Trump is the IDIOT, who started this mess, he should pay for it with the billions he swindled from the U.S. people. It now sounds like he wants the Nobel peace prize for stopping it, whenever the hell that is, in the next 10 years.
"That’s just a satirical one that applies to bad science."
It is not 'bad science' most of the IgNobels have been awarded to weird science, or weird pseudo-science. They're a celebration of humor and folks poking fun at their oddball research, but the vast majority are perfectly valid studies. There are lots and lots of kooks and cranks, dumb marketing schemes, etc etc, but a lot of the ones based on actiual scientific reports are valid, if odd (or in a lot of cases...oddly specific) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners
Our Gaslighter-In-Chief is addressing the nation Thurs. night. He's expected to talk about the Gulf and "election security," ie. how he plans to steal the midterms with his Orwellian-sounding Save America Act. I may have to be rearranging my sock drawer rather than endure listening to him.
Gulf policy shifts r key, but the refining crunch is the true structural floor for prices. Tbh, watching the policy-to-headline pipeline is the only move now.
Does anyone else think anything other than that Trump believed it would be simply be very cool to be fighting a war on the 250th anniversary of America's independence?
Just like Washington did at America's Year ZERO.
And nothing else mattered. Not lives, not (our) money, not international respect.
Not really, Bush fils won his second election b/c even though the Iraq was wasn't going particularly well, the press convinced stupid Americans to not "change horses midstream."
Confronting a brutal misogynistic theocratic dictatorship would be a good in itself, but in this case Trump is doing not only the Mid-East but world culture a good, as Iran leads the cause of Islamic expansion – which is currently colonizing and brutalizing Western Europe and central Africa.
Why is it so easy for the left to make common cause with Islamic authoritarians?
There can be little doubt why Marco "Sycophant" Rubio wants to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) because trump's position will more likely lead to an indictment than to a Nobel prize.
Where is the precedent for states to murder heads of opposing states? Reagan attempting to murder Gaddafi is the only precedent I know about. The world seems to have accepted that, which was all the encouragement Netanyahu needed, although murdering heads of terrorist groups is arguably in a more justifiable category. If world political leaders won't condemn international murder, here's hoping voters will.
The earliest one I find in Wikipedia is the murder of Nabis (king of Sparta) by the Aetolian League in 192 BC. Most such murders in history were done by rebels of the same country/state. Assassination by outsiders became more frequent after 100 AD. Of course, there were also hundreds of cases in which a state leader died leading his troops in combat, back when it was common for one to do that.
In the unlikely event that Marquitos succeeds in dismantling this court, he should be drawn and quartered, boiled in oil, and have his private parts removed with a rusty dime. The rusty dime part comes from the blue collar humor common on the crews at my father's nursery business back in the 70s. Those clever guys are all long gone, as is my Dad, but their cleverness lives on!
Wonder how JD and Marco feel about being contradicted and made fools promising no fees in the Gulf while Trump now demands 20% of the action. I guess they should be used to it by now. The world's most powerful man has lost his grip on reality, could somebody please get the straight jacket!
ICC drama is noise, the structural shift in energy processing is the signal. Tbh, if we can't refine, policy risk > supply. Markets r totally missing this
It's interesting watching how the US corpocracy run by the oligarchs works. The oligarchs protect and use Trump because they know he's a transactional idiot and will do them favors for contributing even just a few million here and there (chump change to trillionaires) to him and his family.
The oligarchs also control the media and therefore the narrative. And they control the supply chains and oil and gas industry. So, we there's no sense of urgency or problem with the strait being closed, it's just an inconvenience.
To me, nothing seems real anymore. The gas prices are still $4.30 a gallon where I live. Food prices are the highest they've ever been. Healthcare costs are outrageously high and getting higher. The debt is completely out of control. Our government is failing and has been turned against the average citizen. ICE is literally murdering people in our streets. But because the media (social and new feeds), are so controlled by the oligarchs it's like nothing matters and we're all just moving along like nothing's wrong.
It's like nobody remembers the Biden presidency when, if he stumbled just a tiny bit, the media was all over him, including Democrats and the left, and none of the things he did mattered to anyone. All that mattered was Biden stumbled and therefore he was unfit to lead.
Meanwhile Trump rambles on, clearly with dementia, and all his failings, and his unchecked criminal activity, and the media and everyone has become numb to it and is just going through the motions. Democrats pretend there's still a democracy and the oligarchs just keep tightening their grip while their profits continue to go up exponentially.
We all know money corrupts, so the math is simple, the trillionaire/billionaires are in complete control and, unless money suddenly doesn't matter anymore, they will remain in power indefinitely. Millions/billions of individuals can no longer outraise campaign money to compete with them.
I don't think this will end any time soon. I think we will transition to renewable energy eventually out of necessity but in the most inefficient and harmful manner possible, thanks to entrenched greed. Billions of people may eventually die but the oligarchs will be just fine and will continue to increase their control and ability to mask reality though control of social media and the narrative.
I just don't see how any of this changes. As much as I appreciate Krugman's insights, that's all they really are, just insights on how some of this works and there's not much we can do about it.
There's an irony in your closing statement: "...there's not much we can do about it". That's exactly how the oligarchs want us all to feel. There's actually a lot we can do, starting with recognizing our own capitulation.
The inconvenient fact for them is that, while they have all the capital, we have the numbers. We outnumber them by millions to one. If we refuse to cave in to hopelessness and do whatever we can to rise and resist, we can beat them.
It will really begin in November, when we swamp them with One Big Beautiful Blue Tsunami! 🌊
I like your optimism Winston, but what numbers do we have? 90 million people didn't even vote in 2024 and 75 million voted for a twice impeached, convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist! Even the people who voted Democratic are largely unorganized and have no power or influence. Americans are the super consumers of natural resources on planet Earth and also the largest producers of trash. We want to stay comfortable, entertained and largely uninformed because it's easy and doesn't require change. We have willingly ceded our attention spans to social media, Fox "News" and our smartphones. The US has been in a non-shooting civil war since Bush took office 2000. Their is a hatred dividing our political parties and communities to such an extent, that even the simple loving act of wearing a mask to protect your neighbors during a worldwide pandemic, became a dividing line in America with Republicans screaming about their freedom NOT to wear one, and demonizing scientist and doctors. The US is done, but will circle the drain for another 15-20 years because we're so wealthy, and give the illusion that we're still marginally respected in the world. We're not.
Circumstances can and do change. It's unfortunate that it took the catastrophe of Trumpkopf to start waking Americans up, but it does seem to have done so. Even the edges of the MAGA cult are starting to fray.
The non-shooting civil war predates King Bush II, indeed, it's a mere continuation of the 1861 civil war.
While it's true that 1/3 of the electorate didn't bother to vote in 2024, polls are showing that flippancy has largely dissipated, and are gearing up for a massive surge in November.
Just look at all special elections across the country where Dems trounced the GOP - and turnout was overwhelming. Look at the crowds Bernie is drawing, and James Talarico, and others as well.
Once again,I admire your faith in the process. Unfortunately, everything you describe, and maybe even MORE, took place with the election of Barack Obama. Overwhelming support, passion, and hope filled over half the country. It came to a grinding halt after the midterm elections gave Republicans the power of "NO". Controlling both houses, with Mitch McConnell effectively stopping the entire country dead in it's tracks for the next six years. We, the people, stayed comfortably sedated with our latest consumerist purchases, streaming TV, Amazon Prime free shipping, and sending thoughts and prayers to the survivors of school shootings.
We're on the same side in this fight Winston, it's just that I know people don't change as adults, so the US is done. However, I still fight the hopeless battle because acting for the benefit of others is all that gives my life meaning.
Calling it hopeless is already giving up the fight. I can't predict how this will all end. I can predict that I have nothing left to lose by fighting this scourge tooth and nail till I flatline. I refuse to cave. I refuse to capitulate. I refuse to give in. I refuse to accept defeat.
You say you still fight the hopeless battle, but if you approach it as hopeless, you're failing to give it your best shot. That is of course your prerogative, just as refusing to give up is mine.
Bannon's plan is working perfectly: "Flood the zone with s**t," and the people will no longer notice the abnormal is now normal.
We'll certainly never notice a president wearing a tan suit again, much less a president talking about The Islamic Republic of Japan or how we should take over Iceland.
I can assure you with 100% certainty that if we have a Democratic president, the press (including Prof. Krugman's former employer) will be all over that president having the nerve to wear a tan suit, much less misspeak and call one country by another country's name. 100% certainty. Just like I can assure you that SCOTUS will determine that presidential immunity somehow doesn't apply to Democratic presidents. IOKIYAR. IACIYAD.
There are at least a few oligarchs, low profile of course, that made their zillions in the renewable business, and if there is money to be made in the absence of Senor TACO, they'll be back at it.
Although the trillionaires are dumping cash into elections, you can only advertise so much spoiled meat. People taste it once, and won’t buy it again. Can’t disguise that flavor with a sexy ad.
Everyone help friends and neighbors VOTE early!! Bank the votes as soon as you can, as it makes it clear who voters want and harder to contest.
Labor's share of productivity decreases due to: 1) inflation, and 2) a larger share of productivity gains being captured by capital owners. When labor's share of productivity decreases sufficiently, pitchforks and firebrands may be necessary to restore balance.
Nono, as a commentator observed: he already has ended that war 38 times, nobody has brought an end to war that many times. The Nobel Prize is safely his!
The term IDIOT truly applies more aptly to tRump than anyone in history. Is there any world leader that has ever been conned into starting a war that was represented to be a cake walk and turned out be exactly how anyone that isn't an idiot predicted? What a putz, not just a putz but a lame one who always gets everything wrong while proclaiming himself to be a stable genius.
"Is there any world leader that has ever been conned into starting a war that was represented to be a cake walk and turned out be exactly how anyone that isn't an idiot predicted?"
Yes, George W. Bush. Although he might not have had to be conned into it and likely knew the whole thing was corrupt and a lie from the start.
Who beside his own guts and bones persuaded hin that Iran would fall as did Venezuela? Was it bubi, rubio. hegseth, graham, or his boot-licking cabinet? My bet is on bibi who for years alleged that Iran was weeks from having nukes while israel has 90-400 about which no one cares -why?
Yes, blame Trump. It lets the US based interests in oil and arms behind political capture, war, instablity, inequity and chaos to continue with no one noticing.
Politics aside, the real risk is the 10% global refining gap from the war. Tbh, markets r mispricing this structural bottleneck. That’s the real fuel for inflation
This reminds me of the opening chapter of the book 1793 by Victor Hugo: the soldier who stops a runaway cannon in a ship gets a medal. Then, as the cannon got loose due to the carelessness of the same sailor, he gets the ultimate punishment ...
True. But he also wasn't in office in 1953 when MI6 and the CIA managed the overthrow of the elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Why? To protect BP (then AIOC) from nationalization. Do you think your "when this started" might be better applied to that event? Iranians certainly do.
