We often talk about the disconnect between Wall Street (globalists) and Main Street (nationalists), and their influence in economic policy.  Today, Jason Furman, a former Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, appears on CBS News to discuss his Harvard-Kennedy School impression of the U.S. economy.

There’s a particular point in the interview [Transcript Here] that encapsulates the moonbat perspective of the globalists.  Listen at 01:20 and you will hear this:

FURMAN:  “Look, we’ve seen a remarkable thing. Consumers, if you survey them, are very pessimistic and negative about the economy. When they vote with their wallets, we saw- we got the consumer spending data for April and it was way up. Consumer spending on just about everything has been booming. Over the next 6 to 12 months, I’m not super worried about a recession. After that is where I start to get worried because that’s where the Fed’s policy will start having more of an effect.”

Put another way: Our policies have made prices skyrocket (inflation). Consumers are forced to spend more money to sustain themselves (food, housing, fuel, energy); ergo consumer spending is booming. Brilliant, our plan to increase consumer spending by raising their prices is working.  That’s the way these people think. WATCH:

We force you to pay more, then turn around and claim economic victory because you are paying more…. “consumer spending is booming.”

By the way, he’s at the World Economic Forum where this perspective is actually cheered inside the echo-chamber.

(more…)

After allowing the various state premiers to brutalize the citizens in each of the states with catastrophic COVID restrictions, mandates and compliance regulations, the conservative Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, has lost his feeble attempt to win reelection.

Australia has replaced Morrison with Labour party candidate Anthony Albanese.  The COVID dictator is out, and the Climate-Change dictator is now installed.  Good luck Australia.

(Via MSM)  […] “We hand over this country as a government in a stronger position than when we inherited it when we came to government (in 2013),” Morrison told a gathering of Liberal supporters in Sydney late Saturday night.  He said it had been a “privilege to lead this great party and lead this great nation” but that he, as leader, would “take responsibility for the wins and the losses”.

“As a result I will be handing over the leadership at the next party room meeting, to ensure that the party can be taken forward under new leadership,” he said.

“It’s a night of disappointment … but it’s also a time for coalition members and supporters all across the country to hold their heads high. We have been a strong government. We have been a good government. Australia is stronger as a result of our efforts over these last three terms.”  (read more)

(more…)

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan gives a list of actions taken by the Biden administration in the past three weeks to block U.S. oil production.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated during the hearing that the Biden administration was doing everything possible to increase oil production and supply in the United States.  Senator Sullivan quotes the actions of the Biden administration in the last three weeks which are exactly the opposite of the energy secretary claims.  WATCH (3 minutes):

This is, yet again, another example of the false pretense of the Biden administration {GO DEEP}.  The Interior Department is filled with radical climate change ideologues, and they are working earnestly to undermine U.S. energy policy.

The hypocrisies pointed out by Senator Sullivan are not hypocrisies, they are fraud.   The activist ideologues embedded within the bureaucracy of government are like terror cells activating to destroy the foundation of the country.   President Obama implanted them at all levels of the executive branch offices. They are self-aware and operating independently.  The example of the Interior Department, in charge of oil and gas development, is the easiest to see.

(more…)

~ The Great Pretense of Biden ~

CTH has been preparing to write about this for a week. Today a serendipitous event took place which highlights the dynamic within the current Biden administration.

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing today, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a woman specifically appointed for her progressive identity as a native American indian – with no skills to be interior secretary, was questioned by Senator Joe Manchin about a press release [LINK] from the interior department that took place in real time as Secretary Haaland was giving testimony.  Secretary Haaland had no idea what the press release was about. WATCH:

[The Press Release is Here]

The issue surrounds the U.S. Interior Department, which is filled to the brim with left-wing climate activists, pushing out a press release saying that any further oil and gas leases are not going to happen.  Secretary Haaland was telling congress the Interior Department was doing everything they can to allow oil and gas leases and expand drilling with additional permitting.

The press release from the dept says the proposal the Secretary was stating “is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” literally undercutting her testimony in real time, and reaffirming that no further oil drilling will be authorized.   Secretary Haaland was caught completely off-guard, stammered and admitted she had no idea what the bureaucrats in the dept were doing.

What this example reveals is something we have noticed and discussed but has become very clear in the past few weeks.

(more…)

Make identity politics the primary qualifier for cabinet positions, and this is what you get.  WATCH (54 seconds):

For those who don’t know, the interior department is in control of domestic oil and gas resource development.

(more…)

Zero Hedge published a good article yesterday with some solid internal data showing a strong likelihood that national gasoline prices are likely to rise another 40% from current levels by mid-late summer.  That would put the national average for a gallon of gasoline around $6.20 by August.

The data behind the prediction is solid and essentially boils down to the U.S. refineries not having the expanded capacity needed to keep up with an increased summer demand, particularly as they need to keep generating high volumes of diesel fuel due to current critical shortages.

The issues are created by the Biden administration and the regulatory stranglehold they put on the oil and gas industry last year.  Obviously, all of this is a feature of the administration plan, not a flaw.  The Green New Deal agenda necessarily requires that gasoline rise in price to $7/gal this year in order to force the change in profit dynamic for alternative fueled transportation.

