Gas Prices Are GUTTING American Wallets

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As of June 16, the national average price for a gallon of gas was $5.009. The national average price for a gallon of diesel was $5.718. Unless we’ve lived in Europe, we haven’t seen gas prices like this before. What’s going on? Will it stay this way?

Pointing the finger

Biden keeps referring to the “Putin Price Hike.” After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the White House banned Russian imports of coal, oil, and natural gas. Biden cut off trade, but he’s trying to blame Putin for the mess.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren blames corporate greed. While it’s true that ExxonMobil, for example, posted a record profit for the second quarter of 2022 at $25.79 billion, this comes on top of losing $20 billion back in 2020. “Corporate greed” doesn’t explain that.

Truthfully, a variety of poor policies have led to the current gasoline prices. To try and make sense of what’s going on, we can look at the four most significant factors that go into determining the price of a gallon of gasoline.

The four factors that impact gas prices

The first is the price of crude oil itself, which is an internationally traded commodity. That’s the biggest reason Americans have to pay attention to what happens in far corners of the world. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, controls roughly 60% of the world’s internationally traded petroleum.

Taxes play the second-biggest role, and that’s part of why prices vary so widely from state to state. Today, for example, a gallon of gas costs $6.428 in California and $4.497 in Georgia.

Distribution and marketing costs and profits also affect price. Think about oil refineries. Are there any down the street from you? No? Then that means oil needs to be transported by truck to the gas stations in your neighborhood, and obviously, the farther you are from oil refineries, the more this will contribute to gas prices in your area. This, along with lower taxes, is the main reason gas is so much cheaper in the southern states. The United States’ oil refineries are overwhelmingly located along the Gulf Coast.

And finally comes the cost of refining itself. Refining is incredibly complex, requiring many layers of highly skilled, highly trained engineers and technicians. Have you ever driven past a refinery? I have spent my adult life close to refineries for one reason or another. They look like little cities.

Refineries are complicated

You cannot turn a couple of switches off when you feel like using solar power and throw a couple switches back on when you get an unusually cold snap, and you decide you need petroleum products again. The same goes for the actual rigs. If you cap a well because a particular politician wants to end fossil fuel usage, you can’t necessarily reopen it once it gets cold and people decide they’d really prefer not to freeze.

Refineries take a long time to build. The permitting process is expensive, and if you have an administration like our current one, which canceled Keystone after it had been approved, it represents a gamble of many millions of dollars. These reasons, along with a NIMBY culture, are why no new refineries have been built in the U.S. in nearly 50 years.

(Worried about how rising gas prices will increase food prices? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide to home canning.)

Energy drives civilization.

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has been pushing its doctrine of happiness through fast cars, big homes, and eating whatever you want whenever you want across the globe. The rest of the world wants in on it, and they need energy. Energy to build and run the cars, energy to build and heat the homes, and energy to grow and transport the food. It all takes energy, and cheap energy is the reason so many of us work in offices rather than breaking our backs digging wells or harvesting by hand.

For something so vital to not only our lifestyle but our very survival, you’d think various governments would have coherent energy policies, but they don’t. In Biden’s Executive Order Protecting Public Health and Environment, issued Jan. 21, 2021, his first day in office, Biden made it clear that he intended to make oil and gas production more difficult and therefore more expensive. In Section 6c, he explicitly states that weather events have “increased the urgency for combatting climate change and accelerating the transition toward a clean energy economy.” In Section 6d, he states, “Leaving the Keystone XL Pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.”

Biden made it clear from his first day in office that he would not favor fossil fuel extraction. He’s not alone; the global finance community has further complicated the situation in its implementation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores.

ESG scores function like a social credit system for corporations.

The higher your ESG score, the easier it is to obtain funding for various business ventures. And ESG scores weigh heavily toward renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

This should shock no one. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been issuing guidance on developing ESG guidelines. The WEF is also passionate about ending fossil fuel usage.

The WEF’s reasons for ending fossil fuel extraction are outside the scope of this article. I simply want to state that many powerful global players want to end fossil fuel usage, and from his first day in office, Biden has made it clear that he shares those priorities.