We can go back to the End of WW1 when the Europeans carved up the Ottoman empire at the end of WW1. They kind of made a mess of the whole Mid east and South west Asia area. My remark about 79 was the more extreme radical islamists who ended up taking power and took Iran back centuries.
You are right, but we can go back even further than 1914. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 in effect divided Iran (then Persia) into Russian and British 'zones of influence', with a 'neutral' Persian zone separating them. After WWI began, the same two powers elimated the neutral zone and divided all of Persia into their respective zones of influence in the Constantinople Agreement of 1915.
It is hardly surprising that Iranians have a powerful sensitivity to Western intervention in their country. Not that Trump, Hegseth, Vance or Rubio would know anything about that.
Pretty sure all 3 of them know that, because at various times they have commented on that as well. Today we are left holding the crappy bag left by the European powers who divided up the area, we can even look at what teh UK did to Pakistan and India. Suffice it to say, no one is clean on this.
I'd always heard 42 gallons in a barrel of oil product (unleaded gas, diesel, et cetera) and 55 gallons in a barrel of crude oil. This article states 42 gallons per barrel of crude.
A 55 gallon of WTI (standard US crude) will yield 42 gallons of gasoline. The two sizes for barrels appear to be based on this relationship.
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons. 55 gallons is a typical industrial drum (not relevant). Remarkably: "A 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 45 gallons of refined products. The refining process expands the volume of the original crude. This barrel primarily produces about 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline, 11 to 13 gallons of diesel, and 4 gallons of jet fuel, with the remainder going toward petrochemicals, heating oil, and asphalt." (The products are indeed less dense than crude.) Based on this the 28+14 approximation is not a bad one.
Confronting a brutal misogynistic theocratic dictatorship would be a good in itself, but in this case Trump is doing not only the Mid-East but world culture a good, as Iran leads the cause of Islamic expansion – which is currently colonizing and brutalizing Western Europe and central Africa.
Why is it so easy for the left to make common cause with Islamic authoritarians?
Sounds like the multibillionaire oil pigs are gonna get richer and richer no matter what this war is just another excuse to screw the consumers all over the world.
Which is why we consumers/voters should have listened to Carter back in the 70s and weaned ourselves off of oil products. Carter set us on the path to energy independence with his push for energy conservation and adoption of renewable energy. Instead people chose to believe Regan’s pro-oil, anti-green energy change lies. It was bad enough that Reagan wasted our taxpayer dollars by thanking Carter’s solar panels off the White House roof even though they were working well. Now Trump is forcing us taxpayer to pony up $1 billion to pay to stop their offshore wind projects.
We are currently using 1 million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As of July 3, we are at 319.5 million barrels. There are debates over exactly what the Minimum Operating Level is; if we fall below, caverns start collapsing, pipelines clog, and there are other calamities we don’t want to test. A common belief is that the MOL is 1/3 capacity or 240 million.
That means at the current rate, we hit MOL on September 21. Others say we are okay into October. It takes 7 weeks for a tanker to get from Hormuz to the East Coast.
Prices are not rising fast enough to destroy demand. The price of diesel has not come down from $5.80/gallon (I saw $8.50 by the NYC Midtown Tunnel). This has created a whole separate problem that will likely get worse. There were some wild predictions at the beginning of the crisis of $300/barrel oil. I said demand destruction would not start until the 200-day moving average at the NYMEX (commodity market) hits $120. It currently sits at $74. The 200-day MA for NYMEX gasoline is about $2.50; the all-time nominal high is $3.15 in 2022 which did not cause significant demand destruction.
So what can save us from the MOL? Not light oil from the Permian. It is the wrong kind of oil for our refineries which is why we are exporting a record amount of crude. Permian production is also slowing down: the preliminary year-over-year production numbers grew 1.1% in Jan, 3.5% in Feb, 1.5% March, and 0.15% in April. This is also why a ban on oil exports won’t help; we can’t use that oil.
The Gulf of Mexico set a record in April for production. Whether this can be sustained is an open question and the Gulf can also be severely affected by hurricanes.
Canada is producing flat out and cannot easily expand. Venezuela raised its April production to 1.03 million bpd as our host mentions. In 2015, it was producing 2.4 million but experts say it will take a long time before it regains that level.
If we don’t start planning for gas rationing, it will be rationed in the most inefficient and expensive manner. We may have only 10 weeks left.
"Prices are not rising fast enough to destroy demand. The price of diesel has not come down from $5.80/gallon (I saw $8.50 by the NYC Midtown Tunnel)."
----
While the ICE car driving public and their online videos and the media focus on the price of gasoline, IT IS DIESEL THAT RUNS THE ECONOMY and affects costs for everybody. While it's bad enough in the US, much of Russia's wheat crop will not be harvested, and since Russian domestic needs will be met first, a lot of the rest of the world that consumes Russian wheat will go hungry.
The previous restrictions on exports will likely be reimbursed before that happens. Remember, the US produces about as much oil as it consumes.
The problem is an imbalance in refinery capacity. Much of the US refining assets are geared towards refining heavy Venezuelan oil and Canadian oil sands oil, not the abundant light crude produced in Texas and the adjacent states (remember, it wasn't that long ago (before the fracking revolution) that we were expecting a sharp decline in US production).
The result is we import crude oil from Venezuela and Canada and we export Texas crude. Between 1975 (back in the era of the "oil crisis") and 2015 (11 years ago - once fracking took over) US oil exports were banned. If we do that again and refined product prices keep going up, expect a move to refining Texas light crude
While America is still addicted to oil and gas the rest of the world is shifting to wind and solar. The oil oligarchs control Republicans and the federal government in America and confuse the public. Wars are fought over oil especially in the Middle East.
We have two EVs now and would never go back to gas cars.
Fuel and maintenance costs are massively lower with EVs than with gas cars, plus they’re greener/cleaner and a lot more powerful with much faster acceleration.
We just charge them at home with a standard household outlet and it works fine for our needs. And there are charging stations all over now when we go on trips.
Agreed. I don't know how people are reacting in the civilized world but here in the United States they seem to be filling up regardless of the price. They just add it to their credit card bill which they know will never be paid off so who cares.
Only credit card debt can ultimately result in court judgments and seizure of property (or bankruptcy to get out from under it).
No, the people these gas prices are really hurting don't even have credit cards, and they need their cars to get to work. They're doing without something else to pay for gas.
Perhaps where you live. I had occasion to do a little shopping last Sunday. Traffic was noticeably light and the parking lots had noticeably fewer cars than they usually held on Sunday afternoons a month ago. I'm near the New Jersey coast. I visited Home Depot, Bottle King, and Kohls.
This war has pushed up demand for renewable energy. Some of the demand loss for refined fuels will not come back, especially outside of the backward-travelling United States.
The take home lesson here is that having a political system where one madman can start a war all by himself is the real folly. The Executive in our Executive Branch needs a whole bunch of new Constitutional constraints. Even if people were not dying because of his horrible choices, he has committed us to huge amounts of unbudgeted spending. I think the damage the Orange Berserker is wreaking on the Country will be the opportunity we need to do a major rethink of Articles I, II, and III. We The People need to make a good faith effort to rein in this type of thing in the future.
it's more like delegitimizing legislation of any kind, while preserving for themselves "the last word" to constrain the new all-powerful executive on certain matters of choice (un-moored from any discernible principle.)
It's a lot more efficient for the wealthy to buy an all- powerful executive than an entire legislative body. Maybe that's one of the "new principles" at work w this SC?
We still need senators and representatives that uphold the constitution. It's pretty obvious republicans have zero desire to continue a democratic republic.
I couldn't agree more. Letting businesses contribute to politicians is an absolute abomination to democracy. Too many people have forgotten that businesses exist to serve people not people serve business. It's we the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, NOT for the business, by the business!
He has exploited every weakness in a system that only works if honorable people are in charge. He has also proven beyond doubt this country is not who many think and even believe we are. If the system survives - I give us about a 50/50 chance at best - we do indeed need significant reforms to avoid a repeat of this catastrophe. SCOTUS reform imposing term limits, perhaps age limits is imperative.
If I take the statement, the system "only works if honorable people are in charge", add the observation, "the average American on street is an honorable person", I get the conclusion that the US is in a mess now because the politicians actually elected do not actually represent the interests of voters.
From reading the comments to PK's blog for a few months, I get the feeling three reforms are required:
(1) gerrymandering must end;
(2) campaign spending must be restricted to citizens (i.e. identifiable human beings, not anonymous corporations or PAC) with a limit on the maximum amount any one citizen can spend
(3) judicial appointments must be independent of partisan bias.
The essence of representative democracy, is that if voters elect representatives who actually represent them and their interests, the representatives will be able to fix the rest.
Our challenge as voters is to focus on what must be reformed without being distracted by what we want to be done. This is hard, given so many needs are not being met.
All three branches are broken. There are many, many problems with our system that need fixed. Among them is also that a two party system clearly does not work.
No, but you need a Democratic sweep in November to put the brakes on the GOP. They will probably need 3-4 straight presidencies and control of Congress to start the rebuilding process. Because you're also going to have to deal with the reality that no one trusts the US anymore. You're also asking the Democrats to get their act together and come out with a platform that addresses the oligarchy. Are they up to it?
"Are they up to it?" is a very good question. Beware the traps MAGA has set:
The professional civil service built over the last century has been gutted. An incoming president cannot just snap his fingers and restore the DOJ, SEC, CDC, IRS, state department, military officer corps, and all the others. The most valuable of the people fired have found other things to do.
The Trump administration has neutered, or is neutering, all the financial system guardrails developed since the 1920's [https://bettermarkets.org/]. These are the guardrails that control Ponzi schemes, insider trading, fraudulent prospectus... and so much more. Poke the system the wrong way and it could collapse like the great depression + bubble burst + Enron... all at once.
In other words, MAGA built a moat around their malfeasance AND gutted the institutional capacity to deal with it.
Waiting for a Democratic sweep in November to start the ball rolling is like telling ourselves we can’t be happy until we lose those last 10 lbs. knowing full well we’ll just put them right back on through comfort eating because we’re so unhappy.
The reality is that Americans continue to elect Republicans even though they have been inept and incompetent when in power. They, and they alone, have created the oligarchy that has made the US a clone of Russia. You have to save the country before you can start the massive process of fixing it. I'm far from convinced that Americans or the Democratic Party are up to the challenge. The challenge makes Everest look like a walk in the park. It took the GOP 45 years to destroy democracy. It will take just as long to restore it securely.
I hope you’re wrong and that democratic institutions will be restored. The great debate is not how to have the best and the brightest at the top (Plato Republic) but how to build institutions that survive (and water down the effects of) a Bad Leader (Aristotle). That was what the Founders wanted to do, but their premise was that only « gentlemen » would partake of the « Res Publica » and work for the common good of people and country. Let’s see if we have yet reached the bottom of iniquity and can start to rebuild.
