Missing inflation, gas price facts
Republicans believe President Joe Biden is the cause of all their woes. They believe the president is fully responsible for inflation and the cost of gasoline. However, these people are missing most of the facts surrounding both issues.
During the pandemic there were supply chain issues. There were high demands for products made overseas. However, after the pandemic and with supply chains getting back to normal, we now have corporate greed. Corporate America has enjoyed healthy profit margins, as people have made sacrifices to cope with surging prices.
A Groundwork Collaborative Report states corporate profits drove 53% of inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023 and 34% since the start of the pandemic. In addition, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City wrote in a 2023 report that corporate profits contributed 41% of inflation in the first two years of the economic recovery following the pandemic.
Corporations haven’t seen the need to change their ways. Americans continue to spend as prices climb. Corporations got used to charging consumers X, Y, and Z during the pandemic. Today, they are still charging higher prices, along with making sizable profits for their shareholders. In the movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gekko said, “Greed is good.”
People are very unhappy with the high cost of filling their vehicle’s fuel tanks. In California it is even worse. In California we pay the following: 58 cents per gallon state excise tax, 18 cents per gallon federal excise tax, 11 cents per gallon low carbon fuel standard, 30 cents per gallon cap and trade, 11 cents per gallon, state and local sales tax, and 2 cents per gallon state underground storage tax. That is a total of $1.30 per gallon.
Advocates for lower fuel prices need to understand, the US is producing more oil than any country. A S&P Global Commodity Insights Report stated the US produced a global record of 13.3 million barrels/day of crude during the fourth quarter of 2023. This was led by shale oil drillers in Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin. We produce so much oil that much of it is sent overseas. We export the same amount of crude oil, refined products, and natural gas liquids as Saudi Arabia or Russia.
Drilling for more oil in the US will not lower gas prices. Oil and gas are global commodities.
President Biden did not ban oil drilling. The president has issued 34% more new permits than President Trump. The cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline has had zero impact of oil prices. George Jung Antelope Acres