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Apr 3, 2024 15:22:00   #
jack sequim wa wrote:
America's oil production being high does not help, majority of our oil produced, America's Refineries cannot Refine, only the lessor oil "Sweet Crude".

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said. Most of America's refineries (or to be more exact, the private-sector refineries built on American spoil but often with foreign owners) can't process what comes out of American land. I think you have it backwards though... most of these refineries are designed to process heavy crude, which we import while most of what comes out of the land is light sweet crude which we export.

The reason for this is that oil companies were investing more in refineries during a period of time when we could no longer pull higher-grade oil from the ground and we were left with low-grade crap... Heavy and sour crude, desperately pulling it from sand tar and other last-resort sources. Then came fracking and that allowed companies to extract light crude again, but it made better business sense to just export the light crude to countries that already have the facilities to process it. Most of what we are importing is the heavy crude which we can still proces.

jack sequim wa wrote:

EPA has hogtied America's Refineries with such stringent regulations of retooling and/or building Refineries to handle the "heavy crude", which is why America must sell "Heavy Crude" to other countries, then buy back the refined oil/gas.

I don't buy that for a second. Yes, the EPA regulates the industry as well they should, especially when processing heavy crude which is a super dirty job. But the reason why companies don't build refineries to handle light crude has more to do with the fact that they can make a bigger profit by exporting it.

Chances are if you find a profit-motive you've found the smoking gun... if your blaming regulations all you really found is an excuse not to blame the business.

jack sequim wa wrote:

This brings us back to shipping and supply chain issues, projected to become much much worse....ie; $140-$160 per barrel, from the approaching today price $90 per barrel.

Yes, that can become a problem but again the blame goes to the industry not Biden or the EPA. It takes many, many years to build a refinery, many more years than Biden has been in office. So, put two and two together.
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Apr 3, 2024 14:45:25   #
AmericanEagle wrote:
What a joke😂 the world is on fire and who is responsible..... feckless vegetable Joe.

Please explain how the world is on fire and how Biden is responsible. My bet is that you won't because you can't. If you're a typical MAGAturd, you're statement is just a wild stab.

AmericanEagle wrote:

Who has told the most lies..... feckless vegetable Joe.

What has Biden lied about? Do you know or is this just another baseless accusation?

AmericanEagle wrote:

Republicans American flag but they support and respect it...... your side does not.

Another baseless generalization.

AmericanEagle wrote:

Your side is the threat to democracy allowing an open border with criminals, drugs and human trafficking floating into the United States.

Even if that were true, how would that be a threat to democracy? Do you even know what democracy is?

AmericanEagle wrote:

Your side is a threat to democracy because it won't let the American people make the decision on the president

The American people DID make the decision on the president! In 2020 the majority of Americans voted to fire the clown. Not my problem if you can't accept the facts.

AmericanEagle wrote:

and just not weapon the government against the former president or the people.....

Ugh, these canned statements get so stale. Do you not have the intelligence to at least come up with something a little more... intelligent? Look, no one is weaponizing the government against the failed president. Most of you turds don't even know that he is being prosecuted by a lot of different parties none of which are part of the federal government and some of them aren't even in ANY government.

AmericanEagle wrote:

vegetable is feckless and a weakling and has to cheat to try to win.
v

He DID win.

AmericanEagle wrote:

Donald Trump respected the White House and the traditions of America.
Feckless vegetable Joe turns it into a queer show on the most sacred day of the year during Easter. Christian's are under attack by your side, not Republicans.

Transgender Day of Visibility has been on 3/31 for the last five years. It's not our fault that Christians can never make up their mind what day Easter is going to be on and decided this year it will be on 3/31. If they don't want to share a day with the rest of the human race maybe they should pick another day. And BTW, criticizing self-described Christians for their attacks on others, does not constitute an attack on Christianity.

AmericanEagle wrote:

I could go on and on but you are intellectually dishonest and your side is unhinged and needs to get the hell out of the country!!!

Yeah, I'm sure you could go on reciting all the lies and baseless opinions without showing any evidence or the slightest demonstration of logic. But you have already demonstrated your bigotry and stupidity quite clearly, no need to go on.
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Apr 3, 2024 13:57:50   #
NotMAGA wrote:
The Bible
Christianity
The American flag
The truth
Empathy
The US Treasury

Things they DO own -

The worst US president in history.

Lies

Some of the most disgusting memes ever used in politics.