I suspect and fear that you are correct. Has there ever been a Republic that has NOT eventually succumbed to fascism, or in the case of Rome, to a Caesarian-style Dictatorship? I can't think of one.
A Green Party sweep in November would put the brakes on the GOP. This is unlikely, but strictly speaking, the Democrats do not have a lock on this role. Majorities need to be made in Congress to elect leadership and pass legislation. Having two parties virtually guarantees someone has the majority. Having three parties would virtually guarantee no-one does and some compromise needs to occur. We can only benefit.
You still don't get it. This is not the time to vote for fringe parties and independents. This is the time to completely eradicate the GOP in every way possible. You have to kill the cancer first. In 2028, you can look at it depending on how many GOP members are in jail. All have violated their oath to defend the Constitution. Most are likely involved in insider trading.
Politically is not a fight /we/ win, not in that way. This is something the republicans -- the people who vote for them -- must do. They have to stop wanting insane things. We can do this the republican way, which is to do all things republican until the situation gets so terrible that they finally can not ignore what their own eyes and wallets tell them. We can do this the Red Scare way, in which the frightened ninnies decide to want sane things because they can't afford extremism in the face of a credible enemy. Finally, we can do this the General Sherman way and solve the problem with cavalry and torches. At the end of the day, one way or another, they need to come to believe their own countrymen (and visiting workers) are not the threat they think they are. As much as Zombie Sherman has its appeal, it only makes that problem worse.
Besides, the GOP IS already thoroughly dead. Every recognizable facet of the party is gone. It isn't a party of conservatism. It isn't a party of fiscal prudence. It isn't an anticommunist party. It certainly isn't the smartest people in the room. The people like that who held these views are pushed out, dead, or lying in a hospital waiting for their term to run out.
The main turn in American politics is it is no longer left vs. right. It is educated vs not-so-educated. When college educated people were hard to find, the parties were mostly filled with less educated people. They were run by smart people on both sides. This mostly worked because there was across the aisle agreement not to do insane things out of patriotic self preservation. There are now enough college educated people to push the working man out of the Democratic Party, which has meant that the Republican Party is the last refuge for the confused. The smart people are no longer running the Republican Party. They will continue to be grifters and idiots until such time as we can convince the electorate, the republican electorate, that they don't want idiots and thieves running the show. That is going to take a LOT of doing, given how much the educational elite have made it their business to pillage the system at every turn. Running up costs with rent seeking. Driving down wages to further Shareholder Primacy. Joe Sixpack doesn't need to look farther than the 25 pages of legal broiler plate attached to his cable contract or car rental agreement to know that the elite are out to get him.
They want to tear it all down. Until they stop wanting insane things like this, they will succeed in doing so. We don't fix it by opposing them. We fix it by fixing it, derailing government from its current parasitical course. In this Democrats will be no help at all, except those democratic socialists still in the party.
Yes. The GOP is dead. It doesn't exist anymore. And the Knuckledraggers will support it against their own interests. So until those frauds are removed from power, America is on the cliff. So you hold your nose, vote Democrat up and down the ballot, and then the work starts. There is only one group that can kill the GOP. Vote for them
Time will tell. There is so much that needs to be overhauled. They'll need successive super-majorities to make anything happen. This is in the hands of American voters....for the last time.
Step one is taking election control away from governments that have an interest in the outcome. You have to end gerrymandering and end redistricting if you want a democracy. The Electoral College also goes to the bin as being grossly undemocratic.
Indeed. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges will be overcoming the politicisation of the judicial system; Mitch's legacy in the destruction of the country. The law is not political.
That comes about by rewriting Article III so that appointments to the Federal Bench comes about via a new paradigm - maybe a judicial qualification commission. We need to do the same thing with all Federal appointments. We need a competent, honest, and honorable Federal government made up out of knowledgeable technocrats.
But since Repubs control more states than do Dems, the likelihood of passing Constitutional amendments with any positive impact is probably less than zero. With the current power balance, we'd be more likely to pass amendments doing things like revoking the Bill of Rights - except for the 2nd Amendment, of course...
The Constitution reserved that power to Congress. Later Congresses passed laws granting war powers to the President, mainly because we can't wait on Congress to act once Soviet ICBMs leave the silos. Abuses of those powers resulted in conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We need to tackle those later laws; the Constitution is pretty good regarding warfare.
The constitution was originally structured to allow this sort of hijacking by the minority, as long as they are the rural minority, from the start. It is how we got them to sign on in the first place. It was broken from the start.
Yes, but that major rethink and rewrite/amendment cannot be done until Trump, the thoroughly corrupt GOP, the corrupt MAGA SCOTUS (and, let's face it, Koch Industries) are still in power. Koch has been trying to get enough states on-board for a Constitutional Convention and Amendment in their interest and favor for decades now and they are close to achieving it. If they do, the United States of America is done for, we are toast!
Ugh. Infuriating. You forgot environmental policy (which has global effects) based first on his personal grievance and second on industry (some of the same ones you already listed plus more).
Yes, this is an essential #9. Trump and MAGA Republicans like Mike Lee are selling off OUR public lands to ranchers, loggers, miners and developers. They have no legitimate right to do this, and yet...
Thanks Paul! I had completely forgotten about the Not Enough Refineries Issue and Refineries cannot be built quickly! In places that require long commutes the Demand doesn't drop much. Some folks can carpool but that doesn't work for all. As his 1st Secretary of State ,(1st term) was reported to have said: Trump is an ****ing Moron, sadly so true. Thanks for this piece today.
The oil companies know the worldwide trend is away from fossil fuels and hopefully Donnie Demento will be gone in 2 years. Investing in refinery capacity may not make sense to them since demand will go down long term and they profit from the higher prices.
Hi, Thanks for your comment. I put the Petro Companies on the same No Trust Level as Trump the Liar. But after some research it appears that it will take many years for battery powered and hybrid vehicles to be the largest mode of vehicle transport in the USA.
Similar issues around the attempt to increase the timber harvest in the Pacific Northwest. The mills just aren’t in place, and private/state harvests are being shipped to overseas mills.
What does appear to be “crucial” is dismantling ICC brick by brick. Sounds like someone is getting nervous. Scaredy-cat is disparaging to felines. Maybe scaredy-scat?
Not going to happen. The USA was never a signatory to the ICC, and even if tried by the ICC in absentia the USA will not extradite a former President no matter how heinous his ‘war crimes’.
So what……no point in a prosecution if it does not penalise the offender. Netanyahu has been wandering the globe with several ICC warrants over his head and yet states he visits grants him safe passage. We just have to accept that the US is lawless, at home and abroad.
Great opportunity for the continued ascendancy of EVs and all other things renewable to sound the death knell of the fossils and all their fools … er fuels …
Yes, Trump is like the Chinese fable, 'Bad Luck, or Good Luck?'
Closing the Strait reduces the supply of crude, BUT decreased refinery capacity limits its' effect. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
Shortage of crude increases prices for oil, which benefits Russia, BUT loss of refineries means they can't export fossil fuels any more. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
Higher prices for fuels squeeze consumers, BUT speeds changeover to renewables. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
Money is being sucked from consumers and landing on the oil crowd. American oil barons haven't even increased their costs - whole increase in prices is profit.
Perhaps sustained high gas prices will get Americans thinking that renewables are a good thing? And that maybe relying on petroleum distillates for all our energy needs is not a good long-term program? And that maybe any politician who says "Drill, Baby! Drill!" is an abject imbecile who needs to be ignored?
Dunno. Doesn't sound real manly to me, so we're probably stuck with the status quo.
Your last sentence is likely predictive of what’s going to happen. Gas prices will eventually decline and Americans, once again, will gravitate back to the gas guzzler vehicles. So, it’s no surprise that a country that repeatedly embraces the “status quo” would vote into the presidency such a profoundly ignorant and dangerous individual.
Or they will just get used to it, desensitized. It baffles the mind that with hybrid and EV technology where it is, one can even have the option to buy a gas car anymore. And you can bet your buns if we let Chinese EVs into the market, the US automakers would suddenly be able to make many more of their models hybrid and EV.
Of course and for a good reason. There's no energy as cheap (on normal periods), practical and reliable as oil.
IMHO the technology of the renewable sources is lucricrous at this point: Batteries are made of rare, expensive materials and heavily polluting chemicals, produce a lot of heath, burn and explode, have short lifespan and produce DC electricity. Peppering the landscape with plasticky solar panels is an aberration and begets all sorts of synchronicity errors. Windmills produce irregular AC current, wind is not entirely predictable, the biggest parts of them are not recycable etc.
Countries with a high number of electrical vehicles have had to forbid the recharge on some periods because there's no capacity on the grid.
You may power a home with them, ¿but a whole system?
Just saying.
The future is already being built: the first commercial fusion nuclear plant. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Virginia. Clean, safe and unlimited.
Come on now OleMan, you’re breathing fantasy here.
Those “plastic” solar panels are saving the bacon around the world just now. Yes, wind power doesn’t produce when there’s no wind, but there’s lots of wind and they are helping immensely. Note: They wouldn’t keep building them if they didn’t produce — it’s a basic principle taught in 101 finance.
No, sorry, the dream of fusion is still a dream. We’ve been “on the cusp” of solving its predicted magic for decades and will remain on the cusp whether or not they “build a plant”.
It’s time to face reality, you know, deal with what’s actually happening.
We need all of the above competing for max efficiency in a free world. There are energy sources that might not ultimately "win" that will nonetheless contribute significantly during the process of discovering the eventual steady state "best outcome."
Oh! What a suprise! A cult-like devotee of renewable energy being condescending toward a rational, informed person!
And, please, whatever you do, don't waste your precious time answering data and arguments with data and arguments. Who needs that?
Who said those renewable energies do not produce? Maybe you need to attend reading comprehension classes, my friend.
And what does it say your finance 101 about subsidies and incentives? This whole trend has been subized to the hilt by goverments all over the world, including the US.
It's similar to what happened to nuclear energy: The "peaceful atom" started from guilt from the atomic bombs. It wasn't a sensible investment option but was subsidized and pushed for political, almost philosophical reasons. Renewable energies have followed the same pattern, a prejudice pushes a technology who's not very practical or mature.
Pipe dream? In 2022 the Department of Energy lab said it had made a fusion reactor that produced more energy than it comsumed, the scientific breakeven. At the latest, in 2027 the SPARC prototype built in Massachusets will be operational.
It's commercial brother, the fusion reactor being built in Virginia will be operational in the early 2030s. What does your finance 101 say about this considering the massive investment boom in fusion leaded by all the major tech companies?
And the advances in fission muclear in China, etc. are also staggering, but that´s a whole different story.