Imagine you’ve won the Powerball and are looking for ways to invest your $100 million. Would you pick an industry that the government hates and that the banking community doesn’t want to finance? I know I wouldn’t. And if I happened to manage said refineries, I would probably look at maintaining them minimally until I was able to transition them to more politically popular endeavors, like biofuels production. The international community has made it clear that they want to end fossil fuel usage. The energy community, quite reasonably, has not been investing much in increased production.

And yet now Biden has the nerve to scold energy companies for not producing enough.

On June 15, he sent a letter to energy companies insisting that they were earning too much money and charging Americans too much. First, Biden blamed Putin for high gas prices. Now, he’s blaming the oil companies.

Furthermore, he threatened to use “all tools at my disposal” to force oil companies to lower prices. One of the tools at his disposal would be to activate the Defense Production Act, which we’ve written about here. Another would be the windfall profits tax, proposed by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, which would impose an additional 21% tax on whatever the government deemed an “excess” profit.

Heavy-handed government interventions such as these never go well, regardless of what our current administration may think. Price controls have been implemented many times by many governments. Price ceilings, which is what Biden wants, always lead to a scarcity of resources.

Other options to address the crisis are out there.

ExxonMobil sent a concise, well-reasoned letter to Biden, listing steps that the government could take to ease the pain at the pump. Chevron, as well, issued a statement about future oil and gas production. Both companies highlighted the need for a clear, consistent energy policy that would make it more practical to form long-term investment decisions.

Increasing capacity can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The permitting process and physical construction often take a decade or more. You cannot make these kinds of investment decisions with a high likelihood of the regulatory environment changing every four years. The violent swings in public mood regarding whether fossil fuels are the villain or the savior cripple the industry’s ability to make needed long-term investments.

So, will Biden listen to the industry experts telling him how to move forward in stabilizing the U.S.’s energy supply and, ultimately, the price of a gallon of gas?

I’m not holding my breath.

Biden, along with many other politicians and government officials, seem to see this crisis mostly as an opportunity to blame their opponents for everything and to tell everyone to drive electric cars.

Why say no to electric vehicles?

Let’s set aside the argument over whether or not electric vehicles are better for the environment (I don’t think they are). They’re just not practical for many of us. For one thing, they take a long time to charge, so for people in the trucking industry who rely on frequent refueling and timely deliveries, this is a distinct disadvantage.

Also, while proponents like to talk about how convenient it will be when everyone can just plug their cars in at night rather than going to a gas station, this, again, isn’t realistic for everyone. My house only has a 100-Amp power supply. And yes, my house is pretty old, but other people have less-than-ideal electrical situations too. What about a multigenerational household with four or five drivers?

Like so many other things that have come out over the past two years, electric vehicles will mostly work for urban/suburban households with no more than two drivers and a reasonably nice, up-to-date house.

And money. Lots of money.

Electric vehicles cost, on average, about $60,000. The average combustion vehicle runs about $45,000. However, since combustion engines have been around longer, a low-income buyer has a lot more options when it comes to buying used. I was able to buy a 2002 Suzuki Esteem for my kids to drive around town for $1500 in cash. Do I have to spend money fixing it? Oh yes. But is it $60,000? Or even $25,000, which is about as cheap as EVs get? Not even close.

For all Joe Biden’s blustering about bringing down gas prices for American families, his administration seems to have no clue about how the bottom half actually lives. Telling someone to go electric when they don’t have a place to charge and have a vehicle budget of $5000, not $50,000, is asinine.

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I don’t think the political class actually cares.

And unfortunately, all signs point to things getting worse before they get better. Energy executives have offered practical solutions, which, even in a best-case scenario, would take time to implement. I don’t think we’re in a best-case scenario; I think it’s more likely our administration will continue to blame others, avoid responsibility, and eventually enact some kind of price control. Whether it’s through the Defense Production Act or something else doesn’t really matter. We’ll wind up with shortages either way.

So, what does a prepper do?

Start by learning about your own energy usage. Anyone reading this website is probably somewhat aware of their household needs, but learn as much as you can about what you, personally, need to get by. Think about food storage. Dry goods are going to be your best friend. Think about what you need to stay warm or cool as needed. If you have the opportunity to buy heating fuel in advance, do it.

This may sound funny, but pay attention to your health and make sure you have good shoes. My oldest son, bless his heart, is willing and able to run ten miles, and there have been a few times where that’s come in handy.