LOL - You KNOW that the MAGA folks are just going to throw it back at you. Wide sweeping generalizations like this is their language. But for what it's worth, I agree with these points in particular...

1. The worst US president in history: Clearly!
Trump NEVER actually won the popular vote, the American people fired him after only one term. He lied about the election being stolen. He is the ONLY president to have ever been impeached in a single term (and it happened twice!). He's the ONLY president to be prosecuted in a court of law for criminal activity and he is the first and only president to ever surrender to an enemy.

These are simple facts. Now a MAGAmuffin will no doubt find excuses for all these facts but they will all be theoretical and the point I want to make here is that the massive pile of conspiracy theories required to excuse ALL these facts goes beyond the rational.

2. Lies: Indeed!
We all know how common it is for politicians to stretch the truth a little. But nothing comes close to the magnitude of deceit required to deny the elections the way the MAGA movement does.

Most MAGA folks are exceedingly stupid about politics. I've always hesitated to say that but it's come to the point where it's just so obvious that overlooking it is starting to become a lie itself.
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Apr 3, 2024 12:55:29   #
JFlorio wrote:
Looks like the greenies backed by the Biden weenies might just get their wish of unaffordable oil products down the road. Be careful what you wish for.

It's not a wish, it's a prediction and it looks like those "greenies" are right. There are several reasons for the current increase in oil prices, including...

1. Instability in the Middle-East.
2. A projected shortfall of oil from Mexico.
3. Continued commitment by OPEC nations to cut production.
4. Projected escalation of demand from China.

None of these factors have anything to do with the US and yet we still pay the price. In fact, we are producing more oil today than we have EVER produced in our entire history. The whole time Biden has been in office our production has been at full-throttle... and yet this is still happening.

What the "greenies" seem to understand that their opponents don't is that the influence of domestic oil production on the global market is limited.

I know Dumbass Donny keeps saying that HE made us "energy independent" during his term but that's actually BS... For ONE quarter, we actually did export more oil than we imported. But that did NOT make us energy independent because we were STILL importing oil!

One might ask… Why were we still importing oil when we had so much oil to export? The simple answer is that almost all of our refineries are designed for heavy crude and most of what we extract today is light sweet crude. So we export light crude to countries that can refine it and we import heavy crude for our own refineries to process. This arrangement makes good business sense for Big Oil but also guarantees our dependency on foreign oil, no matter how much we actually drill.

Something else to consider when evaluating the magical minute when our exports exceeded our imports... The fact that while the rate of increased production remained consistent, it was the rate of demand that varied. Interestingly, Obama's push for conservation coincides with the decline in demand, that eventually dipped below our level of exports while Trump's reversal of such policies coincides with our return to increased demands, which once again pushed our imports back to above the level of our exports.

In any case, none of this makes any difference to the fact that we have been depending on foreign oil since 1974 and no, we can NOT just DRILL our way to energy independence. Either we have to wait for Big Oil to change their business model or we need to INNOVATE our way to energy-independence by finding alternative sources.

JFlorio wrote:

On a side note one group gives Biden a positive approval rating. 82% approval. People earning over $400,000/yr or more. Ah the working man’s president indeed.

It's more typical now for income to be reported per household, rather than per individual. A $400,000 income is described by analysts as "comfortable" for an upper-middle class family of four living in a city. My guess is that these families have members that are educated and smart enough to know that Biden is actually doing a good job.
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Apr 3, 2024 10:01:20   #
By now it should be obvious to anyone that that the Israeli government is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. In fact it's become so obvious that even the Israeli people are starting to protest in growing numbers.

Just to clarify what I mean before some "clever" twit challenges the definition of "genocide"... I don't define genocide by the number of people killed. So, it doesn't matter that 6 million Jews were killed under the Nazi regime and so far only 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, because unlike all the European countries under Nazi control, Gaza only HAS a population of 2 million people. Also keep in mind it took Germany about seven years to kill all those Jews... The current war on the Palestinian people hasn't even reached seven months yet.

What's more telling are the methods... For instance, the way in which the Israeli military continues to attack civilians while using a range of excuses to marginalize their liability. Another example is the way in which they are obstructing the flow of desperately needed aid being sent to Gaza from countries all around the world, which now includes the attacks on convoys and aid workers.

It's the methods that validate the notion that the Israeli government fully INTENDS to kill as many Palestinians as possible either by direct attacks or by allowing them to suffer from hunger and disease encouraged by the conditions that result from such attacks.

