The extreme vitriol against the recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil output, specifically the extreme Biden anger toward Saudi Arabia, now takes on additional context as the New York Times writes about a secretly negotiated deal between the Kingdom and White House officials that was never executed.

As the Times reveals, over the summer the White House thought their team had negotiated a deal with Saudi Arabia for increased oil production that would have lowered oil and gasoline costs in the U.S, strategically timed before the midterm election.

With that agreement in mind, Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia a few months ago. However, as the western alliance began putting more pressure on Russia and increased the activity within Ukraine, the Saudi’s aligned with OPEC+ to support Russia via lowered oil outputs.  The White House felt double-crossed, hence the fury.

(New York Times) –  WASHINGTON — As President Biden was planning a politically risky trip to Saudi Arabia this summer, his top aides thought they had struck a secret deal to boost oil production through the end of the year — an arrangement that could have helped justify breaking a campaign pledge to shun the kingdom and its crown prince.  It didn’t work out that way.

Mr. Biden went through with the trip. But earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by two million barrels per day, the opposite of the outcome the administration thought it had secured as the Democratic Party struggles to deal with inflation and high gas prices heading into the November elections.

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As inflation bites the working-class hard, U.S. household savings rates continue dropping fast.  When combined with drops in home values the loss in home equity compounds the issue.  American families are getting poorer much more quickly under Joe Biden’s economic policies.

According to the Wall Street Journal home values dropped in August at their highest monthly rate of decrease since 2011 {link}.  In part this is driven by higher mortgage rates which are pricing home buyers out of the market.  However, the regional impact is worse on the west coast than east or southeast.

[…] The housing market has slowed abruptly this year due to a rapid increase in mortgage rates, which has raised borrowing costs for home buyers and pushed many prospective buyers out of the market. Existing-home sales fell for eight straight months through September. (link)

As noted in The Daily Mail review of a similar analysis: “It’s Northern California that leads the way, with San Jose experiencing a drop of 10.8 percent since September, followed by San Francisco at 8.5 percent, then it’s Seattle at 8.2 percent, Denver at 5.8 percent, San Diego 5.2 percent, Portland 5.1 percent, Las Vegas 4.8 percent and Phoenix at 4.4 percent.” (link)

What we are seeing is a confluence of events, generally brought about by the outcomes of larger Biden administration policy.  Massive increases in energy costs are the result of energy policy; those increases are fueling inflation from the supply side on food, fuel, electricity, home heating etc.  Simultaneously, Fed monetary policy is driving consumer demand down.  The recession debate continues amid the economic think-tanks while Main Street outcomes show we have been in a recessionary period all year.

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The moves are so predictable… {See Here}… well, it would be funny if the consequences were not so severe.

With Prime Minister Liz Truss announcing her resignation there was considerable discussion of former PM Boris Johnson returning to run for the job.  However, as an outcome of his conversations with other “conservatives” in British politics, Johnson has withdrawn his name.  This sets up… wait for it…. the World Economic Forum’s groomed U.K. climate change “conservative” to take the job.  This stuff is so predictable, it’s beyond funny.

(Via CBS) – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement Sunday that he would not seek the leadership of the Conservative Party, leaving former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak as the frontrunner to take over after Liz Truss hastily announced her exit last week, after just 45 days at the helm. (read more)

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak together with King Charles III….  What could possibly go wrong?  LOL

Sometimes people make fun of me for cementing my views in the reality of a big picture perspective.  I don’t care.  It’s not a conspiracy theory to see how the alignment of western leadership interests are shaped by the control of the people and institutions who manipulate the illusion of choice.

Liz Truss was dispatched because she dared, in the smallest way, to accept the reality of what created the ‘Build Back Better‘ U.K. economic crisis.  She was always going to be replaced by someone who was willing and able to retain their fullest devotion to the grand pretense.  That’s where Rishi Sunak steps in.  Please watch the video below, you’ll see:

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All around this western world of ours we find ourselves surrounded by economic pretenders and financial pundits, perhaps intentionally stuck, using old school economic theory to analyze a new era in government manipulation of the economy.  It’s maddening… but at least we do not need to pretend on these pages.

Milton Friedman was not wrong at the time he stated that inflation is driven by monetary policy.  Print money and the value of it diminishes; this is true.

However, we are in an era that Friedman never foresaw, nor could he fathom, where the structural policy of government is created to intentionally shrink economic activity.

Purposefully reducing energy resources and then purposefully reducing economic activity to match the diminished level of energy available, is the underlying purpose of what the western globalists call “Building Back Better.”   The claim of “climate change” is the justification for their action.  Too few people truly understand this, and as a result we see false arguments about the root of inflation being presented.

The ROOT CAUSE of modern western inflation is the intentional shortage of traditional energy resources (coal, oil, gas), which is driving up the price of the everything attached to the use of energy, everything.  It is a supply side causation with policymakers trying to forcibly shrink energy demand.   Quit making excuses in any other direction.

As energy products skyrocket, everything attached to the energy product rises in price – that is a supply side issue.  Yes, if you wish to be obtuse and support the justification from the policymakers, you can -if you chose to join the pretending- argue that demand for energy is the cause. However, demand for energy is far more consistent than the reductions in the supply that have been created.

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Last week we discussed the announcement of a $24.6 billion merger deal between Kroger and Albertsons supermarkets {Go Deep}.  The majority stockholders in both companies are institutional investment groups, Blackrock, Vanguard and Cerberus.

The merger would consolidate the second and third largest food retailers in the U.S. and would certainly dilute the competitive dynamic amid the supermarket industry.  Concern over price controls and decreased competition has now arrived on the desks of DC legislators who are reviewing the deal.