I’ll give you that subsidies were present in getting renewables off the ground.
They might have been a lot less necessary if Ronald Regan had not yanked the solar panels off the roof of the White House that Jimmy Carter put up there.
You see, Republicans for strange reasons have (and continue to) fight renewables tooth and nail. I don’t know if they’re simply afraid of them, or perhaps they own lots of fossil fuel stocks or what. But this I do know. Our sun is sending along massive amounts of energy and it’s passing it along for free. No charge.
And that largesse is never ever going away because if it were to we’d go with it. Poof.
To fight against solar power is a fool’s errand pure and simple.
And note, if we’d embraced them back in the 20th century as we should have wed a damnsite further along in cheap energy than we are now — full stop.
Thankfully brighter minds could see the only way to jump start solar (and hybrid cars) was thru incentives. Voila! It worked. Most incentives are now gone. Solar is working.
As to fusion … I was a young student when our grade school teachers showed us (industry created) film strips of the fantastic nuclear ☢️ energy stations that would playgrounds for us (green spaces all around them) and (wait for it) electricity “too cheap to meter”. Yep, basically free energy.
How’d that work out?
Interestingly the insurance companies “got it.” They wound not touch a nuclear plant with a 2000-foot pole. No way. So our government took over the risk with the Price-Anderson Act (look it up). The taxpayers had to foot the insurance bill ALONG WITH subsequent claims!
I can’t possibly be convinced 1) fusion will work large scale after the continuous failures for many decades and 2) that it won’t present new problems. You know, every new solution creates new problems — ALWAYS. (See AI, for instance)
I’d love to see the perfect solution to energy production but I rather suspect we’ve come as close as we’re. Going to get with solar. Now the task is to improve solar — which we are, every month.
Your comment is just an omellete of ignorance. Starting with batteries: Lithium is the current preferred base chemical for rechargeable batteries, and lithium is neither rare nor expensive. It is, in fact, one of the most abundant elements. It is PROCESSING lithium that is rare and expensive--China is presently the world leader in lithium processing, and U.S. capacity is extremely limited.
Solar panels are not plastic, and I have no idea what "synchronicity errors" might be because the term is meaningless in this context.
Windmills do not "produce irregular AC current," nor is wind unpredictable. This is just straight-up recycled Fox News.
And as for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, you might want to go look at their website. As the company itself points out, they're nowhere near building a commercial fusion reactor, or any other kind of fusion reactor. They're rounding up funding to build a TOKAMAK-style unit, which is a research system and is thus far unable to sustain any kind of fusion reaction.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems seems to be a serious venture, but as you say, their technology is unproven. If their demo reactor (scheduled to be completed in 2027) works, that would be a good sign. The next step is to build a working power plant in the early 2030s. So widespread deployment of nuclear fusion is a decade away if their plans work out, and comes later, or never, if they don’t. Not a good reason not to deploy wind and solar today.
As for cost, they claim that this “will be the lowest cost source of clean, firm power that can be deployed anywhere.” As I read it, this isn’t saying much. It doesn’t say that it can match the prices of wind or solar (the “firm power” qualifier). It doesn’t say that it can match the price of fossil fuel powered plants (the “clean” qualifier). It doesn’t say it can match the prices of nuclear fission (the “deployed anywhere” qualifier). So there is a possibility that their design will work but won’t be price competitive except in unusual circumstances.
Google has invested in the company and agreed to buy half of the output of the power plant that is supposed to go online in the early 2030s. That suggests that Google thinks there is a reasonable chance that the company will be successful. However, the agreement doesn’t require Google to pay if the power plant doesn’t work. If the plant is successfully completed, but with large cost overruns, Google has presumably locked in an electricity price based on the estimated cost of building the plant, rather than the actual cost with all the overruns.
In short, nuclear fusion isn’t a viable energy source today, and we don’t know when or if it will become one. In the mean time, we need wind and solar.
Your precision about how lithium is not rare, but at the same it is rare is priceless.
No, no need to "go look at their website": there are better sources available in papers and scientific literature, in investors relations departments in those companies, the Energy Department, etc. I've never watched a single program of Fox News, which seems very relevant to you.
And Commonwealth Fusion Systems is a spin off from the Massachussets Institute of Technology (surely ignorant people, them) funded by Google (who also has signed a PPA agreement with them), Microsoft, Bill Gates, Vinod Koshla, ENI, etc.
People have a choice - they can start to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. The technology is reasonable priced and reliable. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars in profits to these robber barons, buy evs, install solar, heat pumps.
Not necessarily so. My lease payments on my 2025 Fiat 500e are actually lower than that on my 2010 MINI in the last year of its lease (2012). Both were 3-year lease agreements. It costs about $5/month to charge the Fiat & there are no ‘service’ appointments. There is nothing to service until I hit 15K, whereby I may have to rotate my tires. Further, the Fiat is our ‘city’ car. We basically park our old 2018 internal combustion (diesel) Jeep while in the city — so very low fuel expenses there as well. And we are looking to replace the Jeep with a fully EV soon.
My panels cost me about $30,000 a few years back. They save me at least $5,500 a year. This month's electric bill is $4.27. I have a few years to go before we break even. Our heat pump went in last month. Yes, it was expensive, but our old furnace was 24 years old and had already required repair twice. I'm planning on selling my Nissan and buying an electric Slate truck when it becomes available, but "the best laid plans of mice and men ...."
"Folks, this is bad. U.S. national security policy is now entirely in the service of one man’s vanity." Yep, it's bad because this situation has a name, dictatorship. The fact that the collapse of the US "experiment " in democracy seems to only be of interest when viewed through the influence on gasoline prices is an appalling statement about the US public. The big picture is that multiple countries in Europe and Mideast are now actively shooting at each other, due to the actions of two nuclear armed countries run by dictators, Russia and the US. If this spirals out of control, and there are many ways for it to do so, the US public will soon become painfully familiar with Tolstoy's observation: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
Also, fertilizer. What’s happening and going to happen with food prices as a result? How much of prices are tied to the Strait, what is the current and future projected impact, and when?
A sustained Russia–Iran-driven oil shock is structurally positive for EVs, batteries, grid infrastructure, efficiency, nuclear power and domestically produced renewable electricity.
The deeper effect may be psychological and political: oil and gas cease to look merely inexpensive and convenient and increasingly look like geopolitically risky commodities. That strengthens the case for electrification even in countries whose governments are relatively indifferent to climate change.
Trump is the IDIOT, who started this mess, he should pay for it with the billions he swindled from the U.S. people. It now sounds like he wants the Nobel peace prize for stopping it, whenever the hell that is, in the next 10 years.
The Nobel Committee should create a prize for gross incompetence, corruption, and stupidity. The identity of the first recipient is obvious.
its already there. its called the ignoble prize.
That’s just a satirical one that applies to bad science. It’s not sponsored by the Nobel Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
I think that the NC should create a real one just for one recipient.
It is not about bad science (there is nothing funny about bad science), rather about quirky science.
Exactly. Most of their projects are worthwhile, just not immediately obvious to outsiders.
Which doesn't make the "Ignobel" prizes any less funny.
Maybe Gianni Infantino will create that one, just for his friend ⁱDJⁱT.
Maybe Gianni Infantino can help Donny bring an end to this war, and nominate himself for the FIFA Peace Prize. Wear the award wherever you go.
"That’s just a satirical one that applies to bad science."
It is not 'bad science' most of the IgNobels have been awarded to weird science, or weird pseudo-science. They're a celebration of humor and folks poking fun at their oddball research, but the vast majority are perfectly valid studies. There are lots and lots of kooks and cranks, dumb marketing schemes, etc etc, but a lot of the ones based on actiual scientific reports are valid, if odd (or in a lot of cases...oddly specific) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ig_Nobel_Prize_winners
I am only mildly biased because I actually worked for a winner back when I was in College. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_O._Schmidt
Thanks for this explanation.
But without a monetary award
Au contraire! The winner I know personally got a 10 Trillion dollar prize :
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/o6sAAOSwNpRgeX7D/s-l1200.webp
Cost him a lot more thsn it was worth to get it framed for his office ...
Was that an Ig Nobel Prize in Economics?
Yeah the Jones Sausage Award for gilding the pig
Our Gaslighter-In-Chief is addressing the nation Thurs. night. He's expected to talk about the Gulf and "election security," ie. how he plans to steal the midterms with his Orwellian-sounding Save America Act. I may have to be rearranging my sock drawer rather than endure listening to him.
Gulf policy shifts r key, but the refining crunch is the true structural floor for prices. Tbh, watching the policy-to-headline pipeline is the only move now.
Hmm... Roof may need re-shingling....
I never listen to liars.
Does anyone else think anything other than that Trump believed it would be simply be very cool to be fighting a war on the 250th anniversary of America's independence?
Just like Washington did at America's Year ZERO.
And nothing else mattered. Not lives, not (our) money, not international respect.
I wouldn't put it past him to have considered that.
The words "Trump" and "considered" do not really belong in the same sentence.
Also, the "Thatcher Effect".
"Fighting a war increases electability."
But only if you are winning.
Not really, Bush fils won his second election b/c even though the Iraq was wasn't going particularly well, the press convinced stupid Americans to not "change horses midstream."
....with the public.
True, and this is an exception.
Thatcher won her Falklands war. Trump has lost his Iranian war. For Thatcher, electability, for Trump sharply declining popularity.
Perhaps a justified war.
and deploying most of our weapons results in vulnerability in other areas of the world
...just as Putin requested.
Xi Jinping erasure!
Trump thought it would be a cakewalk because Bibi Netanyahu told him so. Oops.
Confronting a brutal misogynistic theocratic dictatorship would be a good in itself, but in this case Trump is doing not only the Mid-East but world culture a good, as Iran leads the cause of Islamic expansion – which is currently colonizing and brutalizing Western Europe and central Africa.
Why is it so easy for the left to make common cause with Islamic authoritarians?
Funny stuff!!!
Thanks!
There can be little doubt why Marco "Sycophant" Rubio wants to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) because trump's position will more likely lead to an indictment than to a Nobel prize.
Well then, we'll just have to extricate, indict, convict and incarcerate them all right here at home.
Where is the precedent for states to murder heads of opposing states? Reagan attempting to murder Gaddafi is the only precedent I know about. The world seems to have accepted that, which was all the encouragement Netanyahu needed, although murdering heads of terrorist groups is arguably in a more justifiable category. If world political leaders won't condemn international murder, here's hoping voters will.
The earliest one I find in Wikipedia is the murder of Nabis (king of Sparta) by the Aetolian League in 192 BC. Most such murders in history were done by rebels of the same country/state. Assassination by outsiders became more frequent after 100 AD. Of course, there were also hundreds of cases in which a state leader died leading his troops in combat, back when it was common for one to do that.
"Cadet Bone-spurs" is more likely to be killed by (divine)lightning than leading troops into battle.
