic, Argentina, Zimbabwe and Venezuela, to name only a few of the most famous instances, how Modern Monetary Theory worked out for them.

Although, to be fair, none of those countries had anything like our $28 trillion national debt. As we cruise in uncharted waters, we are passing the shipwrecked hulks of governments that embraced Modern Monetary Theory, but to a more modest degree than the Democratic Party now contemplates.

I Feel Like I Am Living In Crazytown

We haven’t had an extended bout of painful inflation like this since the days of the Carter administration, and our leaders in Washington have decided that the best way forward is to rapidly create even more inflation.  They keep using words like “transitory” to describe the current inflation crisis, but then they turn right around and talk about the need to create, borrow and spend even more money.  It is utter madness, but at this point there is nobody that is going to stop them.  We are all passengers on a “highway to Weimar”, and those that have their hands on the wheel have gone completely nuts.

On Wednesday, we learned that on a year-over-year basis inflation continues to rise at the fastest pace that we have seen since the last financial crisis…

Federal data released on Wednesday showed that for the 12 months through July, the consumer price index rose 5.4 percent, unchanged from June and at the highest level since the Great Recession in 2008.

But since the way that the rate of inflation is calculated has literally been changed dozens of times over the decades, the only way to get an apples for apples comparison is to calculate what the rate of inflation would be if it was still calculated the same way it was at some previous moment in our history.

John Williams of shadowstats.com has done just that.  According to Williams, if inflation was still calculated the same way it was back in 1990, we would be at about 9 percent at this moment.

And if inflation was still calculated the same way it was back in 1980, we would be way into double digits right now.

Many Americans had assumed that we would never again see the sort of crazy inflation that we witnessed during the Carter years, but now it is here.

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Wait till they figure out that ruining us means their economy tanks, since we won’t buy their crap. Appears that buying SloJoe was probably the stupidest thing they could have done.

China Threatens Nuclear War if U.S. Continues Investigating COVID-19 Origins.

The Chinese are warning about an impending nuclear war if the United States does not cease its investigation into the origins of the COVID pandemic. They warn that the Americans must call off their probe into the sources of the disease — a warning which has prompted many American analysts to conclude that the leaders in Beijing fear discovery of the truth: that they — the Chinese Communists — are the source of the pandemic.

The Chinese Communists have long experimented with bioweapons, and have apparently continued the nasty habit, both recruiting Western scientists and putting them to work on Chinese projects, and smuggling Westerners into projects within China itself. One of the world’s top China experts, British citizen Roger Garside, foresees a mounting crisis, since Beijing will have to confront a triple whammy:  a financial crisis, a moral vacuum, and widespread corruption. In an interview he gave recently about his new book, Garside summarized the situation grimly: China is outwardly strong but inwardly weak.

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The White House Is Panicked Over Inflation (Even Though YOU Have the Most to Lose)

I’ve spent so much time writing about inflation these last few months that it’s been almost tempting to put on a leisure suit and light my office with a disco ball.

Almost.

Judging by Presidentish Joe Biden’s awful and awkward speech on Monday, there’s at least a mild panic in the White House over the surge in consumer prices — and the even bigger (but rarely addressed) spike in producer prices.

Last week you could see the panicked writing on the Oval Office wall.

ASIDE: I almost wrote “Oval Office walls,” but if you think about it, there’s only one.

While PJ Media’s own Tyler O’Neil has the full details on Biden’s stock-market-rattling speech, it’s the motivation behind it that interests me.

As I write this, the Dow is down about 2.5%, NASDAQ has shed about 1.5% of its value, and the S&P is down more than 2%. Those numbers have been getting worse all day — they didn’t recover any after Biden finished mumbling his way through yet another set of pointless remarks.

The White House had to know it was taking a big risk with the markets, giving Biden a microphone and the sad duty of at least tacitly admitting that the inflation threat is real. (Plus, unnecessarily working up fresh COVID panic, but that’s a subject for another column.)

Despite weeks of official denials that the months-long inflationary surge was only “temporary,” White House economic officials Brian Deese and Cecilia Rouse felt it necessary to meet last week with Larry Summers.

Why is that revealing?

Summers isn’t merely a former Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and onetime economic advisor to Barack Obama, he’s also a longtime inflation hawk whom Democrats are “angry” with over his recent warnings.

MSN News described Summers as “the most prominent Democratic critic of Biden’s economic agenda,” who “blasted the size of the March economic relief bill.”

My guess is that Biden’s people got an earful from Summers, so much so that they felt they had to get out in front of this thing.

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Is he that stupid, or believes we are that stupid?
Of course, acknowledging the mighty power of “And” helps.

Biden Argues Massive Government Spending Will Help Fend Off Inflation, Not Exacerbate It

President Biden argued that a massive influx of [a] government spending bill will help fend off inflation, in a speech on the state of the economy at the White House on Monday.