I hate to sound so negative, but I also insist on honesty.

All signs point to worsening gas prices and/or supply problems for the foreseeable future. Most of us can’t control a lot. But we can pay attention to our needs. Become more food-secure by gardening, even in urban and suburban areas. Be aware of what kind of lifestyles our leaders envision for us. We can continue to nurture our own families and communities in the hope that we’ll be resilient enough to handle whatever comes next. But we need to do it now.

What about you?

How much is gas where you live? How much does it cost you to fill your tank? Do you have any tips to share regarding living with these outrageous prices? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

About Marie Hawthorne

A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.

Picture of Marie Hawthorne

Marie Hawthorne

A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.

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  • Thanks for the informative and well reasoned analysis. The under-lying theme for this and other issues we face is that as the world and the production of commodities get more complex, so do the solutions to the problems that occur. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has thrown a big wrench into the oil commodities market but it exposed weaknesses as much as created them.

    • People were talking about how oil isn’t going to last forever and oil production was expected to decline within a couple of decades 15 years ago, the last time oil prices were this high. You’d think that people in government would take notice and start putting together an energy strategy. It didn’t happen in any net energy importing country that I know of.

      Since this crisis could get as serious as the pandemic or even more serious, keep note of the early articles on the subject and watch out for people, including this site, mysteriously turning around in their opinions, the same as it happened with the pandemic. The peak oil forums I used to go to back 15 years ago are now mainly “people” that apparently can’t write without lots of typos and SHOUTING and some of them want to tell everybody that peak oil isn’t an issue. Reminds anyone of anything?

      As for practical things to do, in addition to everything mention in this article, I think it’s a good idea to get organised with fellow preppers. Some possible solutions are too big for one person or one family.

      • “watch out for people, including this site, mysteriously turning around in their opinions”

        yep. and not just regarding peak oil.

      • 15 years ago we didn’t know that there is enough oil on U.S. soil to power the country for the next 200 years figuring in the increased demand over that time. And that’s just what we know about now. There may be more discovered in the future.

  • Thank you for addressing the fact that even if we wanted to get an electric vehicle, many can’t afford it. Not to mention that in my area power supply is unreliable. I’m currently working on becoming less dependent on my two freezers let alone trying to charge a vehicle to get me the 25 miles to town.
    I’ve increased my garden this year to include many medicinal herbs I’ve not grown before. I’ve even purposefully planted dandylions for animal feed. I’ve had to retighten my belt over and over the past three years. Not quite sure there’s any holes left.

    • We have a full freezer and a 2nd refrigerator/freezer in our garage, which is good for cutting down trips to town for groceries. My son put up a set of solar panels on the roof and a battery setup down in the garage to run them. He wanted to make sure that when we lost power that we wouldn’t lose all of our food out there. It also cuts down on the day-to-day electric costs as we live in sunny Arizona.

    • How would anyone with a power outage charge their vehicle? What would happen in an emergency, and you need to go NOW and have NO TIME to wait on the ambulance, when every minute counts if you have not charged your car at that time? People 5-10-15 or more miles outside of town have to think this way…
      SO, I do see some obstacles in the way of this charging issue…Not to mention the exorbitant expense of an electric car…Ridiculous idea!!! Just my 2 cents worth.

  • I have been trying to get all the Globalist’s pictures together and make a wanted D-E-A-d poster and place them on trees up and down the highways. So folks will know who to get. Bill Gates-of-hell is on the top of my list. I didn’t trust or even like dealing with him back at SRI when I met him. My skin crawled when that creep came around. Holy Spirit gave me discernment to keep up my
    defenses and be vary resistant to his ways. He had the first HUB for the internet right outside my office. YUCK.

    • Well Mr. Dave, I do believe the HOLY SPIRIT, and your GUT feeling and your assigned ANGEL, your COMMON SENSE, and your LEARNED KNOWLEDGE as well as your GOD given WIDSOM are ALL related/connected. What do you think? YOU can’t go WRONG with all of that help. I understand…I have um too, thankfully!!!

  • What I find interesting is that as high as gas prices have gotten, almost nobody that I see on the road has changed their driving style to reflect it. They still take off too fast from a stop, still brake too hard coming to a stop, and don’t do anything to drive more efficiently. While I’m not advocating hypermiling (though it certainly would help), people who don’t drive efficiently have no room to complain. Gas prices too high? Then use less of it.