That yellow colouring was natural.
Castro was often targeted and several African heads of state, Allende in Chile
There was the attempt[s] to kill Castro.
Gaddafi tried to kill Reagan; the hit men never entered the US.
In the unlikely event that Marquitos succeeds in dismantling this court, he should be drawn and quartered, boiled in oil, and have his private parts removed with a rusty dime. The rusty dime part comes from the blue collar humor common on the crews at my father's nursery business back in the 70s. Those clever guys are all long gone, as is my Dad, but their cleverness lives on!
Wonder how JD and Marco feel about being contradicted and made fools promising no fees in the Gulf while Trump now demands 20% of the action. I guess they should be used to it by now. The world's most powerful man has lost his grip on reality, could somebody please get the straight jacket!
ICC drama is noise, the structural shift in energy processing is the signal. Tbh, if we can't refine, policy risk > supply. Markets r totally missing this
It's interesting watching how the US corpocracy run by the oligarchs works. The oligarchs protect and use Trump because they know he's a transactional idiot and will do them favors for contributing even just a few million here and there (chump change to trillionaires) to him and his family.
The oligarchs also control the media and therefore the narrative. And they control the supply chains and oil and gas industry. So, we there's no sense of urgency or problem with the strait being closed, it's just an inconvenience.
To me, nothing seems real anymore. The gas prices are still $4.30 a gallon where I live. Food prices are the highest they've ever been. Healthcare costs are outrageously high and getting higher. The debt is completely out of control. Our government is failing and has been turned against the average citizen. ICE is literally murdering people in our streets. But because the media (social and new feeds), are so controlled by the oligarchs it's like nothing matters and we're all just moving along like nothing's wrong.
It's like nobody remembers the Biden presidency when, if he stumbled just a tiny bit, the media was all over him, including Democrats and the left, and none of the things he did mattered to anyone. All that mattered was Biden stumbled and therefore he was unfit to lead.
Meanwhile Trump rambles on, clearly with dementia, and all his failings, and his unchecked criminal activity, and the media and everyone has become numb to it and is just going through the motions. Democrats pretend there's still a democracy and the oligarchs just keep tightening their grip while their profits continue to go up exponentially.
We all know money corrupts, so the math is simple, the trillionaire/billionaires are in complete control and, unless money suddenly doesn't matter anymore, they will remain in power indefinitely. Millions/billions of individuals can no longer outraise campaign money to compete with them.
I don't think this will end any time soon. I think we will transition to renewable energy eventually out of necessity but in the most inefficient and harmful manner possible, thanks to entrenched greed. Billions of people may eventually die but the oligarchs will be just fine and will continue to increase their control and ability to mask reality though control of social media and the narrative.
I just don't see how any of this changes. As much as I appreciate Krugman's insights, that's all they really are, just insights on how some of this works and there's not much we can do about it.
There's an irony in your closing statement: "...there's not much we can do about it". That's exactly how the oligarchs want us all to feel. There's actually a lot we can do, starting with recognizing our own capitulation.
The inconvenient fact for them is that, while they have all the capital, we have the numbers. We outnumber them by millions to one. If we refuse to cave in to hopelessness and do whatever we can to rise and resist, we can beat them.
It will really begin in November, when we swamp them with One Big Beautiful Blue Tsunami! 🌊
I like your optimism Winston, but what numbers do we have? 90 million people didn't even vote in 2024 and 75 million voted for a twice impeached, convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist! Even the people who voted Democratic are largely unorganized and have no power or influence. Americans are the super consumers of natural resources on planet Earth and also the largest producers of trash. We want to stay comfortable, entertained and largely uninformed because it's easy and doesn't require change. We have willingly ceded our attention spans to social media, Fox "News" and our smartphones. The US has been in a non-shooting civil war since Bush took office 2000. Their is a hatred dividing our political parties and communities to such an extent, that even the simple loving act of wearing a mask to protect your neighbors during a worldwide pandemic, became a dividing line in America with Republicans screaming about their freedom NOT to wear one, and demonizing scientist and doctors. The US is done, but will circle the drain for another 15-20 years because we're so wealthy, and give the illusion that we're still marginally respected in the world. We're not.
Circumstances can and do change. It's unfortunate that it took the catastrophe of Trumpkopf to start waking Americans up, but it does seem to have done so. Even the edges of the MAGA cult are starting to fray.
The non-shooting civil war predates King Bush II, indeed, it's a mere continuation of the 1861 civil war.
While it's true that 1/3 of the electorate didn't bother to vote in 2024, polls are showing that flippancy has largely dissipated, and are gearing up for a massive surge in November.
Just look at all special elections across the country where Dems trounced the GOP - and turnout was overwhelming. Look at the crowds Bernie is drawing, and James Talarico, and others as well.
I'm not prepared to give up on the US just yet.
Once again,I admire your faith in the process. Unfortunately, everything you describe, and maybe even MORE, took place with the election of Barack Obama. Overwhelming support, passion, and hope filled over half the country. It came to a grinding halt after the midterm elections gave Republicans the power of "NO". Controlling both houses, with Mitch McConnell effectively stopping the entire country dead in it's tracks for the next six years. We, the people, stayed comfortably sedated with our latest consumerist purchases, streaming TV, Amazon Prime free shipping, and sending thoughts and prayers to the survivors of school shootings.
We're on the same side in this fight Winston, it's just that I know people don't change as adults, so the US is done. However, I still fight the hopeless battle because acting for the benefit of others is all that gives my life meaning.
Calling it hopeless is already giving up the fight. I can't predict how this will all end. I can predict that I have nothing left to lose by fighting this scourge tooth and nail till I flatline. I refuse to cave. I refuse to capitulate. I refuse to give in. I refuse to accept defeat.
You say you still fight the hopeless battle, but if you approach it as hopeless, you're failing to give it your best shot. That is of course your prerogative, just as refusing to give up is mine.
Bannon's plan is working perfectly: "Flood the zone with s**t," and the people will no longer notice the abnormal is now normal.
We'll certainly never notice a president wearing a tan suit again, much less a president talking about The Islamic Republic of Japan or how we should take over Iceland.
I can assure you with 100% certainty that if we have a Democratic president, the press (including Prof. Krugman's former employer) will be all over that president having the nerve to wear a tan suit, much less misspeak and call one country by another country's name. 100% certainty. Just like I can assure you that SCOTUS will determine that presidential immunity somehow doesn't apply to Democratic presidents. IOKIYAR. IACIYAD.
There are at least a few oligarchs, low profile of course, that made their zillions in the renewable business, and if there is money to be made in the absence of Senor TACO, they'll be back at it.
Although the trillionaires are dumping cash into elections, you can only advertise so much spoiled meat. People taste it once, and won’t buy it again. Can’t disguise that flavor with a sexy ad.
Everyone help friends and neighbors VOTE early!! Bank the votes as soon as you can, as it makes it clear who voters want and harder to contest.
Labor's share of productivity decreases due to: 1) inflation, and 2) a larger share of productivity gains being captured by capital owners. When labor's share of productivity decreases sufficiently, pitchforks and firebrands may be necessary to restore balance.
Nono, as a commentator observed: he already has ended that war 38 times, nobody has brought an end to war that many times. The Nobel Prize is safely his!
but he did then start 38 wars
The term IDIOT truly applies more aptly to tRump than anyone in history. Is there any world leader that has ever been conned into starting a war that was represented to be a cake walk and turned out be exactly how anyone that isn't an idiot predicted? What a putz, not just a putz but a lame one who always gets everything wrong while proclaiming himself to be a stable genius.
"Is there any world leader that has ever been conned into starting a war that was represented to be a cake walk and turned out be exactly how anyone that isn't an idiot predicted?"
Yes, George W. Bush. Although he might not have had to be conned into it and likely knew the whole thing was corrupt and a lie from the start.
It's a war Trump & Co won in the 1st hour; it's not a war; it's a "new" war...
It's a "new" war on infinite repeat.
He just won a participation trophy for the Iran war. “Guerrilla artists Secret Handshake have installed a giant gold participation trophy for Trump on the National Mall, hoping that if the president receives enough shiny objects, he may stop trying to collect wars.” https://boingboing.net/2026/07/13/giant-participation-trophy-appears-on-the-national-mall-for-trumps-iran-war-effort.html
Who beside his own guts and bones persuaded hin that Iran would fall as did Venezuela? Was it bubi, rubio. hegseth, graham, or his boot-licking cabinet? My bet is on bibi who for years alleged that Iran was weeks from having nukes while israel has 90-400 about which no one cares -why?
Yes, blame Trump. It lets the US based interests in oil and arms behind political capture, war, instablity, inequity and chaos to continue with no one noticing.
Barack Obama lives in Trump's head rent free!!! Obama had a deal with Iran but trump couldn't handle the truth.
Politics aside, the real risk is the 10% global refining gap from the war. Tbh, markets r mispricing this structural bottleneck. That’s the real fuel for inflation
This reminds me of the opening chapter of the book 1793 by Victor Hugo: the soldier who stops a runaway cannon in a ship gets a medal. Then, as the cannon got loose due to the carelessness of the same sailor, he gets the ultimate punishment ...
Trump was not in office in 1979 when this started
True. But he also wasn't in office in 1953 when MI6 and the CIA managed the overthrow of the elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh. Why? To protect BP (then AIOC) from nationalization. Do you think your "when this started" might be better applied to that event? Iranians certainly do.
We can go back to the End of WW1 when the Europeans carved up the Ottoman empire at the end of WW1. They kind of made a mess of the whole Mid east and South west Asia area. My remark about 79 was the more extreme radical islamists who ended up taking power and took Iran back centuries.
Thank you for your comment.
You are right, but we can go back even further than 1914. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 in effect divided Iran (then Persia) into Russian and British 'zones of influence', with a 'neutral' Persian zone separating them. After WWI began, the same two powers elimated the neutral zone and divided all of Persia into their respective zones of influence in the Constantinople Agreement of 1915.
It is hardly surprising that Iranians have a powerful sensitivity to Western intervention in their country. Not that Trump, Hegseth, Vance or Rubio would know anything about that.
Pretty sure all 3 of them know that, because at various times they have commented on that as well. Today we are left holding the crappy bag left by the European powers who divided up the area, we can even look at what teh UK did to Pakistan and India. Suffice it to say, no one is clean on this.
I'd always heard 42 gallons in a barrel of oil product (unleaded gas, diesel, et cetera) and 55 gallons in a barrel of crude oil. This article states 42 gallons per barrel of crude.
A 55 gallon of WTI (standard US crude) will yield 42 gallons of gasoline. The two sizes for barrels appear to be based on this relationship.