So yes, what Israel is doing in Gaza is very much a genocide... NOT cool. Not even justified by 10/7... As much as some of you want to bill 10/7 as the worst thing to ever happen to humans, it doesn't even come close to the atrocity of genocide that Israel is undertaking. The reaction is so disproportionate it's hard to even qualify the genocide as a response and is now looking much more like an excuse.

I have always sided with the Orthodox Jews in their stance against the Zionist State of Israel and now that many more Israelis are protesting, I am gaining hope that human decency in Israel hasn't died entirely. If the Israeli people can democratically kick Netanyahu and his Likud government out they can end this much better than we can.
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Mar 30, 2024 15:27:27   #
microphor wrote:
Well for all you buttf***ing, demofagets out there in Biden land, they're drilling new holes in peewee's old stalls just for you!

lol - wow.
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Mar 30, 2024 12:29:09   #
JFlorio wrote:
Trump says stupid sh** all the time. Why I don't care for him.

Well, at least you can see THAT.

JFlorio wrote:

He did try to build a wall and he meant (so he says) the wall would be built by money saved not having to take care of illegals.

First of all, that's not what he said on his campaign trail. His helpers didn't come up with THAT line until after he was being questioned for his failure. He thought he was going to make it happen through trade negotiations because he fancied himself an expert in the "Art of the Deal". Turns out, he can't even negotiate a real-estate deal without lying, much less a deal with sovereign leaders.

Secondly, those "savings" would never be realized anyway because our government doesn't spend ANYTHING on taking care of "illegals". The ONLY free service they get according to our laws and budgets is emergency room services as per Reagans' policy. I know you folks think they're getting free houses and free food and season box tickets for sports events but those are all lies designed to rattle up the poorly educated and the haters.

We DO see American charities and city governments providing them with assistance now that our immigration system is being overrun by a massive influx of immigrants, but that wasn't the case in 2016 because Trump's policies hadn't yet created that influx.

I would mention Title-42 (or as the MAGAfags prefer to call it, the "Stay-in-Mexico" policy) because it did create a huge backlog of immigrants at the border. But I can't blame Trump for that one. Title-42 was a temporary policy that was only meant to close the border during the pandemic, which is a fairly common thing for governments to do in such conditions. It would have happened no matter who the president was. Trump just decided to turn it into another PR stunt, by trying to convince everyone that it was his idea for keeping the "rapists and murderers" out.

But I will mention Trump's sanctions on Venezuela... A country that made itself too dependent on oil exports to support their economy so when new extraction technologies led to record breaking production during Obama's terms, the price of oil dropped and Venezuela was screwed. Then Trump came along and made it even worse by slamming the country with sanctions because he knew that would score him some brownie points with conservatives. The problem there is that a sanction never hurts the government of targeted countries as much as it does the people that live there. Trump's careless actions have helped to create a massive exodus of Venezuelans to our border and that's what we're dealing with now. We didn't have that problem in 2016.

JFlorio wrote:

The President can't repeal and replace Obamacare. That's congress's purview. Another reason I don't like him. He's so disliked he gets much done through E.O's. Which, we see can be easily reversed by the next buffoon.

That's because executive orders aren't actually laws. They are simply policies applied to the president's own administration just like a CEO might apply rules to the employees of his own company.

In any case, while I agree with you about the technicality, it still didn't stop Trump from making that promise on his 2016 campaign. It goes without saying that any promise a president makes about policies that affect everyone is going to necessitate cooperation with Congress. That's how Obama made the ACA happen in the first place.

JFlorio wrote:

Again infrastructure spending is a purview of Congress. What has Biden built?

I'm glad you asked... I don't want to make this too long so I'll just mention my favorite... the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In 2020 Biden promised to work across the aisle to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill. One year later he was in office doing just that and today new infrastructure projects are being funded across America, creating new jobs and upgrading our infrastructure.

JFlorio wrote:

Oh yea; a haven for illegals, border walls in Egypt and a bunch of promises.
I could. Such as remain in Mexico,

Again, "Remain in Mexico" is just a new name Trump slapped on Title-42 in an effort to make people think it was his idea for solving the immigration problem, when it never was.

JFlorio wrote:

or inflation around 2% and the dollar actually rising in value,

It still amazes me how people can say such absurd things. Inflation actually causes the dollar to lose value and here you are blaming Biden for inflation AND a rise in the value of the dollar.