    And electric cars? I live in an apartment. It’s not practical (and for some, even possible) to charge it overnight. The only electric car I would even consider buying is a hybrid.

  • People have been so spoiled in this country for so many years it will take fuel prices in the $8-10/gal range before driving habits change. Right now folks are just starting to taper off on buying needless junk to help offset fuel costs. Only when food inflation and fuel inflation intersect at a point that puts the hurt on the middle to upper class will you see a serious decline in road and air travel. Even the poorest in the United States live like kings compared to legitimately poor people in the world. That’s why those people keep flooding our borders. We will see much worse before things get better. Preppers and homesteaders need to get in their heads now that we have to be prepared for a long haul uphill with the wind in our face. On the flip side, when we reach the top of that hill the view will be spectacular!

  • Being sick with pneumonia most of the last 30 days saved me ton of money. Lol. I drove nowhere, ate little more than my meals on wheels lunches. My son drove us once to the food pantry. So I still have most of a tank of gas. New food on hand and one more of my lunches sitting in the freezer because I’ve not felt like eating.
    This may have to be my new way of life. Go nowhere as much as possible and consume much less.
    I have a bow saw. So if I start now cutting limbs off of the assorted elm trees so they can dry for winter, I’ll have heat and can cook.
    Usually 3 of us make the trip to the pantry in my truck. If the other two would pay the price of 1 gallon of gas I can do that twice a month. With my garden and canning I can make it ok. Lol.
    Not being too facetious, that is life on Social Security.
    I have ferrel cats, 2 dogs, a handful of pullets that will be laying by August, and 5 female rabbits. I do need to find a male. Rabbits if l eat alone will have a new litter every 4 weeks. I don’t like that so I aim at 2 or three months between each litter. Now that its just me I can stretch that to just 4 litters per year per female. Or stay with a bit more often and trade ready to butcher rabbits for other things I need. I grow feed and add weeds to meet rabbits and chickens needs.
    I already live very simple. My son is also raising rabbits, chickens, and has bees. He’s just built two more bee hives. Hoping to catch wild swarms here. He also is now gardening and canning. Actually we will be fine. He’s wanting to add goats for meat and milk. Room and feed isn’t a problem.
    Living simple is already easy. I’ve been doing that by choice for years.

  • “Number one, no more subsidies for fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one.”
    Biden, Democratic presidential primary debate at CNN Studios in Washington, March 15, 2020.

    Biden Energy Secretary, Jen Granholm, June 15 2022,

    “What we’re saying is today we need that supply increased,” she said.

    “Of course, in five or ten years — actually in the immediate — we are also pressing on the accelerator, if you will, to move toward clean energy, so that we don’t have to be under the thumb of petro-dictators like Putin, or at the whim of the volatility of fossil fuels. Ultimately American will be most secure when we can rely on our own clean domestic production of energy through solar, through wind —”

    “But that’s the problem for these companies,” interrupted Berman.

    “These companies are saying, ‘You’re asking me to do more now, invest more now, when, in fact 5 or 10 years from now, we don’t think that demand will be there, and the administration doesn’t even necessarily want it to be there.’

    To some, 5 to 10 years sounds like a long time.
    In the oil business, it is not. More like short term to medium.
    The time it takes to build a refinery would take the larger part of a decade.
    Even upgrades, it can take anywhere from 2 to 5 years and during that time, the facility has to be taken off line.
    There is also the investment and time to even break even let alone profit takes in the time line of a decade or longer.

    Actions speak louder than words. On day one of his admin, Biden axed the KeystoneXL pipeline. From that point on, no one to include the oil industry was interested in investment for anything related to oil exploration, drilling, upgrades to refineries, to pipelines. Not when you can see the writing on the wall, this admin and more than a few in Congress are aiming to put them out of business with the green new deal, and push for EVs.

    • “this admin and more than a few in Congress are aiming to put them out of business”

      aiming to nationalize them.