A barrel of oil is 42 gallons. 55 gallons is a typical industrial drum (not relevant). Remarkably: "A 42-gallon barrel of crude oil yields about 45 gallons of refined products. The refining process expands the volume of the original crude. This barrel primarily produces about 19 to 20 gallons of gasoline, 11 to 13 gallons of diesel, and 4 gallons of jet fuel, with the remainder going toward petrochemicals, heating oil, and asphalt." (The products are indeed less dense than crude.) Based on this the 28+14 approximation is not a bad one.
Have you listened to FOX News lately? Trump is STILL a @$@%×<@^ hero. Lets hear it for the average intelligence of half the Americam population
Confronting a brutal misogynistic theocratic dictatorship would be a good in itself, but in this case Trump is doing not only the Mid-East but world culture a good, as Iran leads the cause of Islamic expansion – which is currently colonizing and brutalizing Western Europe and central Africa.
Why is it so easy for the left to make common cause with Islamic authoritarians?
Sounds like the multibillionaire oil pigs are gonna get richer and richer no matter what this war is just another excuse to screw the consumers all over the world.
Which is why we consumers/voters should have listened to Carter back in the 70s and weaned ourselves off of oil products. Carter set us on the path to energy independence with his push for energy conservation and adoption of renewable energy. Instead people chose to believe Regan’s pro-oil, anti-green energy change lies. It was bad enough that Reagan wasted our taxpayer dollars by thanking Carter’s solar panels off the White House roof even though they were working well. Now Trump is forcing us taxpayer to pony up $1 billion to pay to stop their offshore wind projects.
We are currently using 1 million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. As of July 3, we are at 319.5 million barrels. There are debates over exactly what the Minimum Operating Level is; if we fall below, caverns start collapsing, pipelines clog, and there are other calamities we don’t want to test. A common belief is that the MOL is 1/3 capacity or 240 million.
That means at the current rate, we hit MOL on September 21. Others say we are okay into October. It takes 7 weeks for a tanker to get from Hormuz to the East Coast.
Prices are not rising fast enough to destroy demand. The price of diesel has not come down from $5.80/gallon (I saw $8.50 by the NYC Midtown Tunnel). This has created a whole separate problem that will likely get worse. There were some wild predictions at the beginning of the crisis of $300/barrel oil. I said demand destruction would not start until the 200-day moving average at the NYMEX (commodity market) hits $120. It currently sits at $74. The 200-day MA for NYMEX gasoline is about $2.50; the all-time nominal high is $3.15 in 2022 which did not cause significant demand destruction.
So what can save us from the MOL? Not light oil from the Permian. It is the wrong kind of oil for our refineries which is why we are exporting a record amount of crude. Permian production is also slowing down: the preliminary year-over-year production numbers grew 1.1% in Jan, 3.5% in Feb, 1.5% March, and 0.15% in April. This is also why a ban on oil exports won’t help; we can’t use that oil.
The Gulf of Mexico set a record in April for production. Whether this can be sustained is an open question and the Gulf can also be severely affected by hurricanes.
Canada is producing flat out and cannot easily expand. Venezuela raised its April production to 1.03 million bpd as our host mentions. In 2015, it was producing 2.4 million but experts say it will take a long time before it regains that level.
If we don’t start planning for gas rationing, it will be rationed in the most inefficient and expensive manner. We may have only 10 weeks left.
"Prices are not rising fast enough to destroy demand. The price of diesel has not come down from $5.80/gallon (I saw $8.50 by the NYC Midtown Tunnel)."
----
While the ICE car driving public and their online videos and the media focus on the price of gasoline, IT IS DIESEL THAT RUNS THE ECONOMY and affects costs for everybody. While it's bad enough in the US, much of Russia's wheat crop will not be harvested, and since Russian domestic needs will be met first, a lot of the rest of the world that consumes Russian wheat will go hungry.
The previous restrictions on exports will likely be reimbursed before that happens. Remember, the US produces about as much oil as it consumes.
The problem is an imbalance in refinery capacity. Much of the US refining assets are geared towards refining heavy Venezuelan oil and Canadian oil sands oil, not the abundant light crude produced in Texas and the adjacent states (remember, it wasn't that long ago (before the fracking revolution) that we were expecting a sharp decline in US production).
The result is we import crude oil from Venezuela and Canada and we export Texas crude. Between 1975 (back in the era of the "oil crisis") and 2015 (11 years ago - once fracking took over) US oil exports were banned. If we do that again and refined product prices keep going up, expect a move to refining Texas light crude
While America is still addicted to oil and gas the rest of the world is shifting to wind and solar. The oil oligarchs control Republicans and the federal government in America and confuse the public. Wars are fought over oil especially in the Middle East.
I’ve had my EV for eight years and I just ignore all this fussing.
We have two EVs now and would never go back to gas cars.
Fuel and maintenance costs are massively lower with EVs than with gas cars, plus they’re greener/cleaner and a lot more powerful with much faster acceleration.
We just charge them at home with a standard household outlet and it works fine for our needs. And there are charging stations all over now when we go on trips.
Agreed. I don't know how people are reacting in the civilized world but here in the United States they seem to be filling up regardless of the price. They just add it to their credit card bill which they know will never be paid off so who cares.
Only credit card debt can ultimately result in court judgments and seizure of property (or bankruptcy to get out from under it).
No, the people these gas prices are really hurting don't even have credit cards, and they need their cars to get to work. They're doing without something else to pay for gas.
Perhaps where you live. I had occasion to do a little shopping last Sunday. Traffic was noticeably light and the parking lots had noticeably fewer cars than they usually held on Sunday afternoons a month ago. I'm near the New Jersey coast. I visited Home Depot, Bottle King, and Kohls.
Go solar
Well, one promise kept by trump…
This war has pushed up demand for renewable energy. Some of the demand loss for refined fuels will not come back, especially outside of the backward-travelling United States.
Perhaps War Pigs should have been the musical Coda for this one
AsI I recall from my Econ1.0 many years ago, this is just what is to be expected from an oligopoly. Besides, I like the silly sound of the word.
The take home lesson here is that having a political system where one madman can start a war all by himself is the real folly. The Executive in our Executive Branch needs a whole bunch of new Constitutional constraints. Even if people were not dying because of his horrible choices, he has committed us to huge amounts of unbudgeted spending. I think the damage the Orange Berserker is wreaking on the Country will be the opportunity we need to do a major rethink of Articles I, II, and III. We The People need to make a good faith effort to rein in this type of thing in the future.
The Supreme Court needs to be reigned in. The radical 6 are bestowing the president with king like powers . The founders would be apalled.
I believe we can call that “legislating from the bench”.
it's more like delegitimizing legislation of any kind, while preserving for themselves "the last word" to constrain the new all-powerful executive on certain matters of choice (un-moored from any discernible principle.)
It's a lot more efficient for the wealthy to buy an all- powerful executive than an entire legislative body. Maybe that's one of the "new principles" at work w this SC?
Hear, hear!!
I used 'rein'...
Another commenter used 'reigned in'
Thank you! Pet peeve. And there are a lot of butts in DC that need to be unseated!
We still need senators and representatives that uphold the constitution. It's pretty obvious republicans have zero desire to continue a democratic republic.
End gerrymandering and end the unlimited flood of money that allows the oligarchs and corporations to own the politicians.
I couldn't agree more. Letting businesses contribute to politicians is an absolute abomination to democracy. Too many people have forgotten that businesses exist to serve people not people serve business. It's we the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, NOT for the business, by the business!
Why should they? They have grown fat, happy, and wealthy off this whole corrupt system.
Why? What is on it for them?
He has exploited every weakness in a system that only works if honorable people are in charge. He has also proven beyond doubt this country is not who many think and even believe we are. If the system survives - I give us about a 50/50 chance at best - we do indeed need significant reforms to avoid a repeat of this catastrophe. SCOTUS reform imposing term limits, perhaps age limits is imperative.
If I take the statement, the system "only works if honorable people are in charge", add the observation, "the average American on street is an honorable person", I get the conclusion that the US is in a mess now because the politicians actually elected do not actually represent the interests of voters.
From reading the comments to PK's blog for a few months, I get the feeling three reforms are required:
(1) gerrymandering must end;
(2) campaign spending must be restricted to citizens (i.e. identifiable human beings, not anonymous corporations or PAC) with a limit on the maximum amount any one citizen can spend
(3) judicial appointments must be independent of partisan bias.
The essence of representative democracy, is that if voters elect representatives who actually represent them and their interests, the representatives will be able to fix the rest.
Our challenge as voters is to focus on what must be reformed without being distracted by what we want to be done. This is hard, given so many needs are not being met.
All three branches are broken. There are many, many problems with our system that need fixed. Among them is also that a two party system clearly does not work.
No, but you need a Democratic sweep in November to put the brakes on the GOP. They will probably need 3-4 straight presidencies and control of Congress to start the rebuilding process. Because you're also going to have to deal with the reality that no one trusts the US anymore. You're also asking the Democrats to get their act together and come out with a platform that addresses the oligarchy. Are they up to it?
"Are they up to it?" is a very good question. Beware the traps MAGA has set:
The professional civil service built over the last century has been gutted. An incoming president cannot just snap his fingers and restore the DOJ, SEC, CDC, IRS, state department, military officer corps, and all the others. The most valuable of the people fired have found other things to do.
The Trump administration has neutered, or is neutering, all the financial system guardrails developed since the 1920's [https://bettermarkets.org/]. These are the guardrails that control Ponzi schemes, insider trading, fraudulent prospectus... and so much more. Poke the system the wrong way and it could collapse like the great depression + bubble burst + Enron... all at once.
In other words, MAGA built a moat around their malfeasance AND gutted the institutional capacity to deal with it.
Waiting for a Democratic sweep in November to start the ball rolling is like telling ourselves we can’t be happy until we lose those last 10 lbs. knowing full well we’ll just put them right back on through comfort eating because we’re so unhappy.
The reality is that Americans continue to elect Republicans even though they have been inept and incompetent when in power. They, and they alone, have created the oligarchy that has made the US a clone of Russia. You have to save the country before you can start the massive process of fixing it. I'm far from convinced that Americans or the Democratic Party are up to the challenge. The challenge makes Everest look like a walk in the park. It took the GOP 45 years to destroy democracy. It will take just as long to restore it securely.
I hope you’re wrong and that democratic institutions will be restored. The great debate is not how to have the best and the brightest at the top (Plato Republic) but how to build institutions that survive (and water down the effects of) a Bad Leader (Aristotle). That was what the Founders wanted to do, but their premise was that only « gentlemen » would partake of the « Res Publica » and work for the common good of people and country. Let’s see if we have yet reached the bottom of iniquity and can start to rebuild.
You have no idea how much I want to be wrong. But after 2024, I lost any reason to have hope.
I suspect and fear that you are correct. Has there ever been a Republic that has NOT eventually succumbed to fascism, or in the case of Rome, to a Caesarian-style Dictatorship? I can't think of one.