JFlorio wrote:

but you've been on here long enough for me to realize you are nothing more than a sanctimonious a**hole and a complete waste of time.

Yes, I've been exposing your faulty arguments for a while now. I'm sure that's enough time for you to develop a bad attitude.

JFlorio wrote:

Now go ahead and answer with your cute little boxes, twisted facts and attitude. You might find this interesting.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/18/trump-presidency-administration-biggest-impact-policy-analysis-451479

So, I asked you to mention just one policy to back up your assertion that Trump's policies are so great for the average American and all you can do is link to an article that you hope proves something? What's the matter? You can't name one policy?
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Mar 30, 2024 10:05:12   #
microphor wrote:
Oh no, how are those poor church cathedrals going to pay the guilds for ornating their bishop seats or buy their stained glass windows and guilded statues if Trump is selling bibles!!!

WTF are you even talking about? This is your reply? Some wild tangent about how someone selling bibles is going to bankrupt the Church? That doesn't even make sense. Come back when your sober.

microphor wrote:

Poor things, and what about all those publishing houses and printers, how dare the not do it for free.

I never said they had to. I'm just pointing out how ridiculous it is to suggest Trump is "putting Bibles in people's hands" when the average cost of a Bible is less than $20 and many faith-based organizations DO put them in the hands of those who can't even afford that.

My advise to you is to pick your battles when trying to defend Trump's clown acts because sometimes, there's just no defense. It's a free country so Trump can publish his own versions of the Bible if he wants to, I'm not going to stand in the way. But to characterize this act as ANYTHING but exploiting God's Word for profit and self-promotion is just plain stupid.
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Mar 30, 2024 09:33:20   #
JFlorio wrote:
Looks are deceiving. You really are dumb. Too stupid and wrapped up in the Biden cult to see what’s happening to this country. IMO Trumps flawed but his policies are much better for the average American than mush brain corrupt Joe and his administration of pervs.


I hear this all the time... It's a standard line for the MAGAfags that can't actually explain why they support the clown. But it always makes me laugh. Trump's "policies" were all PR stunts. He says things just to get cheers from his crowd of inbred retards but NEVER follows through.

He SAID he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Did that happen? No.
He SAID he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Did that happen? No.
He SAID he was going to rebuild our infrastructure. Did that happen? Nope, not until Biden said the same thing and actually made it happen.

I'm sure there are more standard lines that any retard can toss out to blame the Democrats for his failures but but the bottom line is pretty simple... either he did or he didn't. I'm not interested in hearing the excuses of losers. Biden said he was going to pass an infrastructure bill and he did. Boom.

Seriously, I can fill the next few pages with these massive Trump failures but I'll spare the readers and ask you a simple question. Can you present one, just one actual policy, that Trump actually worked on that you can prove has helped the average American, or even explain, in rational terms, how it could help the average American? 'Cause I don't see ANY.
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Mar 30, 2024 08:58:59   #
keepuphope wrote:
Do you think Jesus minds that Trump is getting bibles into the hands of people?

I think Jesus minds that Trump is trying to profit from it.

The Church has been putting Bibles in the hands of people for a very long time, often for free because like Jesus, they don't want poverty to get in the way of salvation.

Trump is trying to sell each Bible for $60 and that money isn't going to the poor or the needy, it's going to his own pocket so he can pay lawyers to find ways to help him get away with the crimes he's committed.
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Mar 28, 2024 14:05:44   #
XXX wrote:
Wrong it's the term used to describe the economy named after the president.

That would be "Bidenomics".
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Mar 28, 2024 14:04:21   #
son of witless wrote:
" Yeah, it's funny how you seem to think it was OK when Trump did it but when Biden did it, all of a sudden its an oversteer. "

I wondered for a long time when you would take a swing at my hanging curve ball.

LOL - is that what that is?

son of witless wrote:

Of course my answer is that it depends. The economic conditions under President Donald J. Trump were totally different than under President Joe Biden. Trump was dealing with a severe collapse of consumer demand. People not going to work because of the covid shutdowns and not having a paycheck coming in are not going on vacation and freely spending money.

Well, it's true that the pandemic had a severe impact on the economy but that didn't happen until Trump's last year in office and we were still dealing with the effects of the pandemic when Biden took office.