  • I live on Vancouver Island and our gas here currently is 2.26.9 per liter which works out to around $9 a gallon give or take. It’s come down from last week’s 2.31.9. I drive a 1998 Ford Explorer V6 and it takes roughly $120 to fill. I don’t go out much and when I do I have more than one errand. Gone are the days of the leisurely Sunday drive in the country. Growing a much bigger garden this year and spending much more time tending it. Like Dragonmaker I’m going through my freezers and seeing what I can dehydrate or bottle. When Biden kyboshed Keystone he did more than effect his country….he impacted mine as well. He and Trudeau are in lockstep on this issue, to our detriment.

    • Baby boomers (me and hubby retired) and gen. x have lived the best decades this country will ever have, now gone forever. Not a time to start a family with agenda 2030 being pushed world wide (digital slavery). We did extensive travelling thru many years, incl overseas with no hassles like today. America has small number of patriots left now. Civil war or tyranny and genocide ahead. Never give up the guns.

  • And what about putting more burden on the already fragile electrical grid? Blackouts would happen even more.

    • Kay,
      I read an article about pro-EVs pre-pandemic.
      The author stated that all people had to do was when they got home from work was to plug their EVs in at off peak time.
      So, take a few million people in just one major metro area, all with EVs, all plugging in at the same time to charge their EVs overnight (note: Cheapest to charge is a slow charge, the faster chargers cost more per kWt). . . they just made peak time, all the time.
      And it is night time. No sun.
      Would require one or more massive energy storage facilities. What would to cost of one of those, the maintenance, cost to recycle the batteries be?
      Individual home based ones? Same question: What is the cost over the lifespan, cost of disposal or recycle, cost to replace?

    • The left has determined that the maximum sustainable number of people on the Earth is 500 million. Given that the world population now is around 7.5 billion, that leaves 7 bullion that need to die. The U.S. share of that 500 million is about 22 million, and less than 10 million cars. The grid could probably handle charging 10 million cars every night when the total U.S. population is only 22 million.

      • With the U.S. population of 22 million, will there be a grid to charge electric cars? It takes man power to maintain the grid, will there be enough workers to maintain what we have? Is that including fixing our crumbling infrastructure such as highways and bridges? Where will the trucks run when the highways are no longer there? You can forget air traffic. Trains are already having trouble finding qualified drivers for their locomotives, and airlines pilots for their planes.

        How would such a drastic reduction in population not result in sending us back to the 1800s, if not earlier?

        • “With the U.S. population of 22 million, will there be a grid to charge electric cars?”

          not for 22 million people. “economy of scale” and all that. but there would be enough power for the “elite”. which is, of course, the whole idea.

          “sending us back to the 1800’s”

          800’s.

  • Sorry but the Keystone XL is a replacement pipeline line for the existing Keystone pipeline that is currently transporting oil to a refinery in IL and TX. It was going to cross over the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska and since that aquifer is a shallow aquifer and supplies 1/3 of all of the fresh water in the states, the Keystone XL was deemed too risky. The existing Keystone pipeline has already had 15 leaks. So the chances of the Keystone XL pipeline leaking in and ruining the aquifer were too great. It’s probably why the owners of the where the pipeline was crossing the aquifer in Nebraska fought so hard against eminent domain (and won). If courts felt it was a risk, then it was probably a risk.

    • James Gregg,
      Low information, no information voter, what you do not realize is that the fact the Biden admin, on his first day of presidency, canceled the KeystoneXL pipeline was a real action of to what degree he and his admin would go to, to push for the green new deal.
      As a result, investment in fossil fuels dropped off, and lead to our current predicament of less refinery output in the face of demand.
      The Biden stance is to demand for the oil industry to increase refinery output (investment), while pressing to put the oil industry out of business for the green new deal (at a loss of their would be investment).
      Currently US refinery output is running at 94%. To go even higher would be running refineries at a 96% or greater %. Thing is, running a refinery facility at a higher than 94% would be akin to running a NASCAR vehicle two gears lower, but still running at the red line. Might be able to do it in the short term (a week maybe two at the most) and then the system would overload and shutdown. And not just a day or two but weeks.
      Then where does that leave us?
      Higher cost of energy, higher cost of all things related to energy to include food, transportation, home cooling/heating costs and more.
      What we all need to get used to is through the Biden Admin and the green new deal policy, is it will cost us, the unwashed masses, more to fill our tank at the pump, more in food, more in at home energy costs.
      That is what we need to deal with.
      To survive the Biden admin policy, we need to become more self-reliant, self-sufficient, disconnect from centralization and go local.