(Reuters) – […] U.S. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Senator Mike Lee were quick to say that they would hold a hearing to discuss the merger. A European interloper could make deal plans even harder.

Frans Muller, Chief Executive of Stop & Shop owner Ahold Delhaize (AD.AS), has made no secret of his desire to consolidate U.S. grocers. The Netherlands-based firm is already the fourth largest grocery chain. If it managed to cobble together a better offer than Kroger’s bid for Albertsons, it would become the second largest supermarket. Plane spotters tracked two Albertsons jets next to Ahold Delhaize’s U.S. base in Massachusetts in early August. Ahold declined to comment.

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Elevate far enough and you return to that same place where the international finance and banking system is making decisions on politics.  The western alliance is ‘all-in‘ on the goal of using climate change as the entry point to the carbon trading system.  No one is going to be allowed to challenge this agenda.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss has resigned after only 44 days in office, driven mostly by the financial system reaction to her proposal that taxes should be lowered in order to stimulate the economy.  In the big picture, the years of slowly advancing progressive politics in the U.K. has culminated in a political system that is only manageable by a leader who retains a globalist financial outlook and a climate change policy framework.

Prime Minister Truss’s economic agenda, lower taxes – stimulate growth, in combination with an emergency effort to quickly develop oil, coal and natural gas exploitation (fracking etc.) in order to avoid the escalating European energy crisis, was just too much and too radical.  The financial markets responded negatively, the World Economic Forum (WEF)was unhappy, and western alliance leaders were critical, including Joe Biden:

Biden called Prime Minster Truss’s proposed tax cuts “a mistake” earlier this week. Biden said he “wasn’t the only one” who thought as much, indicating he had talked to other western alliance leaders who thought the same.

“I wasn’t the only one that thought it was a mistake. I think that the idea of cutting taxes on the super-wealthy at a time when … I disagree with the policy, but it’s up to Britain to make that judgment, not me,” Biden said.  With domestic opposition and international pressure, it became clear that Liz Truss was going to collapse.  She did.

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(Daily Mail) – British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned today after just 44 days in office, sending the country’s parliament into chaos and making it the laughing stock of the world.

Truss only took over from former leader Boris Johnson on September 6 after winning an internal Conservative Party leadership contest. She quickly lost the faith of the party to such an extent that she was deemed unfit to lead last night in a wave of no confidence letters from colleagues.

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New England consists of six states in the US Northeast, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.  The states have been warned by regional ISO electricity providers for several years about their vulnerability if the winter weather is harsh and there is a significant increase in demand for home heating.  Those warnings are now multiplied by the massive price increases for natural gas.

Keep in mind as all these natural gas and LNG issues surface, the U.S. has been exporting natural gas to Europe as part of the Biden effort to subsidize the NATO effort against Russia.  Prices for natural gas have skyrocketed, and now shortages of the fuel source for energy production may create even bigger problems for New England.

[Via Zero Hedge] – […] The region’s power mix changes have left it increasingly reliant on international NatGas spot markets. State governors have asked US Energy Secretary Jennifer Graholm to waive the Jones Act and allow foreign-owned tankers to ship LNG from the US Gulf region. 

All of this has led to New England residents facing some of the highest electricity bills in years. Heating season is already underway. 

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa held a two-day summit with Saudi Arabia on mostly economic matters.

At the conclusion of the summit, he confirmed the intent of Saudi Arabia to join the BRICS economic coalition, which should not come as a surprise given the previous statements by Saudi leader and Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MbS).

(MSM) Ramaphosa confirms Saudi Arabia wants to join Brics family.  This was revealed by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his two-day state visit to the kingdom on Sunday.

“The Crown Prince (prime minister Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud) did express Saudi Arabia’s desire to be part of Brics and they are not the only country,” said Ramaphosa. He confirmed this on Sunday during an engagement with the media.

Brics held its first summit in 2009, with SA joining the following year. The bloc has generally been seen as an alternative to the dominance of the western economies.

“We did say that Brics having a summit next year under the chairship of South Africa in SA and the matter is going to be under consideration.

“A number of countries are making approaches to Brics members, and we have given them the same answer that it will be discussed by the Brics partners and thereafter a decision will be made.” (read more)

Since the outset of the Western Alliance sanctions against Russia, we have been predicting an increased geopolitical influence from the BRICS team.  A global financial and economic cleaving is underway created by the western nations chasing ideological climate change energy policy, while the rest of the world remains pragmatic toward oil, coal and natural gas as energy resources.

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In this brief segment on fall harvest inflation, NBC notes consumer prices for food stuffs continue increasing regardless of the economic action by the Biden administration. The reason is very simple and is outlined within the segment by Jacob Goebbert, the Goebbert’s farm general manager.  WATCH:

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The current inflation is embedded in the cost of products, because it’s a supply side issue.

Financial “experts” can shout all day long about the fiscal policy (spending) being the origin of inflation (ie. demand side), they’re wrong.  Our current inflation cycle, most notably evident within massive increases in food prices, is a supply side issue created by the increased energy costs.  Full stop.  It’s a Biden policy outcome.

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Joe Biden’s economic and energy policies have resulted in another record matching former President Jimmy Carter.  The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced an inflation driven increase in SAA benefits of 8.7% beginning in January 2023.  This is the largest cost of living adjustment in 40 years.

(Social Security Administration) – Approximately 70 million Americans will see a 8.7% increase in their Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments in 2023. On average, Social Security benefits will increase by more than $140 per month starting in January.

Federal benefit rates increase when the cost-of-living rises, as measured by the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index (CPI-W). The CPI-W rises when inflation increases, leading to a higher cost-of-living. This change means prices for goods and services, on average, are higher. The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) helps to offset these costs.

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