You know it's easy to recite the Mearsheimer argument, which others have made as well, that the West was at least reckless in causing these conditions. I think he overstates the case, but they're certainly some appropriate criticism of hubristic overreach after the fall of the Soviet Union. I've been aware of this issue for years and it was one of the first reasons that I recognized that our last president was basically spouting Russian talking points. I realized that in April 2016 long before the rest came out. But enough of that, I think what people often overlook here is the role of the Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans that have much closer social ties, Slavic solidarity, Orthodox solidarity, and all that, yet still much prefer to be part of the West, even if there's resentments and an awkward connection. For all our flaws, and we have many, past and present, basic Western values are still most attractive to the world, the thirst for freedom. Those almost always overcome ethnic ties. We see the same thing with Taiwan and Hong Kong, both of whom are far closer to China culturally, to make the obvious point,even though Hong Kong was Cantonese and not Han. But they still don't want to integrate into China. We need to remember that the multiethnic democracies that constitute the West with our values of economic and political freedom are still what peoples of the world prefer, over pure ethnic ties, notwithstanding that we have a significant movement in our own country epitomized by our last president of blood and soil nationalism, a shortsighted and ultimately losing proposition, that would make us weaker beyond it's moral deficiencies.
In fairness, without that deal there would have been a lot more domestic producers that would have went bankrupt.
you need to realize that the refineries are banking profit here too. This is somewhat analagous to the price of beef going so high when the cattle ranchers aren't making any more money but the four slaughterhouse companies that control the market are working together to drive up the price. Very few oil producers are in the refining business
Just got this in my weekly email: Increasing U.S. Diesel Fuel US Carriers set their fuel surcharges based on the average price per gallon posted by the US Department of Energy, which is updated weekly. The price per gallon at the pump rose 18.15% from 2/28/22 to 3/7/22. This is causing US Carriers to drastically increase their fuel surcharges to us, and therefore we pass this cost along to you. Due to the current environment, we are anticipating the diesel prices to continue to increase and carrier’s fuel surcharges to do the same. Due to drastic inflationary costs of fuel, carriers who normally update their fuel surcharge weekly could very well begin to do so daily. Please consider these almost certain increases in your analysis of costs. My companies are now adding a fuel surcharge to all our invoices - we're going to start at 7% and see how it goes. May have to go up to 10% at month's end but we'll use the 2 weeks till then to evaluate. UPS had rate increases both on Friday and this morning. Sorry Psaki - We have to pass on the increase in costs to the consumer!
Biden got up early this morning and really got some policy work going. Another drop in prices! Go Biden!!!! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/15/oil-drops-again-now-more-than-25percent-below-recent-high.html Oil registered heavy losses Tuesday, building on Monday’s decline, as myriad factors weighed on sentiment, including talks between Russia and Ukraine, a potential slowdown in Chinese demand and unwinding of trades ahead of the Federal Reserve’s expected rate hike on Wednesday. Both West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, and global benchmark Brent crude were below $100 a barrel during Tuesday morning trading on Wall Street, a far cry from the more than $130 a barrel just over a week ago. WTI dropped 7.6% to trade at $95.26 per barrel, after declining 5.78% on Monday. Brent traded 6.9% lower at $99.54 a barrel, accelerating Monday’s 5.12% decline. “Growth concerns from the Ukraine-Russia stagflation wave, and FOMC hike this week, and hopes that progress will be made in Ukraine-Russia negotiations” are weighing on prices, said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at Oanda. “It seems like the old adage that the best cure for high prices, is high prices, is as strong as ever,” he added, noting that he believes the top is in for oil prices.
Probably already been mentioned, anyone ever notice that when the price of crude increases it's reflected at the pump almost immediately even though the product sold at the pump was refined when crude was considerably less costly while a drop in the price of crude won't be reflected at the pump for weeks.
Gas prices at the pump rise like a rocket, but fall like a feather. Been that way forever. Here's a good explanation from back in 2005 about the pattern, and why gas prices go up much faster than they come down.
The rationale has always been that the reason that prices rise rapidly at the pump is that gas is priced to reflect its replacement cost rather than what the retailer/distributor paid to the refiner for the product being sold. Logically it would seem that the reverse should also apply. Not so.
oil at 94.15 now. like above post gas prices always it seems rise 4 or 5 times faster than they fall. i have been critical of people complaining about companies making profits, mostly bernie, but i will be interested in how long it takes to drop prices.how long does it take to process crude oil into gas? i am going to assume that the oil the companies have on hand at the higher prices will go out as gas at prices to meet what was paid, question is how much of that is on hand?
What kind of a price beak did you give to customers when gas was $2 during the pandemic? Did you subtract a 7% surcredit (opposite of surcharge I guess). Hmmmmm.
Put up a better candidate or even simply a better human being and maybe we wouldn’t have Biden. Not that it matters since he’s not the reason for fuel prices.
Safe to assume you don't deal with the Transportation industry. None of the national carriers have price drops when they do their weekly - twice weekly updates - they just keep the prices where they are and just keep going up. In 40 years of business, I can't remember a single fuel surcharge decrease. Can't pass on what I don't get.