President Joe Biden’s Delusional Letter to Oil Company Executives
“Energy prices are set by global commodity prices …” Federal Reserve Chairman Powell June 15th, 2022
What follows is President Joe Biden’s delusional letter to oil company executives. I have added commentary to address the delusion. My comments are highlighted in yellow and parenthesis.
Dear (executive)
I am writing to you about the high prices our fellow Americans are paying at the pump, and how we can all play a part in addressing them. Since the beginning of this year, gasoline prices have increased by more than $1.70 per gallon.
Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression, and the bipartisan and global effort to counter it, has disrupted the global supply of oil and driven up the global price. (This is false as Europe continues to buy oil and gas from Russia. Type in the following search terms and read for yourself: europe continues purchasing russian oil)But the sharp rise in gasoline prices is not driven only by rising oil prices, but by an unprecedented disconnect between the price of oil and the price of gas. The last time the price of crude oil was about $120 per barrel, in March, the price of gas at the pump was $4.25 per gallon. Today, gas prices are 75 cents higher, and diesel prices are 90 cents higher.
That difference — of more than 15% at the pump — is the result of the historically high profit margins for refining oil into gasoline, diesel and other refined products. Since the beginning of the year, refiners’ margins for refining gasoline and diesel have tripled, and are currently at their highest levels ever recorded.(This is a ridiculously and absurdly false narrative. The jump in price is not caused by profits. In fact the jump in profits is a result of prices set in the global commodity markets. All of America’s gas stations are not necessarily owned by oil companies. They are owned by independent groups of operators. More delusion. Not only is the statement delusional but it is also illogical.)
To be sure, the shortage of refining capacity is a global challenge and a global concern. Around 3 million barrels a day of global refining capacity have gone offline since the onset of the pandemic, inhibiting our ability to ramp up supply of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. I am working with allies and partners and countries around the world to encourage global refinery capacity to come back online.(OK Joe, how about working with American producers which would in turn put Americans back to work….you petty little Globalist you) But, in the United States alone, oil refiners significantly reduced their capacity during the pandemic. In the year before I took office, refineries in the United States reduced their capacity by more than 800,000 barrels a day, leaving American refinery companies today at their lowest level of capacity in more than a half decade.
I understand that many factors contributed to the business decisions to reduce refinery capacity, which occurred before I took office. But at a time of war, refinery profit margins well above normal being passed directly onto American families are not acceptable. ( A time of war? You are kidding right Joe…a little insignificant skirmish in the Ukraine? Are we at war? No, we are not. What an absurd statement.)
There is no question that Vladimir Putin is principally responsible for the intense financial pain the American people and their families are bearing. But amid a war that has raised gasoline prices more than $1.70 per gallon, historically high refinery profit margins are worsening that pain. (If anyone believes Putin is to blame for American’s financial pain they are as delusional as the Biden Administration. Mindless slogans and Putin blaming are old hat and quite frankly make the Biden Administration and the President look likes fools.)
Your companies and others have an opportunity to take immediate actions to increase the supply of gasoline, diesel, and other refined product you are producing and supplying to the United States market. With prices for your product where they are today, you have ample market incentive to take these actions, and I recognize that some of you have already begun to do so. I also encourage you to continue maintaining and expanding fuel supply safely.( Apparently Biden has no idea of how long it takes to bring oil and gas production online. Wishing it can be done before the Mid-Term elections is a Biden Administration pipe-dream, pun intended.)
In addition, my Administration is prepared to use all reasonable and appropriate Federal Government tools and emergency authorities to increase refinery capacity and output in the near term, and to ensure that every region of this country is appropriately supplied. Already, I have invoked emergency powers to execute the largest Strategic Petroleum Reserve release in history, expand access to E15 (gasoline with 15% ethanol), and authorize the use of the Defense Production Act to provide reliable inputs into energy production. I am prepared to use all tools at my disposal, as appropriate, to address barriers to providing Americans affordable, secure energy supply.( Does the Biden Administration not realize that increasing the amount of Ethanol used in gasoline reduces the gas mileage American drivers will get in their automobiles. This is pure science? Is the Biden Administration anti-science? Perhaps, he should take a gander at the readily available EPA studies and documentation in the U.S. Government’s archives.)