I never judge a president by the economy in his first year in office anyway because of the delay between taking office and actually setting policy THEN the latency between establishing policy and the effects of those policies on the economy. But the pandemic effect, including inevitable recovery resulting from a normalization of commerce really dominated the situation and IMO invalidates any attempt to relate economic status with policy.

son of witless wrote:

By the time President Biden came into office those workers who wanted to go back to work were going back to work. Yes you can always find people who were not able to return to work, but most who wanted to go back were going back. Consumer demand was coming back fast. A lot faster than gasoline, food, and services were returning to normal. So what happens when consumer spending comes back faster than available goods and services are available ?

I think you mean consumer demand. Consumer spending can't actually exceed the availability of goods and services because consumers don't pay for goods and services that don't exist. But yes, the demand CAN exceed the supply and that DOES typically lead to inflation, which I'm sure is the answer you're looking for.

But if you go deeper, there's more to see. Evidence indicates that there was no shortage of supply. There was plenty of gasoline, plenty of food and services were almost immediately restored. The problem that Biden-bashers ALWAYS miss is distribution factor... specifically, the bandwidth in which goods flow from supplier to consumer. That was a bottleneck because our embarrassingly antiquated infrastructure couldn't handle the backlogs. It's the same basic problem we are seeing at the border where a backlog of migrants building up during Title 42 which was enacted BECAUSE of the pandemic, suddenly swamped the border when Title 42 was pulled which is now overwhelming the immigration system that Biden inherited.

To his credit, Biden DID champion a bi-partisan bill to invest in upgrading our infrastructure. He also agreed to sign a bi-partisan bill to invest in our immigration system, but apparently Trump told his puppets in the GOP to vote against it which can only be attributed to a desire on his part to preserve the crisis for the election season.

son of witless wrote:

Consumers begin bidding up the prices of goods and services. Providers of goods and services can easily raise prices because of the shortages.

Of course, and this is exactly what happened. Whether it's the supply or the distribution, the impact to the consumer is a lack of availability, so the price gouging starts and consumers accept the results. Now we have inflation.

son of witless wrote:

Then because of Biden's extending of no eviction and giving more free money to everyone, those who do not want to work can stay on vacation. This makes labor scarce and now businesses bid up the price of workers, further fueling the inflation spiral that Biden unleashed.

So, again you're confirming that inflation has already started while at the same time shifting the blame to policies that were enacted afterwards. You DO realize that inflation actually started when Trump was still in office, right?

I can accept the possibility that Biden may have made the situation worse, but to blame him for the entire thing just reeks of politics. Like I mentioned before, ALL the "free" money (and you KNOW it's not actually free, right?) including the stimulus checks that Trump signed... amounts to less than 4% of the economy.

National economies are like massive ships... You can't turn them on a dime. And there are so many factors involved that it's almost impossible to isolate the effect of any specific government policy. The standard practice in political BS is to leverage coincidence. Point to a new policy you don't like then find a statistic like the GDP which by coincidence dropped and you think you got a case, even though there are billions of dollars worth of other factors being ignored.

Also, I still think you're struggling with the concept of economic scale. A 4% increase in money supply can make a huge difference to individuals that the government was trying to help, but it's mere drop in the ocean of the largest economy on Earth.

And I'm not sure what your problem is with the no eviction policy. It saved a lot of hard working people and their families from being kicked to the streets. You seem to have a very low opinion of the average American by suggesting that those who are lazy and stupid enough to use that as an excuse not to work is so abundant that it would affect the labor market. Maybe you're just spending too much time with Republicans ;)

I would venture to say a far bigger impact on the labor market is the generational impact of an aging population, a disillusionment with public education and a fear of immigrants. Compared to these factors a few months of keeping tenants in their homes seems practically inert.

son of witless wrote:

In the meantime the " experts " in the Biden Administration predict that inflation will be transitory. It will be 2 years before Joe's " experts " realize that they are mistaken.

Well, in economic terms inflation is ALWAYS transitory because the markets are self-adjusting. It's what Adam Smith called the Invisible Hand.

But if you are referring to the long term decline of the middle-class where wages have been stagnant for decade while prices continue to rise, then yes we COULD call that inflation but I prefer to call it a middle-class decline because it's not so much a matter of how much money there is, but how much of it is slipping out of reach from the middle class.

Wealth distribution (and no, I am not Marxist... I'm using that term because it's appropriate) has become is super concentrated in the top 1%. As they used to say back when we had the freedom to talk about the truth without being called a communist, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

This is where unregulated capitalism has taken us. (Yes, I align with Keynes' in saying that capitalism is wonderful as long as it's regulated). If there is ONE dataset that overrules all others when describing our nations condition, wealth distribution would be it.

