I got gasoline Friday, at a price of $3.99.9 per gallon of unleaded regular. And that was the good news.
The next day, the price was $4.19.9.
Thanks, Joe Biden.
As usual, Democrats, leftists and liberals will blame it all on Russia. And there is a component to rising oil prices from the Russian incursion into Ukraine.
But oil and gasoline prices in this nation had been rising long before that, caused in large part by Biden’s anti-oil policies which include nixing pipelines (unless they are Russian) and limiting drilling and exploration here.
Clueless Joe has dropped the United States from energy independence under Donald Trump to its familiar previous status of net importer, from places like Russia!
It’s not just oil that is skyrocketing in price. The wife came home from grocery shopping Saturday, lamenting having spent a lot more than at any time in recent memory.
Houses in our little, economically depressed Greater Johnstown are selling briskly, even with bidding wars that heretofore were limited to places with booming economies and housing markets. It’s part legitimate demand from people afraid the houses will cost more, and mortgage interest rates will be higher if they wait to buy.
There also seems to be a burgeoning industry here of buying houses now to re-sell down the line, often without even having lived in the dwelling in the interim.
This is behavior of the sort we used to read about having happened in Weimar Germany, in the midst of the hyperinflation in the wake of World War I that ran into the 1930s and brought a guy named Hitler to power.
You’ve seen the pictures of people burning the depreciated Weimar currency to keep warm because it was cheaper than buying wood. Perhaps you’ve read of German people rushing to stores after being paid to buy goods that would assuredly cost more tomorrow, even the next hour.
Commodity prices overall in the U.S. have seen their strongest start to a year in terms of rising prices since 1915. Lumber, gold, silver, copper, oil, natural gas, wheat, beef, chicken. You name it, it costs more than it did to start 2022.
Fertilizer prices are rising at a parabolic rate, which guarantees even higher prices for grains and meats that come from creatures who are fed grains.
Workers will demand more money to account for their increased costs, which will force companies to raise prices.
It’s called a wage-price inflationary spiral and we all lose, especially those who have saved money to carry themselves through retirement.
Genius Joe Biden finally is becoming aware of inflation and wants companies not to raise prices; just eat the losses they are incurring from higher commodity costs.
You can hear the rumble of cries for price controls, in which companies are forbidden by the government from raising prices. This leads to less production, further shortages and . . . more inflation.
Such controls didn’t work for Richard Nixon in 1971 and they won’t work for Biden in 2022.
I can only hope the moronic crowd who overlooked candidate Biden’s demonstrable shortcomings and voted for him if only to get rid of Trump, are suffering big economically now that THEIR guy is in office.
Unfortunately, many innocents are suffering, too. That suffering is virtually guaranteed to worsen.
No, a cessation of Russian-Ukrainian hostilities won’t solve the problem, other than a possible short-term relief hiatus. There is, at this point, no obvious long-term solution short of an economic miracle.
Nations around the world have spent too much money that they do not have, incurring onerous debt burdens. They have legislated businesses into fiscal straitjackets, as with Biden’s anti-carbon fuels handiwork.
They have punished the economic producers and rewarded those who would take a free ride on the efforts of those producers.
Now they are reaping what they have sowed. And all of us are just along for the unpleasant ride.
Sam Ross Jr's site 