Monmouth University conducted another political poll of U.S respondents [SEE Survey HERE].  In addition to the plummeting approval of Joe Biden, the worst yet approval at 36% according to the survey, the respondents were asked to list their top concerns (Question #7).

The responses were recorded but did not come from a list presented by Monmouth.  They just compiled the results.  As stated, “what is the biggest concern facing your family right now?”  The results show the top priorities of Americans and the disconnect between the priorities of congress and the American people are stark.

(Source, Question #7)

Nowhere on the expressed concerns did anyone identify supporting Ukraine or the Russia -v- Ukraine conflict, as a priority; yet, Ukraine has taken up almost all of the legislative effort from congress.  The total taxpayer-funded congressional spending is nearing $100 billion.  Additionally absent from the concerns of the American people, is any mention of the January 6th committee; again, another time wasted political exercise by a congress detached from the priorities of the electorate.

The top priorities are what we would expect to see, economic issues.  Inflation, Gas Prices, the Economy and the ability to pay everyday bills (groceries) are the priorities of the American people.  All of these issues are directly caused by Joe Biden and the policy of his administration.  Climate change, the #1 focus of the administration, is not even in the top ten.  We are in an abusive relationship with our own government.

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[Hat Tip Mailroom] This is a very interesting little bureaucratic energy issue with big downstream ramifications.

Almost every transportation and manufacturing company uses the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) “weekly publication of average diesel prices” in order to calculate shipping costs.  According to people in the industry, “this national average is what almost every trucking and logistics company bases their fuel surcharges on.”

However, on June 13th the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, stopped reporting the average weekly diesel price.  For almost a month companies have been using an outdated average price in order to calculate shipping costs and fuel surcharges. [See Screengrab]

Originally the EIA said, “We are implementing new methodology to estimate weekly on-highway diesel fuel prices. On June 13, we started conducting the On-Highway Diesel Fuel Price Survey using new statistical methodologies.” {LINK} However, the EIA has not updated anything since that announcement.

As a result, all of the transportation charges and fuel surcharges have been underestimated and priced for almost a full month.  The political motive for this move is transparent, it stops higher diesel prices from being passed along in the supply chain… which gives an artificial pause on inflation that comes as an outcome of higher diesel transportation costs (specifically trucking).  As explained to CTH:

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John Kirby is the former Pentagon spokesperson who is now the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications.  The people in/around the White House have shifted Kirby, a very good spinner of parseltongue, into a place where he can give the media an impression of White House competency.

The LGBTQ, racially inclusive and woke checkbox hires are not up to the task of their positions.  Incompetence is running amok.  As a result, it is somewhat ironic and representative the Biden hypocrisy, that Kirby is needed to take the pressure away from administration checkbox hires.  In this interview Kirby defends the White House policy on the Russia-Ukraine war, interventionist and dependent foreign policy, and the energy policy that has resulted in high gas prices.

Video prompted to 04:05, where the topic of Biden’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia is discussed.  WATCH:

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The G7 plan to create another economic sanction against Russia by capping the price anyone could pay for Russian oil has a serious downside.  If Russia slows down the export of oil, global oil prices will jump dramatically.   That policy outcome would mean a massive increase in the price of gasoline for U.S. consumers.

Because the consequences are horrible, that’s precisely the reason Joe Biden might push to have the Russian price cap.  Every policy Joe Biden has historically supported, has been the exact opposite of what should have been done.  Biden has a profound and innate ability to screw up anything.

[Bloomberg] – Global oil prices could reach a “stratospheric” $380 a barrel if US and European penalties prompt Russia to inflict retaliatory crude-output cuts, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts warned.

The Group of Seven nations are hammering out a complicated mechanism to cap the price fetched by Russian oil in a bid to tighten the screws on Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine. But given Moscow’s robust fiscal position, the nation can afford to slash daily crude production by 5 million barrels without excessively damaging the economy, JPMorgan analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote in a note to clients.

For much of the rest of the world, however, the results could be disastrous. A 3 million-barrel cut to daily supplies would push benchmark London crude prices to $190, while the worst-case scenario of 5 million could mean “stratospheric” $380 crude, the analysts wrote.