So buckle up because unless we start listening to people like Bernie Sanders on the left or even Ron Paul on the right, it's going to get worse. And if we continue on the road we seem to be on now where concerns for the economy are being drowned out by culture wars and tribalism, it's going to be a fascist nightmare.

Ah, sorry man... another long post. This time I can't blame you for it. ;)
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Mar 28, 2024 11:14:03   #
XXX wrote:
Bidenflation is hard on people.

"Bidenflation": noun: a frustration with the economy expressed by those who have no clue and are just parroting what they hear or in some cases just want to blame President Biden for everything.
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Mar 27, 2024 16:55:19   #
son of witless wrote:
OMG

Could you please have made it a little longer ? Just kidding. You have overwhelmed me. I prefer only discussing at most 3 items at a time.

Most of what I posted was a response to an assertion you made. I see you decided to pare down to just one question and one assertion...

son of witless wrote:

You always seem to catch me at the worst of times. At present I am battling with my cell phone provider for partially locking me out of my account. But I digress.

" I literally said there WAS a need for it and you said that was your main point... Now you're saying there WASN'T a need for it... Are you confused or am I? "

Why did you say there was a need for it ? Because President Biden said so ?
br You always seem to catch me at the worst of ti... (show quote)

I think you know me better than that. But to be direct, no... I don't actually take ANY president's word as gospel.

There are several reasons why I suspect there was a need. The most obvious one to me is that the average amount received by each individual after TWO rounds of stimulus checks signed by Trump was only $1800. That's actually the average figure for an individuals housing costs for one month. The average monthly expense for an individual living in the U.S. is $3405. So given this reality - that $1800 really doesn't amount to much, especially when so many Americans lost their incomes during the pandemic, which wasn't limited to one month.

son of witless wrote:

All a stimulus Bill does is create money out of thin air and pump it into the economy.

I guess you missed the point I made about individual credit card debt soaring to a record-breaking $1.3 trillion following the pandemic. Credit card debt also creates money out of thin air and pumps it into the economy. Like I said it's the same game, different bank. If anything, the stimulus checks may have cut down on the individual's need to use credit cards thereby shifting the liability from personal debt to the national debt. But like I also said it really doesn't matter in the end HOW that money was created, only that it was. It's all going into the same economy.

The fact that people were using credit cards to create record breaking debt is a strong indication that the stimulus checks were NOT excessive and it's very likely that without the stimulus checks, Americans would have used their credit cards to pump the same amount of money into the economy anyway.

son of witless wrote:

There was already too much money in the economy from the Trump stimulus from the covid lock downs.
The last thing needed was more liquidity pumped into an over cashed economy as President Biden took office.

Yeah, it's funny how you seem to think it was OK when Trump did it but when Biden did it, all of a sudden its an oversteer. The THIRD round where Biden signed the checks was only four months later. Not even the most prestigious economists can assess an entire $20.93 trillion economy in just four months. You must be very special ;)

Speaking of $20.93 trillion, that was the size of our economy in 2020. The total sum of stimulus spending was $814 billion. I know it sounds like a lot but it comes out to a little less than 4% of the total economy... I really think you're giving those tiny little checks far too much credit. You seem to be thinking our economy only has one scale.

One more thing and then I'll cut out... You criticized the Democrats for saying "no" to topping off the SPR as Trump had asked. Are you aware that it would have cost the government $2.3 billion and that Trump was trying to add that to the stimulus package that you are criticizing for already adding too much money to the economy?

So... if that went though, would you be having an argument with yourself about it?

LOL - Welcome to chess, my friend... Where considerations encompass more than what the checker players in politics typically offer when rationalizing things to the dumbass public. This is why I'm a huge advocate of teaching critical thinking in schools. If they did, Americans wouldn't be so willing to believe anything the politicians in THEIR party tells them and we might be in a much better situation today.

Oh, and hope things work out with your phone provider.
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Mar 27, 2024 12:45:04   #
son of witless wrote:

straightUp wrote: "In any case, I don't agree that this stimulus package left the economy awash in liquidity. If it did there wouldn't have been a need for a second stimulus package. "

That is my main point.

See? We agree already. ;)

son of witless wrote:

There was no economic need for President Biden's stimulus package.

I literally said there WAS a need for it and you said that was your main point... Now you're saying there WASN'T a need for it... Are you confused or am I?

son of witless wrote:

There was a political need.