Christopher Armitage has researched this and concluded that the success rate is zero: https://cmarmitage.substack.com/p/i-researched-every-attempt-to-stop?r=o83t6&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web.
A Green Party sweep in November would put the brakes on the GOP. This is unlikely, but strictly speaking, the Democrats do not have a lock on this role. Majorities need to be made in Congress to elect leadership and pass legislation. Having two parties virtually guarantees someone has the majority. Having three parties would virtually guarantee no-one does and some compromise needs to occur. We can only benefit.
You still don't get it. This is not the time to vote for fringe parties and independents. This is the time to completely eradicate the GOP in every way possible. You have to kill the cancer first. In 2028, you can look at it depending on how many GOP members are in jail. All have violated their oath to defend the Constitution. Most are likely involved in insider trading.
Politically is not a fight /we/ win, not in that way. This is something the republicans -- the people who vote for them -- must do. They have to stop wanting insane things. We can do this the republican way, which is to do all things republican until the situation gets so terrible that they finally can not ignore what their own eyes and wallets tell them. We can do this the Red Scare way, in which the frightened ninnies decide to want sane things because they can't afford extremism in the face of a credible enemy. Finally, we can do this the General Sherman way and solve the problem with cavalry and torches. At the end of the day, one way or another, they need to come to believe their own countrymen (and visiting workers) are not the threat they think they are. As much as Zombie Sherman has its appeal, it only makes that problem worse.
Besides, the GOP IS already thoroughly dead. Every recognizable facet of the party is gone. It isn't a party of conservatism. It isn't a party of fiscal prudence. It isn't an anticommunist party. It certainly isn't the smartest people in the room. The people like that who held these views are pushed out, dead, or lying in a hospital waiting for their term to run out.
The main turn in American politics is it is no longer left vs. right. It is educated vs not-so-educated. When college educated people were hard to find, the parties were mostly filled with less educated people. They were run by smart people on both sides. This mostly worked because there was across the aisle agreement not to do insane things out of patriotic self preservation. There are now enough college educated people to push the working man out of the Democratic Party, which has meant that the Republican Party is the last refuge for the confused. The smart people are no longer running the Republican Party. They will continue to be grifters and idiots until such time as we can convince the electorate, the republican electorate, that they don't want idiots and thieves running the show. That is going to take a LOT of doing, given how much the educational elite have made it their business to pillage the system at every turn. Running up costs with rent seeking. Driving down wages to further Shareholder Primacy. Joe Sixpack doesn't need to look farther than the 25 pages of legal broiler plate attached to his cable contract or car rental agreement to know that the elite are out to get him.
They want to tear it all down. Until they stop wanting insane things like this, they will succeed in doing so. We don't fix it by opposing them. We fix it by fixing it, derailing government from its current parasitical course. In this Democrats will be no help at all, except those democratic socialists still in the party.
Yes. The GOP is dead. It doesn't exist anymore. And the Knuckledraggers will support it against their own interests. So until those frauds are removed from power, America is on the cliff. So you hold your nose, vote Democrat up and down the ballot, and then the work starts. There is only one group that can kill the GOP. Vote for them
Are the dem’s up to creating a do/able reform platform.
Time will tell. There is so much that needs to be overhauled. They'll need successive super-majorities to make anything happen. This is in the hands of American voters....for the last time.
Oh, please. Gag
A classically Trumpaholic reply. No facts, no debate, just "you're wrong". Why even bother typing something so pointless?
Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
'Cause I feel better now.
I rest my case.
I still think we need to Constitutionally mandate proportional represention in all federal and state legislatures.
Step one is taking election control away from governments that have an interest in the outcome. You have to end gerrymandering and end redistricting if you want a democracy. The Electoral College also goes to the bin as being grossly undemocratic.
We need a whole raft of Constitutional Amendments.
Indeed. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges will be overcoming the politicisation of the judicial system; Mitch's legacy in the destruction of the country. The law is not political.
That comes about by rewriting Article III so that appointments to the Federal Bench comes about via a new paradigm - maybe a judicial qualification commission. We need to do the same thing with all Federal appointments. We need a competent, honest, and honorable Federal government made up out of knowledgeable technocrats.
But since Repubs control more states than do Dems, the likelihood of passing Constitutional amendments with any positive impact is probably less than zero. With the current power balance, we'd be more likely to pass amendments doing things like revoking the Bill of Rights - except for the 2nd Amendment, of course...
The Constitution reserved that power to Congress. Later Congresses passed laws granting war powers to the President, mainly because we can't wait on Congress to act once Soviet ICBMs leave the silos. Abuses of those powers resulted in conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We need to tackle those later laws; the Constitution is pretty good regarding warfare.
Yes, but that's not the kind of system you actually have. If the laws and the guide rails were followed. Big IF that...
We have one party in this Country which wants Authoritarian rule and it is not the Democrats.
And yet, they are not willing (or able?) to do enough to prevent it. And they have had many opportunities for decades now.
The constitution was originally structured to allow this sort of hijacking by the minority, as long as they are the rural minority, from the start. It is how we got them to sign on in the first place. It was broken from the start.
Even the Founders didn’t want to admit the ‘great unwashed’ to the halls of power.
We need a national divorce and a relocation fund. The country is irreconcilably divided between fascist and pro-democracy states.
I fear you are right. The devil is in the details…
What an appropriate thing to do in your 250th…
Yes, but that major rethink and rewrite/amendment cannot be done until Trump, the thoroughly corrupt GOP, the corrupt MAGA SCOTUS (and, let's face it, Koch Industries) are still in power. Koch has been trying to get enough states on-board for a Constitutional Convention and Amendment in their interest and favor for decades now and they are close to achieving it. If they do, the United States of America is done for, we are toast!
Hear, hear!!
I suspect that a berserker spits more courage onto his fallen foe that Trump has *ever* possessed..
Not just constitutional constraints - those already exist. What’s needed is enforcement mechanisms with teeth.
This is what happens when a would be convicted criminal sells his soul to the highest bidder. Trump has outsourced everything.
1. Energy policy to the fossil fuel and LNG industries.
2. The federal courts to the Federalist Society
3. Government to the Heritage Foundation.
4.Deregulation, crypto and AI to the Tech Bro’s.
5. Middle Eastern policy to Israel and foreign policy to the highest bidders—depending on the region.
6. And the TRUMP AND family and friends international grift—bribes and percentages of companies.
7. Social Media and traditional media outlets to the billionaire class who are aligned with his interests.
Therefore, was anyone expecting a different result? Just saying…:)
8. Your data to Palantir and the Jack Boots, oops, DHS.
Good catch…:)👏
Ugh. Infuriating. You forgot environmental policy (which has global effects) based first on his personal grievance and second on industry (some of the same ones you already listed plus more).
Bears, wolves, and bison can't bribe DonnyJon.
No doubt…:)
Yes, this is an essential #9. Trump and MAGA Republicans like Mike Lee are selling off OUR public lands to ranchers, loggers, miners and developers. They have no legitimate right to do this, and yet...
💯 agree…:)
Ah yes, the MAGAs, who are now somewhat surprised at the results.
They were absolutely convinced nothing could wrong. Oops.
Well, they own the libs now.
You've summed it up perfectly, including #8!
And adding #9.
Thanks Paul! I had completely forgotten about the Not Enough Refineries Issue and Refineries cannot be built quickly! In places that require long commutes the Demand doesn't drop much. Some folks can carpool but that doesn't work for all. As his 1st Secretary of State ,(1st term) was reported to have said: Trump is an ****ing Moron, sadly so true. Thanks for this piece today.
The oil companies know the worldwide trend is away from fossil fuels and hopefully Donnie Demento will be gone in 2 years. Investing in refinery capacity may not make sense to them since demand will go down long term and they profit from the higher prices.
Hi, Thanks for your comment. I put the Petro Companies on the same No Trust Level as Trump the Liar. But after some research it appears that it will take many years for battery powered and hybrid vehicles to be the largest mode of vehicle transport in the USA.
Similar issues around the attempt to increase the timber harvest in the Pacific Northwest. The mills just aren’t in place, and private/state harvests are being shipped to overseas mills.
What does appear to be “crucial” is dismantling ICC brick by brick. Sounds like someone is getting nervous. Scaredy-cat is disparaging to felines. Maybe scaredy-scat?
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-campaign-dismantle-international-criminal-court-1808463
The ICC is fast becoming the court of last appeal against fascism. No one needs their protection more than the American people.
💯 Claire. When this regime is no longer in power, and ICC prosecutes 47 for Venezuela, the entire world will witness his extradition to The Hague.
Not going to happen. The USA was never a signatory to the ICC, and even if tried by the ICC in absentia the USA will not extradite a former President no matter how heinous his ‘war crimes’.
You’re right. But ICC can prosecute the US for aggression on member Venezuela’s sovereign boundaries, even if we’re not members. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-legal-justification-for-the-us-attack-on-venezuela-trump-madurohttps://law.stanford.edu/2026/01/10/flexing-u-s-power-in-venezuela/
So what……no point in a prosecution if it does not penalise the offender. Netanyahu has been wandering the globe with several ICC warrants over his head and yet states he visits grants him safe passage. We just have to accept that the US is lawless, at home and abroad.
We have to acknowledge it, but we do not, and must not ever, accept it.
ICC has symbolic value, but doesn't even exercise that "soft power" very effectively.
Yep. He’d have to travel outside the US and get nabbed there. See “Pinochet.”
Hope so.
Great opportunity for the continued ascendancy of EVs and all other things renewable to sound the death knell of the fossils and all their fools … er fuels …
Yes, Trump is like the Chinese fable, 'Bad Luck, or Good Luck?'
Closing the Strait reduces the supply of crude, BUT decreased refinery capacity limits its' effect. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
Shortage of crude increases prices for oil, which benefits Russia, BUT loss of refineries means they can't export fossil fuels any more. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
Higher prices for fuels squeeze consumers, BUT speeds changeover to renewables. Bad Luck, or Good Luck?
....and so on.
Money is being sucked from consumers and landing on the oil crowd. American oil barons haven't even increased their costs - whole increase in prices is profit.
Perhaps sustained high gas prices will get Americans thinking that renewables are a good thing? And that maybe relying on petroleum distillates for all our energy needs is not a good long-term program? And that maybe any politician who says "Drill, Baby! Drill!" is an abject imbecile who needs to be ignored?
Dunno. Doesn't sound real manly to me, so we're probably stuck with the status quo.
Your last sentence is likely predictive of what’s going to happen. Gas prices will eventually decline and Americans, once again, will gravitate back to the gas guzzler vehicles. So, it’s no surprise that a country that repeatedly embraces the “status quo” would vote into the presidency such a profoundly ignorant and dangerous individual.
Or they will just get used to it, desensitized. It baffles the mind that with hybrid and EV technology where it is, one can even have the option to buy a gas car anymore. And you can bet your buns if we let Chinese EVs into the market, the US automakers would suddenly be able to make many more of their models hybrid and EV.