The crunch that families are facing deserves immediate action. (Yes, in fact, a good starting point would be for President Biden to immediately step down.)Your companies need to work with my Administration to bring forward concrete, near-term solutions that address the crisis and respect the critical equities of energy workers and fence-line communities. I have directed the Secretary of Energy to convene an emergency meeting on this topic and engage the National Petroleum Council in the coming days. In advance of that, I request that you provide the Secretary with an explanation of any reduction in your refining capacity since 2020 and any ideas that would address the immediate inventory, price, and refining capacity issues in the coming months — including transportation measures to get refined product to market.(I am quite sure that the Biden Administration knows full well what the oil industry needs in order to reduce the price at the pump. In fact they have already responded to this letter.)
The lack of refining capacity — and resulting unprecedented refinery profit margins — are blunting the impact of the historic actions my Administration has taken to address Vladimir Putin’s Price Hike and are driving up costs for consumers. I appreciate your immediate attention to this issue and your efforts to mitigate the economic challenges that Vladimir Putin’s actions have created for American families.(Putin’s Price Hike. Too Funny. But you go Joe…back to sleep…we’ll wake you up when the new administration is elected.)
The Tulip Folly, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1882. A nobleman guards an exceptional bloom as soldiers trample flowerbeds in a vain attempt to stabilise the tulip market by limiting the supply.
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4 November 2021; Alex Mashinsky, Celcius, on Centre Stage during day three of Web Summit 2021 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Web Summit via Sportsfile
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“Energy prices are set by global commodity prices …” Federal Reserve Chairman Powell June 15th, 2022
What follows is President Joe Biden’s delusional letter to oil company executives. I have added commentary to address the delusion. My comments are highlighted in yellow and parenthesis.
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION16 CFR Part 23Guides for the Jewelry, PreciousMetals, and Pewter Industries
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A Satire of Tulip Mania by Jan Brueghel the Younger (ca. 1640) depicts speculators as brainless monkeys in contemporary upper-class dress. In a commentary on the economic folly, one monkey urinates on the previously valuable plants, others appear in debtor’s court and one is carried to the grave.
Max Ernst – Photo from the Dutch National Archives
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Harvey Wiley, Chief Chemist of the Department of Agriculture’s Division of Chemistry (third from the right) with his staff, not long after he joined the division in 1883. Wiley’s scientific expertise and political skills were a key to passage of the 1906 Food and Drugs Act and the creation of the FDA.
“Saint John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, the main gateway to the Priory of Saint John of Jerusalem,” black and white photograph by the British photographer Henry Dixon, 1880. The church was founded in the 12th century by Jordan de Briset, a Norman knight. Prior Docwra completed the gatehouse shown in this photograph in 1504. The gateway [...] Read more →
The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee has a long heralded tradition of assisting farmers and growers through it’s Agricultural Extension Service. The following bulletin entitled Grape Growing in Tennessee discusses the Muscadine variety of grapes among others. Muscadine grapes are often found growing wild in Tennessee. On my grandfather’s West Tennessee [...] Read more →
Resolution adapted at the New Orleans Convention of the American Institute of Banking, October 9, 1919:
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Reprinted from FineModelShips.com with the kind permission of Dr. Michael Czytko
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A Lecture Delivered at the Guildhall, March 2, 1853 by Rev. H.M. Scarth, M.A., Rector of Bathwick.
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Photo Caption: The Marquis of Zetland, KC, PC – otherwise known as Lawrence Dundas Son of: John Charles Dundas and: Margaret Matilda Talbot born: Friday 16 August 1844 died: Monday 11 March 1929 at Aske Hall Occupation: M.P. for Richmond Viceroy of Ireland Vice Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire Lord – in – Waiting [...] Read more →
What follows is a chapter from Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward’s 1852 treatise on terrarium gardening.
ON THE NATURAL CONDITIONS OF PLANTS.
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The fact is, had one been living in the early 19th Century, one might occasionally encounter a counterfeit cup of tea. Food adulterations to include added poisonings and suspect substitutions were a common problem in Europe at the time.
From Fores’s Sporting Notes and Sketches, A Quarterly Magazine Descriptive of British, Indian, Colonial, and Foreign Sport with Thirty Two Full Page Illustrations Volume 10 1893, London; Mssrs. Fores Piccadilly W. 1893, All Rights Reserved.
GLIMPSES OF THE CHASE, Ireland a Hundred Years Ago. By ‘Triviator.’
Four times the nuptial bed she warm’d, And every time so well perform’d, That when death spoil’d each husband’s billing, He left the widow every shilling. Fond was the dame, but not dejected; Five stately mansions she erected With more than royal pomp, to vary The prison of her captive When Hardwicke’s towers shall bow [...] Read more →
A Lecture Delivered at the Guildhall, March 2, 1853 by Rev. H.M. Scarth, M.A., Rector of Bathwick.