Everything the government does satisfies a political need.

son of witless wrote:

Biden's economic team, they ain't very schmart, wanted to juice the economy so as to make a stark a comparison as possible between Trump's covid plagued economy and Biden's new economy.

Biden's economic team didn't have anything to do with it. That second stimulus check came from Congress, just like the first one did. All Biden did was sign it, just like Trump did with the first one.

I realize that the American right tends to think of the president as as king, but our government doesn't work that way. We are a representative democracy... We elect representatives to Congress and that's where the big decisions are made on our behalf. Elected representatives from both sides of the aisle agreed that Americans needed the stimulus that Biden signed.

son of witless wrote:

The subsequent inflation that surprised the Biden economic team by it's Stickyness, has proven I am right.

Actually it doesn't because inflation was caused by many more factors than just the stimulus checks. Blaming inflation on the stimulus checks alone is like blaming one customer out of 10,000 for a run on the bank.

Keep in mind that ONLY banks are allowed to actually create money. The government does not have that power. The banks do because of the fractional reserve banking system in which they only need 10% of the money they are loaning to actually exist in reserve. The other 90% is created out of thin air based on the creation of debt.

So when the government borrowed from the Federal Reserve so they can issue stimulus checks, they were in fact causing the banks to create new money, which DOES inflate the money supply. But let me also point out that personal credit card debt sky-rocketed after the pandemic to a record-breaking total of $1.3 trillion. This also created new money in the same way... Same game, different banks.

So, what I'm saying here is that the creation of money that inflated the supply didn't just come from the stimulus packages... It also came from Americans like you and me covering what the stimulus checks didn't cover by putting it on our credit cards. The market doesn't care if the money came from our national debt or from our personal debts... it's all the same in the end.

This is why it's logical to assume that the money supply would have been inflated anyway. With or without the stimulus checks. If the stimulus checks made any difference, it would be in the way it shifted some of the debt from personal liability to national liability and it helped the people who the banks wouldn't have helped due to poor credit ratings.

And this only accounts for the inflation caused by adding money to the economy... On top of that you had the rampant price-gouging following the pandemic, which explains why the price of gas at the pump went up. Technically, this isn't true inflation but the effect on the price tag is the same and a lot of people can't really tell the difference; It's all inflation to them.

So... I'm afraid there is almost no evidence to suggest that the government, much less the Biden administration is primarily responsible for inflation. In fact, THAT is an argument made to satisfy a political need. If I were you, I would reconsider your sources.

son of witless wrote:

straightUp wrote: "The fact is, oil and gas was never shut down - not even a little bit. "
That is not a fact. In April of 2020 the price per barrel of oil was minus $37.63.-
https://www.statista.com/statistics/466293/lowest-crude-oil-prices-due-to-covid-19/

And what makes you think you can prove anything about the supply simply by looking at the price and nothing else? I already mentioned price-gouging. That DOES happen and when it does, the price goes up no matter what the supply looks like. You seem to think we live in a world where big corporations never do anything dishonest.

son of witless wrote:

" On April 20th, 2020, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil slumped into negative for the first time in history, falling to negative 37.63 U.S. dollars per barrel. "

OK... this one's not so easy to explain but that wasn't the actual price of a barrel of oil physically traded. That negative value was the result of paper contracts traded by speculators and hedgers with no physical access to the oil. The intention is to sell the paper contract to those who do have access. The thing to understand here is that each WTI contract requires the delivery of 1,000 barrels of WTI crude to a specific holding tank in Oklahoma which was a problem for the speculators because they failed to predict the pandemic and it's effect on demand that left the tank FULL for the duration of that trading period. So the contracts could not be fulfilled because there was no more room to accept further deliveries. Meanwhile, the speculators had to close their books at the end of the trading period which happened to be April 20th. So they were forced to take a loss by paying a premium $37.63 per barrel just to sell the contracts and close their books. The very next day, physical trading resumed at $15 per barrel.

Speculators can really distort the picture and I barely understand this stuff myself, I would suggested reading this... https://gardner.utah.edu/blog/blog-what-negative-oil-prices-really-mean/

But as complicated as paper trading can be, didn't you wonder how a drop in supply would result in a drop in price? The general rule of thumb is when supply goes down, the prices go up, not down. So didn't this weird anomaly on the market make you think that there has to be a different explanation? I mean, seriously, how do you SELL something for negative money?