      • “The Biden stance is to demand for the oil industry to increase refinery output (investment), while pressing to put the oil industry out of business for the green new deal (at a loss of their would be investment)”

        the goal being nationalization.

  • THERE are THREE COMPANIES who run the world,.VANGUARD,BLACKROCK,BERKSHIRE-HATHAWAY..they OWN ALL THE COMPANIES on earth or they control them,THESE guys are owned by the BILLION AIERS OF THE WESTERN COUNTRIES,america ,england and europe,IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM,look no farther then these boys and you have found the sourse of the problem,THEY have a mononpoly on everything,NO MATTER what it is, they own it,INCLUDING THE OIL REFINERIES,they set the price of fuel everywhere…ARE YOU AWAKE YET????

    • China would beg to differ to those three.
      Get informed. Get educated.
      Your world view is myopic.
      Oh, I am more awake than you will ever be.

  • There’s a long history of alternate fuels most people today are not aware of. Henry Ford’s Model T vehicles up through 1919 could be switched by the driver between gasoline or alcohol. When the Rockefeller-funded Prohibition Amendment kicked in, that shut down home and local distillation of alcohol for fuel (as well as for other purposes). By the time in 1933 when a Rockefeller heir announced to the New York media that “we don’t need Prohibition any more,” their nationwide gas station monopoly had achieved its goal as the alcohol option had disappeared from most running vehicles.

    [I still have an inherited radiator cap from one of those pre-1919 Model Ts.]

    During World War II, the Allies were very successful in bombing much of the German petroleum sources. One result was that many Germans reconfigured their vehicles to run on home-made bio-gas — a process that can still be learned today with a little online research.

    In 2007 David Blume created an amazing book about the history and feasible present day usage of alcohol for home and farm use. Even the detailed description on Amazon fills in a lot of gaps in our knowledge of what’s possible with that resource for present day vehicles:

    Here’s the title and the Amazon link:

    Alcohol Can Be a Gas!: Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century Paperback – November 1, 2007

    https://www.amazon.com/Alcohol-Can-Be-Gas-Revolution/dp/0979043778/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JI7HID585UFH&keywords=alcohol+can+be+a+gas&qid=1655761390&s=books&sprefix=alcohol+can+be+a+gas%2Cstripbooks%2C114&sr=1-1

    I’m also seeing present day news about the development of ammonia-based fuels. That is a separate information search.

    Finally, an investor letter I saw a few days ago announced the discovery in Texas of another incredibly huge petroleum deposit — larger than any OPEC country is capable — and potentially more stunning than the 1901 Texas Spindletop discovery that kicked off the entire petroleum industry. Apparently all the expected indicators of a local boom town economy is present: skyrocketing local prices of nearly everything.

    Now whether the petroleum-hating Dementia Biden administration will ever allow that petroleum discovery to be thoroughly developed is open to question….

    So there are options … some with a more well-proven history than others.

    –Lewis

  • Seems like the WEF is running the USA , Canada and the E.U. gov. and probably China and other Asian countries, Latin America, and the middle east. Politicians are tied to the WEF and WEF will continue implementing their rule world wide. Politically, nothing will be fixed. Here’s what we did recently and several others we know: give less to church or quit going and streaming online, and local missions like group homes and other org. Dropping out of community activities means less gas to buy, no more donating money to these organizations like the Pilot club, Kiwanis, Rotary, VFW etc. that do fund raisers, etc. Many quit donating to food banks, rescue missions, unless they are moving and / or cleaning out stuff. We are now in an ongoing deflationary depression soon to be a third world country, America is over : https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/06/brandon-smith/the-engineered-stagflationary-collapse-has-arrived-heres-what-happens-next/

    • The WEF is communist. Note the bust of Lenin in Klaus Schwab’s office. The question is, does the WEF run the Kremlin, or does the Kremlin call the shots for the WEF?

      So if you want to get a picture of what the WEF plans for us, all you have to do is to look at the history of communist ruled countries, from economic collapse, social credit scores as in China, to the Holodomor, Killing Fields in Cambodia, 1950s famine in China, and more.

  • I’m sure we have all seen the stickers of Biden with the caption “I did that”.
    There is another I’ve seen. It’s a picture of Putin with the caption, “Biden voters did that”.
    Just a little levity.