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1 cup Christian Bros Brandy ½ cup Myer’s Dark Rum ½ cup Jim Beam Whiskey 1 cup currants 1 cup sultana raisins 1 cup pitted prunes finely chopped 1 med. apple peeled and grated ½ cup chopped dried apricots ½ cup candied orange peel finely chopped 1 ¼ [...] Read more →
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Notes on the intaglio processes of the most expensive book on birds available for sale in the world today.
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The magician delighted in exposing spiritualists as con men and frauds.
By EDMUND WILSON June 24, 1925
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The following recipes form the most popular items in a nine-course dinner program:
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Buying a book for a serious collector with refined tastes can be a daunting task.
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St. Valentine kneeling in supplication – 1677 by David Teniers III
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The arsenicals (compounds which contain the heavy metal element arsenic, As) have a long history of use in man – with both benevolent and malevolent intent. The name ‘arsenic’ is derived from the Greek word ‘arsenikon’ which means ‘potent'”. As early as 2000 BC, arsenic trioxide, obtained from smelting copper, was used [...] Read more →
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Grapes are the world’s leading fruit crop and the eighth most important food crop in the world, exceeded only by the principal cereals and starchytubers. Though substantial quantities are used for fresh fruit, raisins, juice and preserves, most of the world’s annual production of about 60 million [...] Read more →
IT requires a far search to gather up examples of furniture really representative in this kind, and thus to gain a point of view for a prospect into the more ideal where furniture no longer is bought to look expensively useless in a boudoir, but serves everyday and commonplace need, such as [...] Read more →
The Jubbulpore School of Industry is so thriving that the pupils, 800 in number, are obliged to work till ten o’clock at night to complete their orders; this they do most cheerfully. They are all Thugs, or the children of Thugs, and the hands which now ply [...] Read more →
Harvey Wiley, Chief Chemist of the Department of Agriculture’s Division of Chemistry (third from the right) with his staff, not long after he joined the division in 1883. Wiley’s scientific expertise and political skills were a key to passage of the 1906 Food and Drugs Act and the creation of the FDA.
The following is taken verbatim from a document that appeared several years ago in the Maine State Archives. It seems to have been removed from their website. I happened to have made a physical copy of it at the time I was looking into the preservation of leather book bindings back in 2006.
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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION16 CFR Part 23Guides for the Jewelry, PreciousMetals, and Pewter Industries
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Dr. David Starkey, the UK’s premiere historian, speaks to the modern and fleeting notion of “cancel culture”. Starkey’s brilliance is unparalleled and it has become quite obvious to the world’s remaining Western scholars willing to stand on intellectual integrity that a few so-called “Woke Intellectuals” most certainly cannot undermine [...] Read more →
The Effect of Magnetic Fields on Wound Healing Experimental Study and Review of the Literature
Steven L. Henry, MD, Matthew J. Concannon, MD, and Gloria J. Yee, MD Division of Plastic Surgery, University of Missouri Hospital & Clinics, Columbia, MO Published July 25, 2008
Audubon started to develop a special technique for drawing birds in 1806 a Miill Grove, Pennsylvania. He perfected it during the long river trip from Cincinnati to New Orleans and in New Orleans, 1821.
Every home should have one to be opened in spring A jar that sits on the table full of baseball dreams
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H.F. Leonard was an instructor in wrestling at the New York Athletic Club. Katsukum Higashi was an instructor in Jujitsu.
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On the evening of November 15th, the little village of Mahim was the scene of a murder, perhaps the most determined which has ever stained the annals of Bombay. Three men were massacred in cold blood, in a house used [...] Read more →
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WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY, MAGIC AND OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS ON MILITARY AND PARAMILITARY OPERATIONS IN THE CONGO
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Liquorice, the roots of Glycirrhiza Glabra, a perennial plant, a native of the south of Europe, but cultivated to some extent in England, particularly at Mitcham, in Surrey.
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From How to Make Money; and How to Keep it, Or, Capital and Labor based on the works of Thomas A. Davies Revised & Rewritten with Additions by Henry A. Ford A.M. – 1884
CHAPTER XXVI BANKING AND INSURANCE.
I wish I could write all across the sky, [...] Read more →
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A terrestial globe on which the tracts and discoveries are laid down from the accurate observations made by Capts Cook, Furneux, Phipps, published 1782 / globe by John Newton ; cartography by William Palmer, held by the State Library of New South Wales
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