Correct about if they let the Chinese EVs into the market.
Of course and for a good reason. There's no energy as cheap (on normal periods), practical and reliable as oil.
IMHO the technology of the renewable sources is lucricrous at this point: Batteries are made of rare, expensive materials and heavily polluting chemicals, produce a lot of heath, burn and explode, have short lifespan and produce DC electricity. Peppering the landscape with plasticky solar panels is an aberration and begets all sorts of synchronicity errors. Windmills produce irregular AC current, wind is not entirely predictable, the biggest parts of them are not recycable etc.
Countries with a high number of electrical vehicles have had to forbid the recharge on some periods because there's no capacity on the grid.
You may power a home with them, ¿but a whole system?
Just saying.
The future is already being built: the first commercial fusion nuclear plant. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Virginia. Clean, safe and unlimited.
Come on now OleMan, you’re breathing fantasy here.
Those “plastic” solar panels are saving the bacon around the world just now. Yes, wind power doesn’t produce when there’s no wind, but there’s lots of wind and they are helping immensely. Note: They wouldn’t keep building them if they didn’t produce — it’s a basic principle taught in 101 finance.
No, sorry, the dream of fusion is still a dream. We’ve been “on the cusp” of solving its predicted magic for decades and will remain on the cusp whether or not they “build a plant”.
It’s time to face reality, you know, deal with what’s actually happening.
as Dr Robert Gross, retired Columbia physicist fusion is always 10 years away
We need all of the above competing for max efficiency in a free world. There are energy sources that might not ultimately "win" that will nonetheless contribute significantly during the process of discovering the eventual steady state "best outcome."
Oh! What a suprise! A cult-like devotee of renewable energy being condescending toward a rational, informed person!
And, please, whatever you do, don't waste your precious time answering data and arguments with data and arguments. Who needs that?
Who said those renewable energies do not produce? Maybe you need to attend reading comprehension classes, my friend.
And what does it say your finance 101 about subsidies and incentives? This whole trend has been subized to the hilt by goverments all over the world, including the US.
It's similar to what happened to nuclear energy: The "peaceful atom" started from guilt from the atomic bombs. It wasn't a sensible investment option but was subsidized and pushed for political, almost philosophical reasons. Renewable energies have followed the same pattern, a prejudice pushes a technology who's not very practical or mature.
Pipe dream? In 2022 the Department of Energy lab said it had made a fusion reactor that produced more energy than it comsumed, the scientific breakeven. At the latest, in 2027 the SPARC prototype built in Massachusets will be operational.
It's commercial brother, the fusion reactor being built in Virginia will be operational in the early 2030s. What does your finance 101 say about this considering the massive investment boom in fusion leaded by all the major tech companies?
And the advances in fission muclear in China, etc. are also staggering, but that´s a whole different story.
I’ll give you that subsidies were present in getting renewables off the ground.
They might have been a lot less necessary if Ronald Regan had not yanked the solar panels off the roof of the White House that Jimmy Carter put up there.
You see, Republicans for strange reasons have (and continue to) fight renewables tooth and nail. I don’t know if they’re simply afraid of them, or perhaps they own lots of fossil fuel stocks or what. But this I do know. Our sun is sending along massive amounts of energy and it’s passing it along for free. No charge.
And that largesse is never ever going away because if it were to we’d go with it. Poof.
To fight against solar power is a fool’s errand pure and simple.
And note, if we’d embraced them back in the 20th century as we should have wed a damnsite further along in cheap energy than we are now — full stop.
Thankfully brighter minds could see the only way to jump start solar (and hybrid cars) was thru incentives. Voila! It worked. Most incentives are now gone. Solar is working.
As to fusion … I was a young student when our grade school teachers showed us (industry created) film strips of the fantastic nuclear ☢️ energy stations that would playgrounds for us (green spaces all around them) and (wait for it) electricity “too cheap to meter”. Yep, basically free energy.
How’d that work out?
Interestingly the insurance companies “got it.” They wound not touch a nuclear plant with a 2000-foot pole. No way. So our government took over the risk with the Price-Anderson Act (look it up). The taxpayers had to foot the insurance bill ALONG WITH subsequent claims!
I can’t possibly be convinced 1) fusion will work large scale after the continuous failures for many decades and 2) that it won’t present new problems. You know, every new solution creates new problems — ALWAYS. (See AI, for instance)
I’d love to see the perfect solution to energy production but I rather suspect we’ve come as close as we’re. Going to get with solar. Now the task is to improve solar — which we are, every month.
Your comment is just an omellete of ignorance. Starting with batteries: Lithium is the current preferred base chemical for rechargeable batteries, and lithium is neither rare nor expensive. It is, in fact, one of the most abundant elements. It is PROCESSING lithium that is rare and expensive--China is presently the world leader in lithium processing, and U.S. capacity is extremely limited.
Solar panels are not plastic, and I have no idea what "synchronicity errors" might be because the term is meaningless in this context.
Windmills do not "produce irregular AC current," nor is wind unpredictable. This is just straight-up recycled Fox News.
And as for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, you might want to go look at their website. As the company itself points out, they're nowhere near building a commercial fusion reactor, or any other kind of fusion reactor. They're rounding up funding to build a TOKAMAK-style unit, which is a research system and is thus far unable to sustain any kind of fusion reaction.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems seems to be a serious venture, but as you say, their technology is unproven. If their demo reactor (scheduled to be completed in 2027) works, that would be a good sign. The next step is to build a working power plant in the early 2030s. So widespread deployment of nuclear fusion is a decade away if their plans work out, and comes later, or never, if they don’t. Not a good reason not to deploy wind and solar today.
As for cost, they claim that this “will be the lowest cost source of clean, firm power that can be deployed anywhere.” As I read it, this isn’t saying much. It doesn’t say that it can match the prices of wind or solar (the “firm power” qualifier). It doesn’t say that it can match the price of fossil fuel powered plants (the “clean” qualifier). It doesn’t say it can match the prices of nuclear fission (the “deployed anywhere” qualifier). So there is a possibility that their design will work but won’t be price competitive except in unusual circumstances.
Google has invested in the company and agreed to buy half of the output of the power plant that is supposed to go online in the early 2030s. That suggests that Google thinks there is a reasonable chance that the company will be successful. However, the agreement doesn’t require Google to pay if the power plant doesn’t work. If the plant is successfully completed, but with large cost overruns, Google has presumably locked in an electricity price based on the estimated cost of building the plant, rather than the actual cost with all the overruns.
In short, nuclear fusion isn’t a viable energy source today, and we don’t know when or if it will become one. In the mean time, we need wind and solar.
Your precision about how lithium is not rare, but at the same it is rare is priceless.
No, no need to "go look at their website": there are better sources available in papers and scientific literature, in investors relations departments in those companies, the Energy Department, etc. I've never watched a single program of Fox News, which seems very relevant to you.
And Commonwealth Fusion Systems is a spin off from the Massachussets Institute of Technology (surely ignorant people, them) funded by Google (who also has signed a PPA agreement with them), Microsoft, Bill Gates, Vinod Koshla, ENI, etc.
nukes are an awfully expensive way to make steam and , BTW, when the ambient temp of the cooling water is too high the nukes have to shut down.
Thanks for opening our eyes to the economic underpinnings of current events, and then opening our ears with your musical codas.
Dear Paul,
« Folks this is bad » (paragraph 2), and your entire final, summary, paragraph, capture for me where the US is stuck.
Add in the unregulated killings by ICE, the open kleptocracy which is waved through by a silent Congress and a complicit Supreme Court.
‘The US (rather than Russia) is burning’.
Anthony
People have a choice - they can start to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. The technology is reasonable priced and reliable. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars in profits to these robber barons, buy evs, install solar, heat pumps.
It would be wonderful if the states would now start offering incentives to install more solar.
So for retires, tax rebates are not a good option, at least I don't pay enough to profit from that.
I believe New Jersey still does.
That’s theoretically possible but the capital outlay to do those is considerable.
Not necessarily so. My lease payments on my 2025 Fiat 500e are actually lower than that on my 2010 MINI in the last year of its lease (2012). Both were 3-year lease agreements. It costs about $5/month to charge the Fiat & there are no ‘service’ appointments. There is nothing to service until I hit 15K, whereby I may have to rotate my tires. Further, the Fiat is our ‘city’ car. We basically park our old 2018 internal combustion (diesel) Jeep while in the city — so very low fuel expenses there as well. And we are looking to replace the Jeep with a fully EV soon.
My panels cost me about $30,000 a few years back. They save me at least $5,500 a year. This month's electric bill is $4.27. I have a few years to go before we break even. Our heat pump went in last month. Yes, it was expensive, but our old furnace was 24 years old and had already required repair twice. I'm planning on selling my Nissan and buying an electric Slate truck when it becomes available, but "the best laid plans of mice and men ...."
As long as you don't go for a Tesla cyber truck 🫣
I believe I said a Slate truck. https://www.slate.auto/en
did that 10 years ago. welcome to the club.
"Folks, this is bad. U.S. national security policy is now entirely in the service of one man’s vanity." Yep, it's bad because this situation has a name, dictatorship. The fact that the collapse of the US "experiment " in democracy seems to only be of interest when viewed through the influence on gasoline prices is an appalling statement about the US public. The big picture is that multiple countries in Europe and Mideast are now actively shooting at each other, due to the actions of two nuclear armed countries run by dictators, Russia and the US. If this spirals out of control, and there are many ways for it to do so, the US public will soon become painfully familiar with Tolstoy's observation: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
I would add the Russian public to your excellent observations
Also, fertilizer. What’s happening and going to happen with food prices as a result? How much of prices are tied to the Strait, what is the current and future projected impact, and when?
And don’t forget HELIUM. It’s equally important and heavily dependent on the strait of Hormuz.
And petrochemical stock for plastic. And refined aluminum. And Liquified Natural Gas.
https://www.aluminium-journal.com/aluminium-smelters-in-the-gulf-region
US imports 20% of its aluminum from the Gulf. If Canada gets annoyed with our talk of annexation and embargoes its aluminum, we are screwed.
I read that Canada has done exactly that. They get more money for their aluminum sales in Europe than here, so they're shipping it there.
A sustained Russia–Iran-driven oil shock is structurally positive for EVs, batteries, grid infrastructure, efficiency, nuclear power and domestically produced renewable electricity.
The deeper effect may be psychological and political: oil and gas cease to look merely inexpensive and convenient and increasingly look like geopolitically risky commodities. That strengthens the case for electrification even in countries whose governments are relatively indifferent to climate change.
Deeply appreciate the walkthrough of the price dynamics going on.
That coda, though? Brilliant!
Right???
I listened and thought: Oh. Humans. <sigh>…
🎶 🎵 I've been a Dan Fan since their first album. 🎶 🎵