I tell ya what, I would LOVE for the supermarket that sold me the coffee I am drinking to have actually paid ME the $17 to "buy" the bag of beans instead of the other way around. LOL

son of witless wrote:

I realize that the crazies on the left were over the Moon, that those evil nasty greedy oil barons were hurting, but for those who deal in reality, this was not good.

I don't know about the crazies on the left but the sensible people on the left such as myself knew perfectly well that companies like WTI weren't hurting. Just to show you, WTI stock opened on 4/20/20 at 1.8900 per share and they closed that day at 2.7200 per share. They were doing fine. Obviously, some speculators got hurt but that's the price they pay for playing risky games with our economy while producing nothing.

son of witless wrote:

And yes oil production in the US did shut down and more than a little bit. It had to. Once the storage facilities around the country were full, where were they going to go with it ?

Weren't you just blaming Biden for cutting oil production in an effort to explain the rise in prices (inflation)? Now you're saying they HAD to cut back because of an OVERSUPPLY of oil and yet prices still rose because Biden cut oil production? Forgive me for being confused but your argument just isn't making any sense. The price of gas at the pump is affected by supply, not production. Even if production WAS cut, as long as the supply is abundant, the price should remain low. That's why it really doesn't matter if we produce the oil or import it as long as it gets to our storage tanks, the prices should remain low.

Maybe think about it and get back to me.

son of witless wrote:

Now President Trump, you remember him, the guy your people say is Hitler Jr. had a most excellent idea. He thought that how about we fill up the Strategic Oil Reserve. It was brilliant, no it was genius. The government could buy the oil Super Duper Cheap, and the oil industry would not have to moth ball so much production capacity.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was created in 1975 specifically so the government could buy oil and stockpile it. How are you calling Trump a genius for basically saying we ought to do that?

"I'm going to drive to work now... and guess what? I'm going to use my hands to turn the steering wheel."
"dude... that's frickin' GENIUS!"


Look, every president since Reagan has wanted to fill the SPR and until Trump came along every president except Clinton saw a net gain in SPR volume. Ironically, Trump, despite his blabbering, is the first and only Republican president to see a net decline in SPR volume.

son of witless wrote:

Guess what ? It did not happen. Do you know why ? Because it made too much sense. So of course the Democrats killed it. They had to. No way would they allow a bone to be thrown to the evil dastardly American Petroleum Industry. An 8 % decline is ginormous.

The reason why it didn't happen is because Congress took it out of the stimulus package. First of all, this was in 2020 after Trump had already allowed the SPR to bleed in each of his three previous years for a total loss of 60 million barrels which made him look bad considering that no other Republican president had ever allowed a net loss like that... Even under Obama the reserves gained a net 27 million barrels. Trump knew that this might be his last chance to make amends and so he so he tried to shove the proposal into the stimulus bill. The problem there is despite Trump's blabber about buying oil for cheap, the oil industry had no intention of giving the government a discount and it was calculated that topping off the SPR at current prices would cost about $2.3 billion.

So, my bet is that Congress knew the oil industry was not hurting and at the time, they were trying to help the American people while keeping the cost down as much as possible. I would call it fiscal responsibility... that term that Republicans blabber about while Democrats actually practice it.

son of witless wrote:

But I know what you are thinking. Son of Witless, where is your proof that US oil production dramatically declined ? Thank you for asking.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=47056#:~:text=U.S.%20crude%20oil%20production%20averaged%2011.3%20million%20barrels,decline%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Energy%20Information%20Administration%E2%80%99s%20records.

" U.S. crude oil production averaged 11.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2020, down 935,000 b/d (8%) from the record annual average high of 12.2 million b/d in 2019. The 2020 decrease in production was the largest annual decline in the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s records. The production decline resulted from reduced drilling activity related to low oil prices in 2020. "
br But I know what you are thinking. Son of Witle... (show quote)

One problem with all this... Biden didn't take office until 2021. I wasn't talking about the Trump years. YOU had claimed that oil production was cut because of Biden's "war on oil". I countered by saying oil production was NOT cut. Because of your claim, I was referring to the years that Biden was in office not the years that Trump was in office and Biden had no say in the matter.

son of witless wrote:

I apologize for not addressing all of your points. I detest long posts, and this one is way over long. I will try to get to your other concerns another time. Have a good afternoon.

No worries... Maybe next time you post, try to keep your assertions to a minimum because I DO respond to each point and when there's a lot of assertions to challenge it does make for a long post.

Again, thanks for remaining civil.
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