Unfortunately, we the consumers will be the ones punished as the progressive, communist and far-left policy makers chase their climate change agenda.  Cheap and cost-effective energy has to be made ‘not cheap’ and ‘not cost-effective’ in order to create the energy crisis their agenda requires.

Massive increases in gasoline prices are a feature, not a flaw.

Remember, Biden is disposable.  The people behind Biden purposefully selected him in order to generate a kamikaze ‘fundamental change’ mission within a single 4-year presidential term.  Getting crushed on the political outcomes is irrelevant, they just need to push the agenda fast enough, far enough, and destructive enough, so that all energy policies become irreversible.

(more…)

BASELINE – Boil all international and geopolitical issues down to their common denominator and everything, E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G., every issue, every discussion, every policy, every position, everything -all of it- circles around economics. Everything is secondary to the underlying economics of every single issue. Power or weakness, famine or war, peace or conflict, master or servant, culture or crisis, growth or collapse, the entirety of everything -including the foundation of freedom- centers around the economics.  There are trillions at stake.

In this interview Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö made some very interesting remarks when asked about his decision to reverse the long-established geopolitical position of Finland and join the “western alliance,” vis-a-vis NATO.

Listen carefully [01:44] when President Niinistö explains why.  Niinistö explains he did not, and does not, consider Russia a threat; however, “what we see now, Europe, the world, is more divided. There’s not very much room for ‘non-aligned,’ in-between. So that was also what we are thinking.”  WATCH:

In March of this year CTH noted, “this intentional global cleaving, using the opportunity created by the Ukraine crisis, is going to be the major story of this year.  This global splitting can be looked at in multiple ways, but the overarching story is the ramifications of two global trade relationships.”

Two world groupings.  One group, oil-based energy (traditional, grey on map below), and one group GREEN energy (the build back better plan, yellow on map).  It is not accidental these two groups hold similar internal geopolitical views and perspectives, hence, their alignment or lack thereof with the sanctions against Russia.

(more…)

In April India said it was hoping to expand its wheat exports from 7 million tons to 10 million.  However, as precarious winter wheat harvests reflect lower outputs, they are reversing position and will now block any wheat exports in order to ensure their own supply.

INDIA – […] The announcement drew sharp criticism from the Group of Seven industrialized nations’ agriculture ministers meeting in Germany, who said that such measures “would worsen the crisis” of rising commodity prices.

“If everyone starts to impose export restrictions or to close markets, that would worsen the crisis,” German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said at a press conference in Stuttgart.

Global wheat prices have soared on supply fears following Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, which previously accounted for 12% of global exports.

(more…)

It has often been said that if you chase the global climate change ideology to its natural conclusion, we end up in communal groups sitting around a tepid campfire eating some form of sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other…  Prior to Joe Biden that prediction might have seemed like hyperbole. Now, not so much.

Indeed, the Green New Deal energy policy of Joe Biden creates massive downstream consequences.  Unfortunately, the White House doesn’t seem to care. The high prices and scarcity of critical goods are a feature, not a flaw, as they chase their climate friendly Build Back Better agenda.

Following the continuum of intended consequence, now we have diesel fuel shortages beginning to hit the U.S. economy; and with scarcity comes higher prices of an almost astronomical scale. “The national average price of diesel is now $5.54 per gallon, which is an increase of 22 cents from last week, which was when the most recent record was set. Data shows there’s no state that’s currently seeing diesel prices below $5.12 per gallon.” (LINK)

Making matters even worse is a drop in available inventory of diesel fuel which is about to become a crisis for the east coast of the U.S.  Some Truck Stop operators like Love’s and Pilot are already warning their big rig customers they may not have fuel for truckers.

[…] “Love’s is monitoring the fluid situation on the East Coast, we have experienced minimal outages during low traffic hours,” Oklahoma-based Love’s Travel Stops said in an emailed statement. “The company has no plans to restrict purchases of diesel.”

[…] Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration said total inventories of distillates, which is mainly diesel fuel but also heating oil, fell last week to a 17-year low of 104 million barrels, which is 23% below normal.

(more…)

As CTH has noted since last October the rapid increases in fertilizer costs could potentially create a major issue for global food supplies later this summer.  As the farming costs continue escalating, including fertilizer and diesel fuel prices, this will eventually lead to major price increases on the harvests.   Field to fork inflation is looking increasingly severe later this year; what we have called the third wave of inflation.

Beyond prices, a primary impact in the U.S. market, concerns are now escalating about grain shortages {SEE HERE} and lower European crop yields which will lead to less food products on a global basis.   According to information shared by ZeroHedge, “We think it will take at least 2-3 years to replenish global grains stocks,” Illinois-based CF Industries Holdings Inc.’s president and chief executive officer Tony Will said in a statement in Wednesday’s earnings report.”

Axios is reporting on the continued escalation of fertilizer prices; however, they conveniently and purposefully avoid noting the origin of the problem in North America is directly the result of Joe Biden’s immediate energy policies that drove up the costs of natural gas (a critical component):

AXIOS – “Skyrocketing fertilizer costs — like those made from nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) — are driving up food prices and, worse, threatening food security around the globe.

State of play: Prices for NPK were up 125% in January from a year before, and rose another 17% from the beginning of the year to March, according to data compiled by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

(more…)