  • The elites know exactly what they are doing when they say we need to go to electric cars. Electricity is often produced using fossil fuels so there goes THAT argument. Plus, no-one I know can afford to spend $50,000 dollars on a crappy car that my blow up randomly and certainly can’t haul my flatbed trailer with 5 tons of hay on it. This whole BS idea is to force the peons into the cities where they won’t need a car at all (or freedom of movement, for that matter). I worked in oil refineries for 15 years. They don’t make any money. It’s the companies that own them that are rich. One unit in a BP plant I worked at was bringing in one million dollars a day, but even that didn’t keep them in the black (or so I was told). Parts of the refinery were rotting away at the same time as they were building new units to process and produce their stupid low sulfur diesel which just runs diesel engines into the ground that much faster. There is no rhyme or reason to their arguments. The entire system would have to be stripped back to the horse and carriage before it could ever be rebuilt into something that actually worked.

    • Are you telling me that big propane tank he wants to be installed on his property is FOOL of laughing gas?

  • Full time farmer here.

    If you want to keep prepping and can’t raise and preserve it all yourself, then something had better give. And soon.

    I’m a regenerative farm. I went that direction years ago for reasons too lengthy to list. I saw this all coming two years ago with fuel and even though I prepped the farms for these times in livestock numbers and horsepower requirements and retooled and replaced implements for grass harvest that were low pto rpm to save on fuel, it’s getting to the point that I can’t see me ever getting ahead. No matter how deep I cut costs and cheap out. How many wraps of plastic can I go down to cut costs on hay preservation..15..14..? I’m struggling to see the point in all this labor, past becoming an overgrown homestead, can anyone even pay for a pure product any more? I feel for the big boys farming. Thank God above I don’t have their problems.

    All I wanted to do was tend my ground responsibly and make good food for folks.

    But when net wrap is $315/9400ft (a 75%> from last year), plastic film is $135/40 bale roll to do it right (50%> from last year), and my latest diesel bill here in northern Pa was $5.19/300gal. for bulk rate, it is getting hard to justify this. Never mind parts, weather, grease, taxes on property, etc.

    I’m not alone. If ever one wanted to get into farming, the next two years will be your window. There are going to be a lot of auctions in the future.

    • ~Jim,
      Been seeing more than a few farmers who are of the opinion who for them makes more sense to not plant, or raise livestock.
      They might be planting or raising livestock for them and theirs. But not on a commercial scale.
      Read an article recently about PA farmer who had his tractor and corn planter hooked up. But could not afford the fuel to plant.
      On the flip side, other farmers who could plant this year . . . but not afford to harvest in the fall.
      What a lot of people do not realize is farmers have to pay up front for everything. They only get paid on the back end.
      If the farmer cannot pay to plant on the front end or harvest on the back end, then there is no food on shelves.

      Lets Go Brandon!

      • So these farmers have a history of non payment, and so no credit? Or they have not pre-purchased fuel, or seed corn?

        Corn is over 8 dollars a bushel right now, and my friend is burning diesel bought last year. He has 2 bins full of last years corn, and more at the coop. He’s is looking at a terrific year, the beans already made the farm break even.

        He has over a million dollars in accounts with suppliers, just for times like these, and he says most guys around here are in a similar situation, and will probably be looking to add capacity (leasing land) for next year.

        So, at least in Northern Illinois, farming is fine.

  • The Exxon letter is complete BS and to the author, I paid $21,000 for my two year old Nissan Leaf. We use it as our city car and haven’t paid for gas one time. I drop my son off at school, the wife at work and go to work myself. We have a mini van for trips longer than a day away. One charge can last just over a week. EV aren’t for everyone but they certainly can be for millions. In 2014 there were 214 million drivers in America using an average of 12.5 gallons of gas per week. If 10 million Americans purchased EV in the next year, we would be buying 6.5 billion of gas less yearly. That would be a 5% drop in gas sales. Extrapolating, if 50 million EV were on the road, there would be a 25% drop in gas sales. Prices would come down, a LOT.
    https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/14/heres-how-much-gasoline-the-average-american-consu.aspx

    Anyhow…

    Why isn’t big oil producing more (when they could be)? In a survey of oil execs by the Dallas Federal Reserve

    59% said the main reason publicly traded oil producers are restraining growth is due to investor pressure to maintain capital discipline, meaning more dividends and buybacks, instead of bigger investments in production growth.

