TheStorm said:
Hey, Civ! It only cost me $80.00 to fill up my domestically manufactured cross-over SUV with Plus today down here on the coast... when are all those cyclical adjustments that you say always happen and have nothing to do with "Trump going out of office and Biden coming in" going to happen?!?!?
You are barely over a month away from three years for that cyclical pendulum to swing that you swore were the ONLY reason for these prices we have?!?!?
Hey Storm, love you buddy. Missed you. Glad you reached out.
I think you're oversimplifying what I said just a skosh.
What I've said on here before about inflation and oil prices is that there are a bunch of different drivers, not that Biden has no responsibility in it. Did Biden's stimulus (the third stimulus; first two were Teflon Don's) contribute to inflation? Likely did, in some small part. Did his green energy stance reduce manufacturing appetite, which reduced supply, and drove gas prices up? Maybe but seems nebulous and fairly unlikely.
Domestic crude oil production is now in excess of what it was pre-COVID so it's seems more like domestic producers sharply curtailed production when COVID hit and it took them awhile to catch up after travel demand was normal again. Production has been rising steadily ever since it bottomed in 2020. We saw the same phenomenon with lumber. Way easier and quicker to cut production than to ramp back up. Regardless, production is back up but prices are still up too.
I read an economics article in the last couple of weeks that 'Excuse-flation' has been a demonstrably primary driver of inflation, perhaps moreso even than supply-side problems. Corporate profits from 2020-2023 have reached record levels. Oil companies had banner years in 2022. Biggest profits ever. That's ben curtailed some this year but Exxon's Q2 profits this year were still the biggest in over a decade.
Inflation is a worldwide macroeconomic issue with a bunch of drivers and essentially every developed nation in the world has been struggling with it over the last couple of years. Biden ain't their president so it's fair to intuit that there are drivers of inflation that have nothing to do with Sleepy Joe. OPEC, Ukraine war, global supply chains, and corporate profit increases all played huge parts. And our inflation rate is better than most other developed nations so it could definitely be worse.