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Much has been made of comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in his brief explanation of what the Fed got wrong.  Last week Powell made comments during a European Central Bank forum on bank policy, implying the absence of unvaccinated workers returning to the labor force is part of the US inflation problem.

Powell’s comments seem to align with the government vaccine mandate position which ignored the rights of the worker. Considering the responsibility of the Fed to anticipate price and labor issues, Powell’s sense of credulity toward those workers who dropped out of the labor force rather than inject an untested vaccine into their body is quite remarkable.  Inartful and arrogant are soft terms for his commentary.

However, there’s a bigger “tell” in the segment of what the Fed got wrong, when you listen to Powell talk about the supply side issues and how the Fed Reserve had no model to predict the mandated lockdowns, economic activity stoppages and consequences.   Notice how Powell completely dismisses the structural energy policy, the Build Back Better agenda, that lies at the heart of the current supply side inflation issue.  Video Prompted to 01:03:34, WATCH:

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Throughout the discussion the primary focus to control inflation is reliant on a demand side cause.   The goal to reduce demand is seen as a way to mitigate and reduce inflation.  Thus, this worldview, as mistaken as it was/is, explains the justification for why the Fed waited to increase interest rates.  They never saw the radical energy policy as a structural driver of supply side inflation.

According to Powell, they thought the supply side issues would moderate quickly, without giving any consideration at all to how a radically new energy policy would embed.  He just ignores the issue completely; again, pretending not to know.  But perhaps it’s actually worse.  Perhaps he really doesn’t see a radical new energy policy as a driving force behind current inflation.  If that’s true, and he genuinely does not see it, then Fed policy in the future is going to make the recession much worse.

If you ignore massive energy price impacts, the FED will keep interest rates high despite demand dropping, and then eventually get to a place where demand has dropped so low the recession is deep, while turning toward each other and asking why are prices still so high?

Keep that disconnect in mind.

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If you look beyond the condescending, sanctimonious and unintelligent questioning and pantomime from CBS News Margaret Brennan, there are some very interesting aspects outlined by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.  [Transcript Here] I was looking for how CBS would inject the pending global food shortage into the interview, and what narrative angle they would use.  The coordinated media political talking point, ‘Russia starving the world‘, comes up in the last third of the interview.

Germany is the largest and most heavily industrialized economy in the European Union (EU). As a result, Germany makes most of the decisions about how the EU operates. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel always played the role of supporting NATO; however, her approach to government was one of the most closed, controlling and nationalist hypocrisies within the European Union.  If it was in Germany’s interest it was done. If it was not directly beneficial to Germany, it was never done.

Merkel’s replacement, Olaf Scholz, is not that different from his predecessor in regard to the economics of nationalism, the predominant view for any German leader. However, Scholz is more of a collaborator, an outward looking Chancellor; seemingly more globally and communally minded than Merkel. Scholz is more accepting of Biden (USA) influence than Angela Merkel was.  Scholz is also spending more on German military than Merkel would ever consider.

In this interview, Scholz outlines the conflict in Ukraine while overlaying his perspective of Russian President Vladimir Putin as an outcome of their discussions.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Chancellor, thank you so much for making time in your busy schedule for us.

OLAF SCHOLZ: Good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So I read your biographer says you don’t often answer directly, but I’m going to try my best today. You speak with Vladimir Putin. Do you think that Russia is a terrorist state as president Zelenskyy says?

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This administration is a lesson in abject silliness.  Everyone knows that Joe Biden has no clue who or what is being done in the energy policy of his administration; heck, he could not even name his Interior Secretary.   That said, whoever controls his Twitter account is now just making him look even more stupid as Biden blames the gas stations.