The White House has dubbed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to bring to the floor this week — and the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that Democrats plan to pass in the coming days without Republican support — the “Build Back Better” package. Biden said Monday that the two bills will help prevent, rather than exacerbate, runaway inflation.

“Whatever different views people have about the current price increases, we should be united in one thing: passage of the bipartisan infrastructure framework, which we shook hands on,” Biden said. “And my Build Back Better Plan will be a force for achieving lower prices for Americans looking ahead.”

Biden contended that investments in infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and broadband would eliminate economic “chokepoints” that currently raise prices on goods.

“If your primary concern is about inflation, you should be even more enthusiastic about this plan,” Biden said. “We can’t afford not to make these investments.”

During a question and answer session with reporters, Biden dismissed predictions of high inflation.

“There’s nobody suggesting unchecked [inflation] is on its way,” Biden said. “No serious economist.”

Former treasury secretary Larry Summers warned that Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill was “the least responsible fiscal macroeconomic policy we’ve have had for the last 40 years,” in a March interview with Bloomberg TV. That relief bill included funding for state and local governments, medical aid, and a round of checks to all Americans.

However, Summers has backed some investments in infrastructure.

“The investments on which Biden is focused are essential to the future of the country,” Summers told Politico last week. “Inflation fears should shape economic policies but it would be tragic if they stopped us from making urgently needed public investments.”

STEPHEN MOORE: OPEC and Big Oil’s New Best Friend, Joe Biden

The price of oil surged to $75 a barrel the other day under President Joe Biden’s green energy policies. The price was as low as $35 a barrel under former President Donald Trump because he believed in American energy dominance (“Drill, baby, drill”). So, more oil meant lower prices at the pump. It was effectively a massive, multibillion-dollar tax cut for lower- and middle-income earners of tens of billions of dollars a year.

But now, with the exploding demand for energy as the world economy reopens, the self-defeating Biden policy is to curtail oil drilling here at home, which is often done by the smaller and independent “wildcat” drillers. Instead, this administration enriches the major oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron with existing wells that are suddenly more profitable to drill. This is why the gas price at the pump is $3.29 a gallon nationally and above $5 a gallon in California.

Are these higher-energy prices transitory? Harold Hamm, one of the fathers of modern shale gas innovations, doesn’t think so. Instead, he predicts the price may surge to more than $100 a barrel, which means well over $4 a gallon at the pump.

The most significant deterrent to more drilling on these shores is the Biden de facto moratorium on domestic drilling on federal lands. How foolish is this? Up to an estimated $50 trillion of energy resources are right below our feet. This is like a buried treasure that could supply energy for 100-plus years. In addition, the royalties and taxes would help pay off some of our $30 trillion national debt.

Here’s the worst part of the story. None of this tomfoolery is doing any good for the environment. Even Biden’s own Energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has complained that in some ways, the Biden policies are making carbon emissions worse by approving pipelines of dirty energy from Russia to Germany while killing pipelines from relatively cleaner oil and gas here in the United States.

What is clear is that the renewable energy push and the subsidies for electric cars and electric batteries aren’t going to change our fossil fuel energy demands for years. So, it is only a question of whether we get the oil from here at home or from some of our major adversaries, such as Russia.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that even coal is making a comeback. After years of low prices, the coal price is now spiking due to less production. Biden has declared war on American coal, which has led to the closing of coal plants across the country. As utilities begin to awaken to the low reliability of wind and solar power, coal is in demand as a backup energy source to prevent blackouts. The rest of the world, especially Asia, is still addicted to coal. China now builds coal plants at a faster rate than we shut them down.

What sense does it make to shutter American coal when we have more of it, a 400-year supply, than any other nation? And our coal is the cleanest.

So, the Biden energy plan is bad for jobs, bad for consumers, and bad for the environment. My prediction is that global and U.S. carbon emissions are going way up this year and next.

The irony of this story is that the industry that Biden and the greens hate the most is benefiting from his foolish policies.

And, yes, those are the Saudi oil sheikhs you are seeing rolling on the ground laughing at us.

This is good news as the deck replacement project has been in a holding pattern.

Lumber Wipes Out 2021 Gain With Demand Ebbing After Record Boom

Lumber, which at one point was among the world’s best-performing commodities as the pandemic sent construction demand soaring and stoked fears of inflation, has officially wiped out all of its staggering gains for the year.

Prices at Monday’s close are now down 0.6% for the year as demand eases and supply expands in response to earlier gains. The rally turned a common building product into a social media sensation and a flash point in the debate over U.S. monetary policy. At one point, lumber futures were trading as high as $1,733.50 per thousand board feet, more than quadruple the level of a year earlier.

Lumber’s drop is among the most dramatic examples of the easing in commodity prices after rallies in raw materials from copper to corn earlier this year fueled concern that rising costs would undercut the economic recovery. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last month cited lumber’s decline as evidence that price pressures will cool as supply bottlenecks from the reopening economy are worked out and stimulus fades.

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