missionaccomplishedbush.jpg
ngl, Biden reaching out to and getting snubbed by every single more reactionary oil country including America until he's absolutely forced to work with democratic socialists in Venezuela is a pretty good bit.
Iran also has plenty of reserves. All you gotta do is lift some sanctions.
Iran's oil also is getting totally undercut by cheap Russian fossil fuels right now. Russia stole their main markets in Asia in avoiding western sanctions. And Russia has told Iran they aren't planning on helping them cushion the blow. A smart American empire could have used this opportunity to realign Iran towards the west by buying their oil, but I think we already burned that bridge with Trump's wild ride.
:farquaad-point:
Also isnt Jeddah a place in Star Wars, did they just take the name of a real city and hope nobody would notice? Because if so, i'd like for the next Stars War to feature Planet Des Moines
The sequel movies totally disregarding Zahn only for the TV shows and spinoffs slowing adding his stuff back in has been really funny
They probably hoped Americans with their famous knowledge of geography wouldn't notice, and to be fair I don't think the yanks did
Umm actually it's spelled Jedha.
But it's not just a city, it's a holy city for worshipers of the force. Jeddah is considered the gateway to the holy city of Mecca. Very creative Disney, thank you.
Other than the usual artificial scarcity reasons, I've read a few people suspect that Saudi Arabia actually doesn't have as much capacity that they used to in the past. Could just be an excuse, but would make sense seeing as they've tried to diversify production in other areas in recent years.
But yea pretty funny to see the US get owned by them knowing that they were literally a US client state in the past. Kissinger seething rn.
literally the only reason they would lower prices would be demand destruction, which somewhat happened when prices spiked in 2008.
it's where prices are so high on a generally inelastic good that people strategize ways to lower their consumption. fortunately for Americans, our entire media apparatus is dedicated to making us love our cars and our governments would never threaten car dependent development.
so instead we get more people buying hybrids, electrics and taking out huge loans or forking over massive rents to get into those precious few neighborhoods and cities where one might not have to drive very much, relative to the average US citizen.
giving us the poison and denying us the cure so we will take their medicine.
Would it really matter? Gas prices are high because of greed, not scarcity, ya?
Yeah, the US is still a net exporter. Biden could literally just threaten to block oil exports until prices drop.
Guys such a loser. They sold oil to China because they paid more? On the free market? Seems like an easy way to break the system.
It's kinda funny watching them do those free market stuff and it make people question it more and more.
These strategic gas reservers can actually be bought by anyone on the open market lol. Than how are they strategic
And why even use them if it's not being used domestically???? (RULES BASED ORDER)
Hey now. You're only supposed to pay attention the day we say we are releasing them. Not what happens after they are released okay
Yea oil prices ultimately somewhat depend on the fried brains of finance capitalism. There's obviously not an actual scarcity at the moment but Russia sanctions meant finance capitalists have pushed the price up. Europe may obviously have an oil shortage but that's literally just their bad decision, they could just choose not to have a shortage lol. It's happened pretty much every perceived oil "crisis" going back to 73, where there's never actually a risk of scarcity but oil and finance capital use it as an excuse to make more profit.
Whether an OPEC increase would actually even make any difference to the international price, who knows. I think more than anything they're just trying to make it look like Biden's at least trying to do something lol. If Saudis had agreed, the media would be able to fall over themselves about what great "statesmanship" Biden's showing or some shit. Now with this plus what looks like a failure to drum up an anti-Iran alliance he grovelled to MbS for literally no reason.
It's not a production issue it's a processing issue. Oil changes depending on where you pull it out of the ground. It's not all the same stuff. Each requires different processing. Oil from Saudi Arabia is different and requires different processing than oil from Texas.
The majority of US refineries are tooled for Saudi oil because that has been the cheapest/most convenient option for longer than most people here have been alive.
That brings us to domestic production criticisms. It literally doesn't matter if we put an oil derrick in everyone's back yard, we simply cannot process the oil. We're only like 1M barrels off peak domestic production, and we're slowly working back up to peak. We hit peak under Trump and then it slouched off because covid. Peak was around 12M barrels. So the difference in gas prices between producing 11M barrels domestically and 12M is hardly anything. That is if you're thinking from a supply/demand standpoint.
From what I gather we're in a similar situation with Saudi oil. They're already producing about as much as they can. They can pump out maybe half a million more barrels per day, but it won't really change anything.
We could retool domestic refineries to use domestically-sourced oil. But then capitalism steps in and says no. That would require a huge expenditure of capital on behalf of the oil companies. Then what is the outcome? That their product becomes cheaper! Why would they do anything to lower prices? Why not just keep what you have, spending less on new building, and then rake in higher profits off of record-high prices? What are they going to do? Vote you out? You're a private business. Nobody is going to compete with you because you're one of the biggest industries in the world and there's only 3 of you.
So yes, it's greed. It's capitalism getting in its own way. Then there comes the part where the cruelty is the point. They want people to suffer higher gas prices. They want people to be mad. Demand for gas has already returned to 2019 levels. This situation is letting them crush any hopes of regulating them into lowering production. Biden did fuck up with foreign policy, so I don't want to pretend he's not at fault. But part of this is oil companies bullying Democrats away from green policies. As soon as a Republican congress takes over or Trump comes back, you'll suddenly see prices drop back.
This goes back to the refinery problem. These companies don't want to build new refineries or retool them if the government is just going to regulate them out of existence in 10-20 years. When a Republican gets back in, they'll calm down about that and use it as an opportunity to build more defenses against regulation.
It's not even that Democrats wouldn't also deregulate for some sweet oil money. It's just that Democrats exist as the loser party of losers and as much as they will bend over backwards for capital, they will never be respected. They will always be bullied by capital to convince everyone that their way of life is under threat from "the left" no matter how right wing Democrats are.
But even if they did decide to build tons of new refineries, gas couldn't ever come back down to $1 per gallon. It always has to go up eventually and the lower prices must get higher and higher. Falling rate of profit and all that. Maybe there's enough global politics involved so that it's not quite that simple, but then again maybe not. The Saudis are capitalist too, and the Russians.
Then what is the outcome? That their product becomes cheaper!
Yup. "Innovation" is what we're told is the secret sauce as to why capitalism is the greatest economic system ever. A capitalist innovates and implements some better process or equipment because even if it eventually causes the rate of profit to remain unchanged, before that happens the capitalist is able to make super-profits. But as capitalism moves to ever-increasing degrees of monopoly, that innovation advantage completely dries up.
Right, but what I'm alluding to is what we here all know; If your company is reporting record profits in the billions then inflation, wage increases, supply chain issues, etc, aren't the reason for price increases, they're the excuse.
I'm pretty sure it's because, "What are you gonna do about it?"