    15% said “other,” which includes a combination of personnel shortages, limited availability of equipment, and supply-chain snags.

    11% said it was because of environmental, social and governance issues.

    8% said lack of access to funding.

    6% blamed government regulations.

    https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/oil-gas-crude-wall-street-government-production-dallas-fed-survey-2022-3

    Do you blame Biden for the current oil prices? You would be wrong.

    For those who won’t follow the link “Note when oil and gasoline prices began to rise. That rise started in May 2020. Between the first week of May 2020 and the last week of December 2020, oil prices had tripled. Was President Trump to blame for this?
    No, the reason oil and gasoline prices rose is that the economy started to open back up from the Covid-19 shutdowns. Those shutdowns had negatively impacted a couple of million barrels of U.S. oil supplies, and those supplies were slow to bounce back once the economy opened back up. That’s why we have soaring oil and gasoline prices….. Do people honestly believe that cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline drove up gasoline prices in Tokyo?”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2021/09/26/revisiting-the-blame-for-high-gas-prices/?sh=2a5dc005e31e

      • The number of EVs will increase over time, just as our solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal and other forms of electricity generation will (or should) be increased over time along with using our oil based means. Change happens over time, not all in one go. We should have started this decades ago.

        • I completely agree with you but gas was cheap for decades so nobody bothered to look for alternatives. If nothing else this fiasco might start the process. Lord knows, we passed peek oil years and years ago. Eventually fossil fuels will run out. What happens then?

    • “Extrapolating, if 50 million EV were on the road, there would be a 25% drop in gas sales. Prices would come down, a LOT.”

      true. but the present electric grid can’t handle that increase in deman, and there’s no longer any economic strength to bring the grid up to such levels. so there won’t be 50 million more ev on the road, and gas sales won’t drop, and prices won’t come down.

  • I work from home so I haven’t had to get gas in a while. Today I was shocked to pay $5.64/gal. I live in the Midwest where they’re anticipating blackouts this summer. How exactly are these people going to charge their electric vehicles with no power?

  • Gas was $2.40 when Biden was sworn in, is twice that now in Omaha. I was using about 10 gallons of gas per week in the minivan (car is an EV). That means I was spending about $1250 yearly on gas now I spend about $2500 or so. I’m spending about $1250 more per year. Not exactly gutting the wallet. I’ll just skip one of the Chief’s games this year.

    $1125 for tickets x3
    $35 parking
    $65 dogs, popcorn and soda
    $60 for gas
    $1285 total to take the family to Arrowhead Stadium

    Watching the Chiefs stomp the Raiders on the big screen at home?

    Priceless.

  • In Spokane, Washington we are paying $5.29/gl. regular. I believe diesel is about $ 6.89/gal. I have been filling up at the half a tank mark. I filled up my Subaru 3 days ago and it cost approx $35. & some odd cents. For HALF a tank! My husband filled up our minivan at the half tank mark also. And it was $39.88. We have no stores real close to us. We would have to take the bus. Which in itself is interesting, as the city put in a “new line” in which the buses come every 10 minutes, instead of hourly. They are also putting in a line to go North/South to run a bus every 15 minutes. It’s interesting that this bus line was started 2 years ago. I think they knew what was coming, and mass transits was going to be the way to go for thousands of people.

  • Electric cars have to have their batteries replaced every 10 years. The cost is expensive, dangerous landfill is created, pollution and eco system damage to make them. In short, they may be worst than GAS!!

    But everybody thinks it’s cleaner. No wonder they bull sh it us all the time.

    • The cost to replace the battery in my Nissan Leaf if about $5,500. That works out to about $45 per month. Much less than gasoline costs.

      Yes, expended EV batteries are a environmental problem. Luckily, we live in a capitalist society (so far…) that has demonstrated that if there is a dollar to be made, someone will make it. EV batteries contain a number of important metals that can be recovered. Most end of life EV batteries still have well more than 50% capacity left, making them a viable battery backup for many homes with wind and solar power.

  • You fucking parasitizing americans, what are you complaining about. You are prised i galons. When the galon cost a least 8, 38 $ you can start complaining.

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