[Tweet Source]

I would draw attention to the most overlooked quote from Joe Biden as it pertains to gas prices.  This statement was made May 23, 2022, and it proves he knows the gas price is directly related to his choice to implement the Green New Deal by executive policy:

…”Here’s the situation.  And when it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”…  [source]

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It is very curious timing in this article from Newsweek, containing massive geopolitical implications, using identified Saudi Arabia sources, would come in advance of Joe Biden’s visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Is this strategic geopolitical pressure from Saudi leader Mohamed Bin Salman (MbS) ahead of the meeting with Biden; or is this a genuine possibility that looms as likely?  If the former, then Joe Biden is being geopolitically slow roasted by Saudi Arabia for his previous disparagements and ideological hypocrisy in his visit.  If it is the latter, well, then the tectonic plates of international trade, banking and economics are about to shift directly under our American feet.

We have been closely monitoring the signs of a global cleaving around the energy sector taking place.  Essentially, western governments’ following the “Build Back Better” climate change agenda which stops using coal, oil and gas to power their economic engine, while the rest of the growing economic world continues using the more efficient and traditional forms of energy to power their economies.

This article from Newsweek is exactly about this dynamic with Saudi Arabia now potentially joining the BRICS team.

NEWSWEEK – Finland and Sweden’s green light to join NATO is set to bring about the U.S.-led Western military alliance’s largest expansion in decades. Meanwhile, the G7, consisting of NATO states and fellow U.S. ally Japan, has adopted a tougher line against Russia and China.

In the East, however, security and economy-focused blocs led by Beijing and Moscow are looking to take on new members of their own, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, two influential Middle Eastern rivals whose interest in shoring up cooperation on this new front could have a significant impact on global geopolitical balance.

The two bodies in question are the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS. The former was established in 2001 as a six-member political, economic and military coalition including China, Russia and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan before recruiting South Asian nemeses India and Pakistan in 2017, while the latter is a grouping of emerging economic powers originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) upon its inception 2006, and including South Africa in 2010.

Here is the money quote:

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It’s not a secret that billionaire Bill Gates wants to radically change the process and outcome of farming, agriculture and ultimately food humans consume, in order to follow his climate change ambitions.  Bill Gates has been advocating for the removal of cows, pigs and animal-based protein for multiple years.  This is not a revelation.

However, what is new, is the amount of farmland that Bill Gates is purchasing.  Why would an entrenched climate change ideologue who wants to change food production be purchasing over a quarter million acres of prime farmland?

North Dakota – Bill Gates has secured legal approval for the controversial purchase of thousands of acres of prime North Dakota farmland, after the deal drew fury from the state’s residents.

The state’s Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley had inquired into the land sale, and on Wednesday issued a letter saying the transaction complied with an archaic anti-corporate farming law. The Depression-era law prohibits corporations or limited liability companies from owning farmland or ranchland, but allows individual trusts to own the land if it is leased to farmers, which Gates intends to do.

Gates is the largest private owner of farmland in America after quietly amassing some 270,000 acres across dozens of states, according to last year’s edition of the Land Report 100, an annual survey of the nation’s largest landowners.

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Keep in mind as you review this article from the Wall Street Journal that every corporate (think Wall St) media outlet, has claimed for well over a year, that inflation was predominantly a demand side issue.  In essence, consumer demand was so strong that prices were rising because of it.

The demand side argument/justification for inflation was always false.  However, it was/is still the claim made by members of the Biden administration and almost every board member of the federal reserve.

All of them, almost universally, dismissed the supply side inflation argument which is the reality at the epicenter of inflation causation.

Inflation was/is an exclusive outcome of three supply side aspects which merged simultaneously: (1) the Joe Biden energy policy, (2) the Joe Biden promoted covid response via legislative spending, and (3) the promoted Biden administration monetary policy.

While the legislative spending did create artificial economic activity, all of these inflationary sources are supply side impacts.

The demand side claim for the origin of inflation was always a ruse, a con, a complete farce intended to backstop the claim that inflation would be “transitory” once consumer spending moderated.   From that perspective every approach from government toward controlling inflation was wrong.  Not wrong by accident, wrong as a matter of deceit and purposeful media manipulation in order to maintain the “Build Back Better” or “Green New Deal” agenda….. which, I might add, benefitted from the advanced Wall Street investment in both constructs, globally and domestically.

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